Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

College Sex-Assault Trials Belong in Court, Not Campus (2014)

chronicle.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 229 posts

Re: College Sex-Assault Trials Belong in Court, Not Campus (2014)

#31

Post by wildmusings »

deciplex wrote: post #11

It wasn't long ago that I would have agreed with this article in full. I may have even posted here on HN to that effect before. I am still sympathetic to the point it makes. However: Universities boot people out for other reasons which are not actionable in a criminal (or even civil) court all the time . Getting shitty grades, being a disruptive asshole in a class on a regular basis, and so on, can end your universit…

>These tribunals are too often full of shit. There are a few horror stories going around and you've probably read a few. Some places I think are not requiring a high enough burden of proof. The regulations and standards at the federal and state levels ought to be improved, and in light of the fact that sexual violence on campuses is on the decline, the improvements should result in fewer students being expelled, not more.

Part of the problem is that the Obama administration has been issuing new "legal interpretations" (i.e. making up new laws) that require colleges to apply a preponderance standard to sexual assault proceedings, based on a very contorted reading of Title IX, which requires equal treatment of genders by universities receiving federal funds. "Preponderance of the evidence" means that whoever is more likely to be right wins, even if its 51-49. So in a "he said, she said" situation you have to convict if the accuser's story is even a bit more plausible. Additionally, accused are denied the right to have counsel, to confront their accusers, to remain silent. Such rules are particularly egregious when you realize that the contents of the proceedings could prejudice the result of a subsequent criminal trial.

Re: College Sex-Assault Trials Belong in Court, Not Campus (2014)

#32

Post by chris_wot »

CthulhuOvermind wrote: post #29
mc32 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those situations are more edge cases and they are quite difficult because knowing what we know about the mind, it can play tricks. For example, we may feel very happy at one moment, but something could transpire to change the feeling and that may cause us to retroactively view the initial consent (maybe they thought the person was initially someone else) in a different light --but at the same time, most people give t…

> To make the point less gender political, view this as something which happens to a same-sex couple, so that the dynamics are less obvious about sexual politics and more about either force, misinterpretation, or confusion or a mixture of all the above. I like your suggestion about viewing this as same-sex couple situation. I wrote my post specifically gender-neutral so as to prepare for the inevitable accusation of…

Though it's much rarer, it is possible for a woman to rape a man.

Re: College Sex-Assault Trials Belong in Court, Not Campus (2014)

#33

Post by vehementi »

CthulhuOvermind wrote: post #14

"The legal verdict on whether sex is non consensual still often rests on the perspective of the alleged perpetrator rather than the experience of the victim." I'm not sure I entirely understand this quote to its fullest. It is being argued that it is the experience of the victim that matters if sex is consensual. Isn't this quote logically wrong? Consensual by definitions means both parties agreed. But is the author…

I don't think they literally mean experience as in "they secretly felt non-consensual after a while and kept it to themselves", but rather the emphasis that the system is unfair and weighs the perpetrator's opinion more heavily than the victim's

Re: College Sex-Assault Trials Belong in Court, Not Campus (2014)

#34

Post by smegel »

lmm wrote: post #10
smegel wrote: post #9

> why not impose a simple set of rules to work with the criminal-justice system It's really simple. First you just need to figure out who's telling the truth.

Which is the justice system's whole job, and they've gotten pretty ok at it.

> and they've gotten pretty ok at it

By that do you mean "pretty mediocre" or "pretty good"?

Re: College Sex-Assault Trials Belong in Court, Not Campus (2014)

#35

Post by prdonahue »

mc32 wrote: post #13

Should more of the disciplinary action [involving criminal activity] be moved from the purview of colleges to the courts? I can see this making sense not only for cases of allegations of rape but also allegations of censorship, bias, underage drinking, etc. Sometimes colleges exercise a little too much discretion in adjudication. On the other hand, if we move not only grievous allegations but other less grave cases t…

Yes, because what we really need right now is the courts bogged down deciding whether Johnny Fratboy cribbed a few too many quotes without properly citing them.

