In light of discussion about zero tolerance policies, let's talk about campus rape policy (trigger)
This article in the Atlantic was posted here in the fall. It fell like a stone and had some comments on it to just "not go there".
It is about due process and what happens on some campuses when reactionary policies on campus shift 180 degrees in the opposite direction from where they were.
So think back to earlier in the fall when we all were outraged by the Trump administration's efforts to soften the campus rape guidance in Title XI put out by the Obama administration.
And unwelcome at that same time (as you'll see in this article) we were being warned by feminist lawyers and rape crisis counselors that on campus, without due process, those summary and draconian policies (instituted on only some campuses) did not allow for a process of investigation, collection of forensic evidence, hearings, testimony, witness statements or any of the regular details of due process -- and so, there was some concern and warnings that those policies were going to backfire and actual weaken or even eventually DELEGITIMIZE the cause of justice for survivors of sexual violence and harassment on campus.
So I'm posting this here as food for thought, as we can now put the campus rape policy and due process in context of today's controversy with Senator Al Franken and particularly in light of a statement by Senator Gillibrand about not allowing for discussion or explanation for distinctions or "gradations between sexual assault, harassment and unwelcome groping."
Just as is happening in the halls of power now, where mediation for years resulted in powerful politicians able to settle and hide their indiscretions, assaults, insults and discrimination to the tune of $15 million dollars in settlements in the last decade -- so now we see since earlier this week a public, moralizing 180-degree shift in the opposite direction and in one fell swoop to rectify that totally unacceptable old-way with a draconian effort to banish all new offenders from congress -- but seemingly to do so without due process or a properly conducted ethics investigation.
I'm hoping you'll read this thought provoking article (below) in a new light with what is happening across the board with men in power and think about your 19 year old son and also your daughter on campus, think about some men in the news lately, Franken, Conyers, Moore, Trump, Weinstein, etc etc.
I'm not making a point at all about the other topics currently involved -- innocence, intent, patterns of behavior, motives, rat-f'king, grandstanding, political maneuvering, 2020 aspirations, etc.
I am merely calling attention to the issue of due process and how the course of justice does not run smoothly. Sometimes it shifts radically from one extreme to the other before we adjust back to fairness and even-handedness.
(Think about zero tolerance policies in high schools for behavior or absenteeism and how they impacted teens of color and/or teens from low-income homes disproportionately. Think about three-strikes laws and how they disproportionate effect men of color and/or non-violent drug addicts or just pot-smokers.)
This article will make you uncomfortable and that is a good thing because we need nuance, even-handedness, research and EXPERTISE, not black and white LAZY thinking in setting policy, procedure and sentencing.
https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2017/09/the-uncomfortable-truth-about-campus-rape-policy/538974/
The Uncomfortable Truth About Campus Rape Policy
At many schools, the rules intended to protect victims of sexual assault mean students have lost their right to due process—and an accusation of wrongdoing can derail a person’s entire college education.
EMILY YOFFE SEP 6, 2017
-snip
The way in which Bonsu’s case was handled may seem perverse, but many of the university’s actions—the interim restrictions, the full-bore investigation and adjudication even though R.M.’s own statement does not describe a sexual assault—were mandated or strongly encouraged by federal rules that govern the handling of sexual-assault allegations on campus today. These rules proliferated during Barack Obama’s administration, as did threats of sanctions if schools didn’t follow them precisely. The impulse behind them was noble and necessary—sexual assault is a scourge that should not be tolerated in any society, much less by institutions of higher learning. But taken in sum, these directives have left a mess of a system, and many unintended consequences.
On too many campuses, a new attitude about due process—and the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty—has taken hold, one that echoes the infamous logic of Edwin Meese, who served in Ronald Reagan’s administration as attorney general, in his argument against the Miranda warning. “The thing is,” Meese said, “you don’t have many suspects who are innocent of a crime. That’s
contradictory. If a person is innocent of a crime, then he is not a suspect.”
-snip
There is no doubt that until recently, many women’s claims of sexual assault were reflexively and widely disregarded—or that many still are in some quarters. (One need look no further than the many derogatory responses received by the women who came forward last year to accuse then-candidate Donald Trump of sexual violations.) Action to redress that problem was—and is—fully warranted. But many of the remedies that have been pushed on campus in recent years are unjust to men, infantilize women, and ultimately undermine the legitimacy of the fight against sexual violence.
At its worst, Title IX is now a cudgel with which the government and school administrators enforce sex rules too bluntly, and in ways that invite abuse. That’s an uncomfortable statement. It does not cancel or diminish other uncomfortable statements: Women (and men) are assaulted on campus, those assaults can be devastating, and the victims do not always receive justice when they come forward. But we have arrived at a point at which schools investigate, adjudicate, and punish the kind of murky, ambiguous sexual encounters that trained law-enforcement officials are unable to sort out—and also at a point at which the definition of sexual misconduct on many campuses has expanded beyond reason.
Institutions of higher education must protect their students from crimes and physical harm. They should also model for their students how an open society functions, and how necessary it is to protect the civil liberties of everyone.
- end snip