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'Judges across the country are saying “no” to the “yes means yes” standard of affirmative consent for date rape.
The legality of the standard – adopted on California and New York campuses by state legislatures and in effect on numerous other colleges throughout the country – is in question following a series of recent rulings that cite a lack of due process.
"These decisions are harbingers,” said John Banzhaf, a professor at George Washington University Law School and a public interest lawyer. “It does take time for new ideas to percolate through the system.”
Under the standard, the accused, typically a male, has to prove he obtained consent, even if neither party remembers what happened. The standard forces the accused to prove his innocence, rather than be proven guilty.'
'A new UN report claims that “73 percent of women have been exposed to online violence.” To combat this alleged epidemic of sexist mayhem on the web, it calls for draconian measures—including more government supervision and censorship of the internet. Before anyone acts on these UN recommendations, let’s check out a few facts.'
'The American Law Institute works to promote the clarification and simplification of United States common law. In 2012, a Prospectuswas issued proposing to update the ALI Model Penal Code (MPC) on Sexual Assault, last revised in 1962. The Prospectus highlighted several anachronisms of the 1962 version such as the gendered character of the offense and the broad marital exemption.
Two years later, Tentative Draft No. 1 was released. A review of the draft Model Penal Code reveals that it enormously expands criminal liability at a time when the American Bar Association, lawmakers, and the American public have come to the realization that our country faces a serious problem with over-criminalization. ...'
We at SAVE know that male domestic violence victims do exist, and it's important that our national leaders take time to acknowledge them so that they receive critical resources and attention.
'The Army needs more female recruiters over the next several years as it gears up for the end of the ban on women serving in tens of thousands of combat-related jobs, according to a top recruiting official.
Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Snow, in an Oct. 4 memo to the top Army personnel officer, has requested an annual boost in the percentage of women recruiters by 1% per year until 2018 "to improve the recruitment of females for Army service."
Women, Snow said, are 23% better at recruiting women than men. "Increasing the number of females on recruiting duty will improve the effectiveness of recruiting women," he wrote.
'In South Australia women are no longer able to care for their young children in prison, whereas other Australian state models show that it is in the best interest and wellbeing of the child and the mother/child relationship to allow young children to be cared for by their mothers.
The project focuses on the theme of Social and Global Transformation and in particular the question of individualisation, citizenship and human rights. It also examines the parenting needs of diverse groups of women including Indigenous women and teenage mothers. International organisations such as the Human Rights and EO Commissions have called attention to this social issue.
...
The student should have one of the following disciplinary backgrounds, social policy, gender studies, social and cultural geography, sociology, law, social work or psychology and have a strong interest in social policy. The successful candidate will be required to work closely with industry partner, the South Australian Council of Social Services (SACOSS) and will be embedded in the organisation up to 2 days per week.'
'There was the time when, 19 and naive, I was guilt-tripped into entirely unwanted physical intimacies with a much older married man. And the time, three or four years later, when I went to visit an on-and-off long-distance boyfriend and quickly realized that it was over for me — but he assumed we were still on, and I didn’t have the nerve to say no. And the time I told a man, “Look, I’m not going to sleep with you,” and it was taken as, “Try again in a couple of hours.” He did, and it worked.
When they happened, my views of these encounters ranged from “it was a mistake” to “it’s complicated.” They still do — even though, these days, we are encouraged to reinterpret such experiences as sexual violations. To many feminists, stories like these are evidence of a pervasive, misogynistic rape culture. “Kids see movies where there’s an aggressor who gets pushed away, but keeps trying until the girl relents,” advocate, author and filmmaker Kelly Kend writes. “. . . This is a rape dynamic that has been played off countless times as just how it works.” Canadian feminist author Anne Thériault laments “the still-pervasive and very flawed idea that if she doesn’t say no, it’s not rape” — clearly referring not just to attacks involving violence or incapacitation (for which few would demand a verbal “no” as proof of rape), but encounters in which a woman yields to unwanted overtures, like I did.
'Whether it's body image, lad culture, fatherhood or masculinity, men are lacking support and direction as they struggle with the multi-faceted expectations around being a man.
Many are at breaking point.
One symptom of this is the biggest cause of male deaths under the age of 35: suicide. Mental health issues such as depression and anxiety often go untreated and without discussion.
This crisis prompted the launch of the Southbank Centre's Being A Man festival last year, which returns at the end of November to explore the challenges and pressures surrounding masculine identity in the 21st century.
