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

131–140 of 229 posts

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

#131

Post by deciplex »

morgante wrote: post #124
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…

So, to be clear, you think it's okay to ruin people's lives because one woman doesn't like them? Expulsion for rape is a lot more severe than merely firing someone. Your name gets tarnished in the press and your future employability is destroyed. At that point, you might as well be in jail—your life is already ruined.

> So, to be clear, you think it's okay to ruin people's lives because one woman doesn't like them?

I don't know how you could possibly take that away from my post unless you are being deliberately ignorant and selectively ignoring things I write. I quite clearly stated that I think the tribunals doing this stuff now are too often full of shit and that the federal regulations governing their behavior need to be reworked and that the result of the reworking (i.e. as a goal of the policy) should be that these tribunals find fewer people guilty than they do now, resulting in FEWER EXPULSIONS THAN WE SEE NOW.

If a university expels a students because they have arrived at the conclusion that they believe, with let's say 3:2 odds on, that a particular student did in fact commit a rape, then I have no problem with that. That is, however, substantially less than the burden of proof typically required to obtain a criminal conviction. Moreover, I don't think that the findings of that tribunal, after the expelling the student, should have a serious impact on that student's ability to successfully apply for admittance to some other school.

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

#132

Post by reso »

anu_gupta wrote: post #116
reso wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a clear counterexample: you can certainly commit negligent homicide without intending to.

Negligent homicide is not murder.

The language my top comment used was "homocide" and "negligent homocide" while the responder changed it to "murder". The point is that in the view of the justice system, sometimes it doesn't matter if you meant to kill someone or not--you still killed someone.

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

#133

Post by morgante »

chris_wot wrote: post #130
morgante wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In practice, there are basically no repercussions for falsely reporting rape. The "victim" isn't charged with anything and retains their anonymity while the (innocent) "perpetrator" has their life ruined.

What do you think should be occurring though? Many women won't report being raped due to being shamed, mocked and threatened and their livelihoods ruined. Perhaps those being convicted should also be given the same anonymity until after they are found guilty?

I think women who falsely reported rape should be charged with slander and pay substantial damages, at least.

> Perhaps those being convicted should also be given the same anonymity until after they are found guilty?

Yes, this would be a huge step forward (especially if both sides respected it). A big problem with rape cases is that both sides have social and professional repercussions regardless of the outcome. If rape cases were entirely sealed for both parties, that would be very helpful.

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

#134

Post by malandrew »

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 actually occurs at a much higher rate than most think, but the strategy used by female perpetrators more often takes the form of emotional violence and coercion as opposed to physical violence.

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF01541620

I have personal experience with this with a former partner and the threats and coercive tactics can get really ugly, dark and traumatic.

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

#135

Post by ZeroGravitas »

tomp wrote: post #105
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't taking all reasonable steps to ascertain consent what the affirmative consent thing is all about? It's one of those sensible things, like recycling, renewable energy, belief in evolution, or decent medical coverage, that somehow becomes a very bitter political issue for no logical reason.

I don't think affirmative consent is sensible at all. If it were made law, then I would have been raped, and been raping at the same time, during pretty much all sex I've had in my life! Obviously it's possible to have amazing consensual sex without affirmative consent.

I think you've just been misled (or are actively trying to mislead) about what affirmative consent involves.

This is the rhetorical equivalent of "but it's snowing, so much for global warming!", a ha-ha-gotcha cliché, maybe you should try to engage with the topic on a deeper level.

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

#136

Post by mikekchar »

zorpner wrote: post #67
mikekchar wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll vote you up mainly because I also wonder a bit about why this article is here. I haven't been around HN for that long, but even a year ago I seem to remember that the articles voted up were mainly technical in nature or related to startups. I have noticed that as discussion boards get more popular they seem to move to being platforms for expressing opinion on political subjects. It may be my imagination, but the…

Social/political issues are not orthogonal to technical issues -- in fact, the belief that they are orthogonal is fundamentally conservative (protective of the status quo).

As in, if I'm not part of the solution I'm part of the problem? ;-) I can understand that this is an important issue. I can understand the desire to discuss it and to do so in front of specific segments of the population for which the issue is important (in this case technology workers). I would argue, though, that this particular issue clearly is orthogonal to technical issues in that it is something that is important and relevant to all humans in all walks of life. That's what orthogonality is. I think that's precisely why people want to discuss these kinds of things in terms of technology/hacker culture.

