Letter here. Excerpt:

'No, “due process of law is not window dressing,” and you have misstated the law of due process in the university setting. It is generally established that public universities owe students minimal due process rights, and private universities owe them none. While you critique the U.S. Department of Education Office of Civil Rights’ guidance that the evidentiary standard used should be a “preponderance of the evidence” standard instead of “clear and convincing” evidence, as a legal matter, private universities can discipline students with no process whatsoever. They must only adhere to the contract set forth by their own policies. Thus, the “Open Letter” must be seen for what it is: a disagreement with Title IX’s mandate that sexual assault survivors not be made to struggle through grievance procedures that specially insulate those accused of sexual assault. This policy, and the OCR’s guidance, was designed to fight the pernicious effects of sexism — including sexual harassment and assault — on our campus. Title IX, a civil rights law, mandates this policy for the purpose of ensuring that people are not denied the ability to pursue and enjoy their education on the basis of sex. The proceedings required are not criminal-light proceedings, despite your attempts to portray them as such. Although Penn’s data on discipline is sadly lacking, grievance proceedings are generally remarkable for the lack of consequences for those found to have committed a sexual assault. Few students found responsible for sexual assault in university adjudications are even expelled — between 13 percent and 30 percent by a recent count.

Article here. Excerpt:

'In September Barack Obama launched the “It’s on Us” campaign, designed to fight what he called the “nightmare” of campus sexual assault. “An estimated one in five women has been sexually assaulted during her college years,” Obama announced, pausing for emphasis. “One in five.” America, the president went on to argue, suffers from a “quiet tolerance of sexual assault,” all too often blaming victims, making excuses, or looking the other way. To combat sexual violence, he said, we need a “fundamental shift in our culture.”

With these words, the president of the United States went all in on the idea that America’s academic institutions have been taken over by a “rape culture” —a culture that normalizes, trivializes, and quietly condones male sexual assault against women, blaming female victims while subtly celebrating male predators.

Once rather obscure and confined to sociology and women’s studies departments, the term “rape culture” has slowly invaded the national consciousness. According to Google search analytics, the topic generated almost no traffic in 2005 or before. After 2011, its popularity slowly began to rise—as we’ll later see, this is no accident—and then, beginning in 2013, it spiked, the graph forming a hockey stick that would make global-warming doomsayer Michael Mann proud.

The idea that one in five college women has or will be sexually assaulted is mind-boggling and horrifying. It’s also not true. As Slate’s Emily Yoffe pointed out in December, the statistic—together with two other dubious studies that, just for the heck of it, upped the ante to one in four—would “mean that young American college women are raped at a rate similar to women in Congo, where rape has been used as a weapon of war.”

Article here. Excerpt:

'Hillary Clinton portrays herself as a champion of women in the workforce, but women working for her in the U.S. Senate were paid 72 cents for each dollar paid to men, according to a Washington Free Beacon analysis of her Senate years’ salary data.

During those years, the median annual salary for a woman working in Clinton’s office was $15,708.38 less than the median salary for a man, according to the analysis of data compiled from official Senate expenditure reports.
...
Mark Perry, an economic scholar at the American Enterprise Institute who has written extensively on the White House hypocrisy related to gender pay equality, said that the data on Clinton shows that she is guilty of the same hypocrisy.

“Politicians like Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama can’t have it both ways,” Perry said. “They use raw, aggregate, unadjusted gender differences in pay and then claim that those pay gaps are the result of gender discrimination, like the 23 percent national gender pay gap in aggregate median income.”

“They would then have to admit that they themselves are guilty of gender discrimination and have their own glass ceilings to explain, because they have gender pay gaps that are much greater than the average gender pay gap in Washington, D.C.”

Perry said Clinton needs to either put an end to her rhetoric on the issue or admit that she too is guilty of gender discrimination.

“Either Clinton is guilty of gender discrimination and pays her female staffers significantly less than men, or she is guilty of statistical fraud for spreading misinformation about the alleged gender pay gap at the national level,” he said.