The event, which HuffPost UK are proud to partner with, takes place one week after International Men’s Day (19 November) and will feature a three-day programme packed with talks, debates, performances and workshops from over 150 speakers, including Akala, Frankie Boyle, David Baddiel and Kellie Maloney.'
'National fraternity and sorority groups have hired former Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) to lobby for legislation that would prevent colleges from punishing certain students accused of sexual assault.
Lott is among a group of lobbyists who have collected $140,000 from the "Safe Campus Coalition" so far this year, according to congressional disclosure filings. The coalition is made up of the National Panhellenic Conference, North American Interfraternity Conference (NIC), Kappa Alpha Order, the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity and the Sigma Nu fraternity.
The lobbyists are helping the groups push for the Safe Campus Act, which would restrict colleges from punishing students for sexual assault unless the police are also involved. Other illegal behaviors -- such as theft or physical assault -- would not be held to this requirement. The proposal is uniformly opposed by advocacy and activist groups that work with rape victims.'
'College students can't miss the warnings these days about the risk of campus sexual assault, but increasingly, some students are also taking note of what some perceive as a different danger.
"Once you are accused, you're guilty," says Parker Oaks, one of several Boston University students stopped randomly by NPR between classes. "We're living in a society where you're guilty before innocent now."
Xavier Adsera, another BU student, sounds a similar theme. "We used to not be fair to women on this issue," he says. "Now were on the other extreme, not being fair to guys."
As colleges crack down on sexual assault, some students complain that the schools are going too far and trampling the rights of the accused in the process. In recent months, courts around the nation have offered some of those students significant victories, slamming schools for systems that are stacked against the accused.'
'In a series of tweets on Wednesday, the official WikiLeaks account questioned whether “feminism” (always in scare quotes) was “a reactionary vehicle to push state interests such as censorship and imprisonment.” Links to accompanying blog posts implied that the 2010 sexual assault accusations against Assange might have been falsified by government officials as justification for his arrest, a common theory among his supporters.
“Has modern ‘feminism’ become a reactionary vehicle for state censorship, repression and war?” Wikileaks tweeted on Wednesday. The tweet links to a 2010 post by blogger Daisy’s Dead Air questioning whether the charges against Assange—two allegations of molestation, one of unlawful coercion, and one of rape—were genuine, or if they had been manufactured by the United States government.'
'A policy recently passed by state lawmakers giving due process protections for students accused of crimes on campus was vindicated at the University of North Dakota last week.
Since 2011, the Obama administration has stretched Title IX into a requirement that campuses adjudicate serious accusations of sexual assault and harassment on campus. This has resulted in kangaroo courts often presided over by inexperienced academics or administrators where alleged victims have all university resources working on their behalf. Alleged perpetrators aren’t even allowed basic tenets of due process: rights like legal counsel, the right to cross examine witnesses against them, and the right to be made aware of the charges against them.'
'In the new sex ed, boys are presumed to be rapists until proven otherwise. Why else would boys be required, every few minutes, to repeatedly ask women if they are enjoying the sex – and if they fail to ask, be accused of rape?
Consent from the person you are kissing — or more — is not merely silence or a lack of protest, Shafia Zaloom, a health educator at the Urban School of San Francisco, told the students. They listened raptly, but several did not disguise how puzzled they felt.
`“What does that mean — you have to say ‘yes’ every 10 minutes?” asked Aidan Ryan, 16, who sat near the front of the room.
“Pretty much,” Ms. Zaloom answered. “It’s not a timing thing, but whoever initiates things to another level has to ask.”`
'Affirmative consent, the latest policy intended to prevent sexual assault, has roiled college campuses. Those who advocate for affirmative consent legislation say those who want to have sex should be required to discuss and verbally agree to such activity before it happens. Opponents say that such stringent requirements de-romanticize what should be a subtle, interactive process often based on nonverbal cues.
...
The second aspect of the consent rule is what I call the “enforcement principle.” It involves how the system — whether it be the legal system or the academic disciplinary system — decides whether a given sexual act did or did not receive consent. Here I would insist on the actual Blackstonian principle being applied. Even though it is better for 10 potentially welcomed sexual acts not to occur than for one non-consented act to take place, it simply doesn’t follow that the same calculus should be applied in the context of enforcement and punishment on a college campus. In that very different context, it is better for 10 individuals who did not obtain consent to go free than for even one individual who did obtain consent to be wrongfully punished. Being wrongfully punished can be catastrophic for a student.
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