Re: College Sex-Assault Trials Belong in Court, Not Campus (2014)

#36

Post by danieltillett »

forrestthewoods wrote: post #20

Title IX requires schools to perform some level of investigation. This is backwards. Title IX should FORBID schools for investigating and mandate forwarding of information to the police.

The problem is not the investigation it is the conviction. Schools should investigate, but they should pass on their finding to the relevant authorities and not try to replicate the court system with people who don’t know what they are doing.

Re: College Sex-Assault Trials Belong in Court, Not Campus (2014)

#37

Post by danieltillett »

chris_wot wrote: post #32
CthulhuOvermind wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To make the point less gender political, view this as something which happens to a same-sex couple, so that the dynamics are less obvious about sexual politics and more about either force, misinterpretation, or confusion or a mixture of all the above. I like your suggestion about viewing this as same-sex couple situation. I wrote my post specifically gender-neutral so as to prepare for the inevitable accusation of…

Though it's much rarer, it is possible for a woman to rape a man.

It is not that rare when using the current standard of consent. If you include any man who has sex while drunk (and is hence incapable of giving consent) then rape of men by women is very common.

Re: College Sex-Assault Trials Belong in Court, Not Campus (2014)

#38

Post by chris_wot »

CthulhuOvermind wrote: post #24
gozur88 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>As far as I understand, an accusation should examine a perpetrator's perspective more, since that person is being charged with a crime. It depends on the way the law is written. You can certainly be guilty of criminal offenses absent any understanding or intent.

In the case of sex, it is an action that is legal(or not) depending on consent. In the example I gave earlier, the female has obtained consent from her partner. The male changes his mind half-way through but does not stop or act in any different way. In cases such as these, my understanding(and gut feeling really) is that since knowledge of consent is what makes an action legal, the person had no knowledge consent wa…

In that case, consent was mutually given and if the other party then changes their mind and asks the other to stop, then consent ceases, right?

If the other party is not signalled that consent was withdrawn, then it is, in my mind, a bit tricky. It means that consent was no longer there, but the other party didn't have any way of knowing. I think it's fair to say that no assault occurred, but it's still damaging to the one no longer wanting to have sex. In that case it's really unfortunate for both parties :-(

Re: College Sex-Assault Trials Belong in Court, Not Campus (2014)

#39

Post by nickysielicki »

deciplex wrote: post #11

It wasn't long ago that I would have agreed with this article in full. I may have even posted here on HN to that effect before. I am still sympathetic to the point it makes. However: Universities boot people out for other reasons which are not actionable in a criminal (or even civil) court all the time . Getting shitty grades, being a disruptive asshole in a class on a regular basis, and so on, can end your universit…

> Maybe "I would fire this person, if they worked for me" or "I would kick this person out of my social club" are more apt.

You can't have it both ways. Universities shouldn't be able to get the benefit of federal endowments and federally guaranteed student loans while also being considered aristocratic social clubs with the autonomy to pick and choose and deny whoever they want.

If they're a resource that is so important that it must be protected and governed and funded by the federal government, then you should go full-stop and consider it a public resource. And if it is a public resource, then there should be no special laws that the institution is governed by, and the deciding factor as to whether someone should be kicked-out should be violation of general law, decided by real courts, brought by real police, and argued by real lawyers.

Re: College Sex-Assault Trials Belong in Court, Not Campus (2014)

#40

Post by chris_wot »

danieltillett wrote: post #37
chris_wot wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Though it's much rarer, it is possible for a woman to rape a man.

It is not that rare when using the current standard of consent. If you include any man who has sex while drunk (and is hence incapable of giving consent) then rape of men by women is very common.

I could be wrong about how rare it is, I don't know the statistics and I don't have any way of knowing how many men don't report the crime.

My point was that it can and does happen. I probably shouldn't have said anything about how often it occurs as I don't know.

Post reply on HN