Article here. Excerpt:

'There was much discussion recently about the rise in male suicide rates, after official figures published last week showed they were at their highest level since 2001. But one aspect of this has attracted little attention: the lack of support for men abused by their partners. In a poll of 130 Citizens Advice Bureaux [link added] workers, 63 per cent said it was easy to get help for women reporting domestic abuse, compared to 13 per cent for men.

It’s bad enough that men struggle to find help once they pluck up the courage to ask for it. But they are also less likely than women to look for support in the first place – and more likely to be disbelieved.

Story here. Excerpt:

'A MUM-of-four has been jailed for almost two years after lying that she was raped.

Lisa-Jayne Samuels told police that she was sexually assaulted and had her drink spiked in October 2012.

A court heard how the 29-year-old's claims led to the arrest of innocent Terry Brown who endured more than a year of suspicion before Samuels finally admitted she had lied.

During that time, it was reported that Mr Brown was attacked by a gang and his pregnant partner lost her baby.
...
When interviewed, she gave a detailed description of the non-existent rapist, claiming she had been drinking with friends at a pub where she met a man she knew from a night shelter who spiked her drink and attacked her.

An e-fit was drawn up and Mr Brown, from Essex, was later arrested.

But he was later released without charge after police uncovered inconsistencies in Samuels' story.

Story here. Excerpt:

'A CARE worker was caught falsely accusing a man of rape because he recorded their sexual encounter.

But Pauline Muir’s lies still led to the man being arrested and held in custody for more than two hours. He was on bail for seven weeks and said later: “She could have ruined my life.”

Single mother Muir even contacted the man’s 16-year-old son via Facebook to tell him of the allegation, Derby Crown Court heard.

She was jailed for 14 months after admitting perverting the course of justice by making an allegation of rape on September 1.

Judge Hilary Watson told her: “This is a serious perversion of the course of justice. It was a pre-planned, pre-meditated and wicked allegation to make.

“The audio on the recording shows it was entirely consensual and enjoyed by both parties.

Article here. Excerpt:

''At the Academy Awards last night, actress Patricia Arquette [link added] won a round of applause from many in attendance after calling for “wage equality” and “equal rights” for women.

The U.S. Department of Labor was ready to pounce on wage equality:
...
Did somebody at the Labor Department know that was coming, or was it a spontaneous reaction?
...
The Labor Secretary should first walk over to the White House to have a chat with them.
...
Related:

FLOTUS pushes debunked wage gap myth on ‘Equal Pay Day’ [pic]'

Story here.

'A night out drinking and an argument with his girlfriend nearly cost a Tulsa man his penis.

Officers responded to a Tulsa hospital early Thursday morning where a man claimed his girlfriend attacked him while he slept.

Amber Ellis was arrested for maiming and assault with a dangerous weapon.

According to the police report, the victim said he and his girlfriend were out drinking and began arguing while walking home "about how needy she had become." The couple verbally fought in the apartment until the victim told police Ellis stormed off, slamming the bedroom door.

Police say the victim fell asleep on the couch only to wake up to find Ellis "biting his (penis) off."

The victim told police he fought Ellis off but she hit him in the head with a laptop computer.

Once hospitalized, the victim received several stitches to the base of his penis and was treated for injuries to his head, face, neck, fingers and knee.

Story here. Excerpt:

'Jobless mum Kay Bird has enjoyed a £3,000 round-the-world holiday with her 10-month-old baby funded entirely by ­welfare benefits.

Kay, 28, who lives ­comfortably at home with her middle-class parents, has just returned with daughter Chloe from a month-long trip to Australia, Bali, Indonesia, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Dubai, Turkey, Greece and the Netherlands.

And the single mum, who gets more than £8,500 a year in child benefit, ­income support and tax credit, is already planning another luxury trip to New Zealand.

