Returning Due Process to Campus
city-journal.org
Returning Due Process to Campus
1–10 of 31 posts
Re: Returning Due Process to Campus
#2At least public universities have some accountability to the law.
Re: Returning Due Process to Campus
#3Maybe someday we can find the middle ground between railroading undergrads with no evidence and taking decades to stop predators like Jeffrey Epstein and Bill Cosby and probably countless others.
Re: Returning Due Process to Campus
#4I know a lot of people here already know this story, but it's worth mentioning: while in college, I was railroaded through the judicial system in political retaliation after winning the Presidency of the Student Body. This was 13 years ago now. Crazy story.
Here's a documentary that a bunch of us put together about it:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL11F04BB4661C2CC3
Some aspects the Purdue case resonate with mine. Others not so much.
I did learn a lot about how little oversight there is over these processes and how much corrupt officials count on the qualified immunity doctrine.
Re: Returning Due Process to Campus
#5It has always struck me as a very weird practice for colleges to be adjudicating criminal matters like rape.
Re: Returning Due Process to Campus
#6At least public universities have some accountability to the law.
Any university that takes federal funds is amply exposed to the law of an administration wishes to so expose it.
Re: Returning Due Process to Campus
#7According to the policy, I'm going to interpret this in the most generous light, but:
1. At 15:12 MT, this had 11 votes and was on the front page 2. Almost immediately after, this was flagged 3. The comments that say "56 minutes ago" where already there 4. It is now 16:54 MT (1:52 ago)
I think there is a bug in HN timestamps, and also (subjectively) the moderation.
Re: Returning Due Process to Campus
#8I know a lot of people here already know this story, but it's worth mentioning: while in college, I was railroaded through the judicial system in political retaliation after winning the Presidency of the Student Body. This was 13 years ago now. Crazy story. Here's a documentary that a bunch of us put together about it: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL11F04BB4661C2CC3 Some aspects the Purdue case resonate with…
Is this written up anywhere? I'm not about to watch an 85-minute (!) documentary.
Re: Returning Due Process to Campus
#9It's a moral panic, at least in part. Panic explains why due process is ignored and why accusations are considered unassailable. But questioning accusations is not the same as denying them. And while reliving trauma is a risk it can be mitigated by using an intermediary like a lawyer or therapist.
Another piece is the increasing insular nature of some institutions. Ideas ricochet within the walled gardens of higher ed, gain momentum, and lead to results that appear zany to the outside world. Focus is needed to study; but insular practices are creating campuses that are worlds unto themselves.
That's not to say we shouldn't agitate against bad practices in society. Real progress is being made in the real world to combat sexual assault and sex crimes.[1] But it's hard to see how campus protestors are having any positive impact outside their hallowed halls.
[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2019/07/nati...
Re: Returning Due Process to Campus
#10There's two double-standards at play:
- victimhood hierarchy - prioritizing obscure identity attributes over the person.
- elite apartheid - celebrities, rich, popular, beautiful don't have to play by the same rules or receive the same punishments as everyone else. Also, the very bottom of society receives far more punishment than the middle.
Furthermore, there are several ambiguous, likely unknowable by anyone else, situations in the case of rape, because it's often a s/he-said situation due often to a lack of unbiased witnesses or solid evidence:
- Whether there was force or not
- Whether there was explicit, implicit or no consent
- If there was consent, was it later revoked or not, explicitly or weakly
- Is the allegation for actual harm or ego-/guilt-/remorse/-alleviation/revenge/enjoyment/attention
Actual rape isn't good, but an unfair/unnecessarily unpleasant process to suss-out what may/may not be possible to discover doesn't help either. It's very tricky.