Leaving rape investigations to colleges trivializes the topic

Submitted by Matt on Fri, 2014-11-28 06:30

Article here. Excerpt:

'It’s difficult to imagine a more callous, wholly inadequate response to a culture of seemingly rampant sexual assault at the University of Virginia (UVA) than the one its administrators practiced year after year, according to a horrifying account finally publicized by Rolling Stone last week. But that’s precisely what happens when an entity equipped only to deal with academic misbehavior is instead pushed to do something about sexual assault: it finds itself putting the university’s brand name first and the victims second.

The lesson of the UVA assault, then, is that efforts undertaken by state governments and federal agencies to beef up university adjudication of sex crimes—including the increasing popular “yes means yes” bills—are doomed to failure. Students will never see justice so long as colleges, rather than the police, are expected to intervene in rape cases.
...
The mother of a UVA student who reported her rape summarized this position thusly: "In what world do you get kicked out for cheating, but if you rape someone, you can stay?"
...
Treating rape as akin to plagiarism, or copying off someone else’s test, trivializes violence against women. What UVA administrators did, in listening to students’ accusations and failing to report them to police time and time again, is worse than trivializing: it’s an outright cover-up. Eramo reportedly justified UVA’s policy of burying rape accusations when she told Jackie, "Nobody wants to send their daughter to the rape school." That stunning moment of honesty should disabuse everyone of the notion that sexual assault adjudication belongs in the hands of university administrators.'

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The whole story reads like an allegory: She was from "rural Virginia," hardly drank at the party, wore a dress with a "high neckline," I'm surprised we didn't hear that she was reading to the blind or working in a homeless shelter prior to heading over to Phi Psi. She is assaulted over several hours, left battered and bloody, but was then left to wander back down to the party (apparently still going on at 2:00 am or so) unaccompanied. She then just happens to encounter a group of "friends" who basically tell her she should just "get over it" if she ever wants to have a date again at UVa.

I'm not buying any of this.

The good news is that some of this is probably easily checked out. A first-year from "rural Virginia" (females from rural areas of the Commonwealth would typically represent about 1/18th or so of a typical first-year class) who worked as a lifeguard in the student rec center at the same time a Phi Psi male worked in the same capacity (and note that this "boy of wealth and privilege" apparently had a work-study job) won't be hard to identify. Neither will her "date." Surely RS realized that when they published the article. For those who don't know, UVa isn't that big, with about 30% of the students belonging to Greek social organizations. This is not the case where some small fringe has developed where gang rape is the norm, or at least acceptible. This would mean that a startlingly large percentage of the undergraduate community (who, one should note, are a pretty accomplished lot) turns a blind eye to the systemic predatory conduct of a significant number of fellow classmates. I just find that awfully hard to fathom.

In short...

Why has no one yet stated the obvious?

Until the news provides
NAMES
DATES
TIMES
PLACES
WITNESSES...

I do not believe this story is true. It is rape hysteria gone hysteric.

And the Rolling Stone is a rag magazine anyway.

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Submitted by ThomasI on Fri, 2014-11-28 08:13