Kay confesses she could work but chooses not to because she wants to wait until Chloe is older, reports the Sunday People.

And she says she doesn’t really need the benefits – equivalent to over £700 a month – because her mum Jill, a shop manageress, and stepdad Bob, a lawyer, pay for everything.
...
“I know there are people worse off than me but that doesn’t have anything to do with what I spend my allowances on.

“If someone’s offering you free money and telling you to take it, you’d have to be a fool not to – that’s all I did.

“Once it’s in my bank account it’s up to me how I use it and I decided to spend it on taking the trip of a lifetime.

"I don’t feel guilty and I don’t regret it.”

Kay’s attitude will outrage millions who work and pay taxes – and nearly half a million more lone parents who struggle to ­survive on benefits on council estates with no help from well-to-do parents.

Article here. Excerpt:

In the UK, the Howard League for Prison Reform recently released a report entitled "Imprisoning children may lead to sexual offences in adulthood" - raising justifiable concerns about the treatment of incarcerated UK youth. An article on www.OpenDemocracy.net suggests this may be creating a future cohort of sexual offenders. The Howard League for Prison Reform will be holding a Conference on these and related Penal Reform issues in London on Tues March 17, 2015. Excerpt from first cited source link above:

'Sending children to prison may make them more likely to commit sexual offences in adulthood, Britain’s first-ever independent review of sex behind bars has found.

Video here. Caption: "CNN's Randi Kaye reports on newly released interrogation tapes of the two Wisconsin girls who are on trial for allegedly trying to kill their classmate." Obviously, the defense will argue either insanity or move to dismiss due to incompetence/mental defect. The question is: if two boys were in the same place, how would things go for them? This is one to watch.

Article here. Excerpt:

'An alarming number of young Western women are defying their families — and all logic — to join the ISIS barbarians.

As many as 550 of the estimated 3,000 Westerners who have traveled to Syria and Iraq to join the Islamic terrorists are female, according to the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a London think tank.

It’s the sick siren song of the caliphate that appears to have taken hold of three British schoolgirls, who lied to their East London families last week and casually slipped out of the country on a flight bound for Turkey, believed to be a stopover for those heading to Syria, and ISIS.
...
Some are coerced — but not all, says law professor Jayne Huckerby, head of Duke University’s International Human Rights Clinic.

“Why do they go? In many cases it’s the same reason as men,” Huckerby told The Post.

Article here. Excerpt:

'My 8-year-old son has been struggling in school. Again.

Re-entry after winter break has not been easy for him. The rules and restrictions of school – Sit Still. Be Quiet. Do What You Are Told, Nothing More, Nothing Less. – have been grating on him, and it shows. His teacher recently emailed me; she’d noticed a change in his behavior (more belligerent, less likely to cooperate) and wanted to know if there was anything going on at home.

My guess, I said, was that he was upset about having to be back in school after break. I was right.

The lack of movement and rigid restrictions associated with modern schooling are killing my son’s soul.

Does that sound dramatic to you? Perhaps. After all, most of us go through school and somehow survive more or less intact. But if you really think about it, you might remember what you hated about school. You might remember that it took you years after school to rediscover your own soul and passions, and the courage to pursue them.

Article here. Excerpt:

'Primary school boys are struggling to keep up with the girls and we need to act, according to Belmont Primary School principal, Bruce Cunningham.

Last year, Mr Cunningham decided to start a boys-only class at his Auckland coeducational school.

"This is about boys being allowed to be boys," says Mr Cunningham.

He says there's a "gender gap", and that normal boys are failing in the education system at unprecedented levels because the education system isn't boy-friendly.

"Boys were passive learners. Girls were answering the questions and boys were probably thinking which tree will I climb.

"We've got some excellent teachers in New Zealand but a lot of the writing and reading programmes are designed around girls."

Mr Cunningham advocates class time where there's plenty of exercise, and doing schoolwork around themes that interest boys - like robots, war stories and sport.