The U.S. Senate HELP Committee will be holding a one-sided hearing tomorrow, July 29th, to discuss the Campus Accountability and Safety Act (CASA).

This bill does nothing to protect the due process rights of accused students OR get campus sexual assault cases back in the hands of criminal justice experts.

Help us contact the HELP Senators and tell them to vote against this bill before it leaves the higher education committee. This will be the best way to stop CASA.

Find the HELP Senators here to contact the whole list.

Make sure to call Chairman Lamar Alexander's office at (202) 224-4944 and Ranking Member Patty Murray's office at (202) 224-2621!

Tell the Senators to vote against CASA and to protect due process!

Very truly yours,

Gina Lauterio, Esq., Policy Program Director
Stop Abusive and Violent Environments
www.saveservices.org

Article here. Excerpt:

The current and former heads of U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) split last week on lifting the restrictions on women in combat in special operations and throughout the military.
...
In a separate panel at Aspen, retired Adm. Eric Olson, SOCOM commander from 2007 to 2011, said that the military and the nation must look beyond standards in making the decision and view women in combat in another context.

"I think that we are only having part of the discussion on women in combat," Olson said in a separate panel discussion at Aspen. "I think that we need to ask ourselves as a society if we are willing to put women in front-line combat units to take the first bullet on target."

Olson continued: "Are we willing to cause every 18-year-old girl to sign up for selective service? Are we willing to cause women to serve in infantry units against their will as we do men?"

Article here. Excerpt:

'Regarding the colossal farce of the Tim Hunt affair, about which I wrote previously on this site, more remains to be said about the doubling down of Hunt’s dissembling critics and delators. Connie St. Louis, his principal and most effective accuser, whose pre-redacted CV has now been rumbled as a document full of misrepresentations and “downright falsehoods,” is unrepentant about the snuff job she helped foment. Berating Hunt for sexism and old-boyism while bowdlerizing his text and excerpting only the “problematic” portion of his pre-luncheon toast, she essentially reverse-triggered the larger context of his speech. In this way she tampered with evidence in order to convict her prey.

For this piece of skullduggery, she suffered no qualms of conscience. “I’ve no regrets about breaking a journalistic story,” she boasted.

Article here. Excerpt:

'It’s long been recognised that the teenage years are a particularly troubling time. During these formative years, young adults become more engaged in the external and online world; the nature of their relationship with the opposite sex – and their own – changes, all while they are striving to find their own identity.

Article here. Excerpt:

'One of the (very frank) stories I posted from the International AIDS Society conference in Vancouver last week pertained to a device used by nurses to circumcise men in Africa. The story (which you can link to here or read below) drew plenty of feedback, mostly from those in the circumcision-is-mutilation camp.

Some commenters doubt the validity of research showing that medical circumcision cuts the risk of HIV/AIDS transmission in heterosexual males. However, randomized, controlled studies like this and this (among others) have been done and the World Health Organization has based its recommendations on such research. This is an excerpt from WHO:'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Not only will students ignore new rules regarding how to have sex, but those rules also promote "discriminatory enforcement," according to author and lawyer Wendy Kaminer.

Kaminer, in a new op-ed for the Boston Globe, reminds readers that just two decades ago, the notion that students need to follow a strict question-and-answer session template for each sexual encounter was mocked by "Saturday Night Live."

"These days, no one's laughing," Kaminer wrote.

Kaminer is quick to point out that there is nothing wrong with teaching students about consent, but cautions against the "yes means yes" approach of imposing such teachings as "quasi-criminal laws on campus" that pose "serious risks of expulsion to students accused of not obtaining consent for every move or for acting on mistaken impressions of implied consent."'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Earlier this month, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed the “Enough Is Enough” legislation, which aims to increase protections against sexual assault on college campuses statewide. While there is a lot that is good in the new law, I remain very concerned about the broader implications of state-by-state legislation to address sexual assault—particularly as the District of Columbia takes up its own legislation—and find Governor Cuomo’s comments about the reasons for advancing the law quite flawed.

Cuomo asserted at the bill signing that campuses have not previously acknowledged issues like domestic violence and campus sexual assault and that institutions are putting their reputations before the needs of their students.

Cuomo is flat-out wrong.

Story here. Excerpt:

'The U.S. Senate is planning a hearing Wednesday on the issue of campus sexual assault. Not invited: advocates of due process rights for the accused, or anybody else who is likely to question the narrative that campuses are rife with “rape culture.”

A surprisingly candid story about the invisible problem of violence against men in a mainstream paper, the Times of India (even though the tile has a question mark). Also, an open letter to feminists by a Pakistani female journalist reminding them that "anti-feminist" is not equal to "anti-women". The Indian subcontinent is slowly but surely taking on feminist hypocrisy.

Article here. Excerpt

'POLICE investigating a reported rape in the Kenilworth Road area of Billingham have been stood down after a woman confirmed that her earlier rape report was a false allegation.

A 32-year-old man arrested in connection with the allegation has been released from police custody with no further action.

Cleveland Police said there will be no ongoing police involvement and officers are no longer appealing for witnesses.'

Video report on YouTube here. This story is old but sets the tone for the future. Description:

'Published on Jun 25, 2014 - Carnell Smith is the International Expert Spokesman on Paternity Fraud, Family Law and DNA testing issues. Smith is a Strategist, Coach, Advocate, Speaker and frequent contributor to TV, radio, newspapers, magazines and film projects Worldwide. See www.CarnellSmith.com'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Are men and women different? While almost every executive I have ever met, anywhere in the world, says yes, most diversity policies are designed as if the answer were no.

Last week, the Global Head of Diversity of a leading professional services firm told me that she “didn’t want to be treated differently.” That, I answered, is why most professional services firms are still hovering well below the 20% female partner level. As long as men and women are treated exactly the same by organizations, most women will continue to be shut out of senior roles.

And yet for the past 30 years, managers have been taught to do just this: treat men and women exactly the same. That is considered the progressive thing to do. Any suggestion of difference was, and often still is, labelled a bias or a stereotype, especially by many women, eager to demonstrate that they are one of the guys, or the in-group.

Article here. Excerpt:

From the world of Facebook, here it is. Feel free to distribute it far and wide. :)

Article here. Excerpt:

'Girls cannot prevent rape through purity pledges alone," said Mary Koss, a University of Arizona professor and longtime sexual violence researcher. "Boys must stop imposing sexual acts on unwilling partners. Rape reduction requires a comprehensive approach of which accurate knowledge, communication skills and understanding healthy relationships [are] clearly a part."

The activists responsible for pushing campus sexual assault into the national spotlight have said they want affirmative consent taught in K-12 schools, and California is currently considering legislation to make it required in high school sex ed programs.

California's bill is unusual in that it would require schools to teach students about what constitutes consent. Most state laws are more vague and refer to programming around "healthy relationships" or "coerced sex."