However, as important as this issue is, there are other issues that are just as important to every human in the world. And just like this issue, they are orthogonal to technology. They are just as important to discuss in front of an audience like HN as they are anywhere else. As such, there are people who are very determined to get access to this audience. It is easy to reason that these are important issues that nobody should ignore. It is easy to reason that we should make sure to provide a stage and put it front and centre.

But my life is full of people screaming to get my attention to important issues. I spend quite a lot of my time and energy dealing with them. Sometimes I don't want to do that. Sometimes I want to find out about trivial things like what new crazy javascript framework I'm going to be cursing about tomorrow. Or why I should pay attention to some unicorn startup (who will almost certainly be gone in a few years despite all the hype). Sometimes I don't want important. That's why I come here. I assume there are others who feel the same way, but I could easily be wrong.

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

#137

Post by morgante »

deciplex wrote: post #131
morgante wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, to be clear, you think it's okay to ruin people's lives because one woman doesn't like them? Expulsion for rape is a lot more severe than merely firing someone. Your name gets tarnished in the press and your future employability is destroyed. At that point, you might as well be in jail—your life is already ruined.

> So, to be clear, you think it's okay to ruin people's lives because one woman doesn't like them? I don't know how you could possibly take that away from my post unless you are being deliberately ignorant and selectively ignoring things I write. I quite clearly stated that I think the tribunals doing this stuff now are too often full of shit and that the federal regulations governing their behavior need to be rework…

Sorry, I don't think I read your comment closely enough.

I interpreted "creeps everyone the fuck out and is probably a rapist" as a euphemism for a simple rape accusation (since, in practice, that's sometimes what's going on).

Your other ideas are solid and I definitely think students who are expelled should have an easier time applying elsewhere. However, I think in practice these tribunals are too corrupt and incompetent to do any good. They're too susceptible to activism by students on campus and hence it seems unlikely they'll ever provide justice—even to a lesser standard than courts.

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

#138

Post by chris_wot »

morgante wrote: post #133
chris_wot wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you think should be occurring though? Many women won't report being raped due to being shamed, mocked and threatened and their livelihoods ruined. Perhaps those being convicted should also be given the same anonymity until after they are found guilty?

I think women who falsely reported rape should be charged with slander and pay substantial damages, at least. > Perhaps those being convicted should also be given the same anonymity until after they are found guilty? Yes, this would be a huge step forward (especially if both sides respected it). A big problem with rape cases is that both sides have social and professional repercussions regardless of the outcome. If r…

That would only occur in cases where it can be positively proven that rape did not occur. To avoid conviction the accused must demonstrate that there is reasonable doubt they raped the other party. That means that it is still possible it occurred, but in order to reduce the risk of convicting an innocent person they get to go free. I guess that's the lesser of two evils.

In terms of identifying the accused, Australia has sub judice rules that generally prohibit identifying the accused. I'm surprised that the UK doesn't either, given how closely our systems of law are related!

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

#139

Post by danieltillett »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #103
thaumasiotes wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As made explicit in the sexual assault policies of various US universities, a female is unable to consent if she's had any alcohol (the "1 beer" model of being drunk). It is not a defense, or grounds for a counterclaim, that the male might have been equally or more drunk. (I say made explicit; the "any alcohol" threshold is what's made explicit. The wording of formal policies is generally scrupulously gender-neutral,…

As much as I'd love to take your word on this, for me this still falls into the "they banned Christmas because of the Muslims" category of made up propaganda intended to enrage the more credulous (see the other reply for a demonstration of this). I asked for evidence on this once before on HN, and they came up with two links. Both referred to the exact same case. And that case involved two people so drunk that neithe…

Here is Stanford's policy [1]. There is nothing about drinking heavily or being highly intoxicated. The policy just says "if intoxicated by drugs and/or alcohol".

1. http://www.thefire.org/pdfs/b6c0fa0511ba6bd299a0c17b60d41a56...

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

#140

Post by tomp »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #135
tomp wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think affirmative consent is sensible at all. If it were made law, then I would have been raped, and been raping at the same time, during pretty much all sex I've had in my life! Obviously it's possible to have amazing consensual sex without affirmative consent.

I think you've just been misled (or are actively trying to mislead) about what affirmative consent involves. This is the rhetorical equivalent of "but it's snowing, so much for global warming!", a ha-ha-gotcha cliché, maybe you should try to engage with the topic on a deeper level.

Maybe we need a clearer definition then...
Post reply on HN