West Virginia colleges schooled on ending campus ‘rape culture’

Submitted by Mastodon on Mon, 2014-05-12 04:36

Article here. Excerpt:

'With a national push for better Title IX compliance and more and more schools facing consequences for mishandling sexual-harassment cases on campus, officials from West Virginia’s colleges came together for the first time last week to learn how to protect students from harm — and themselves from lawsuits.

Amy Niedzalkoski, an attorney who works for the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights and specializes in Title IX — a law that forbids gender discrimination at schools that receive federal funding — spoke to dozens of state college representatives in Fairmont last week in light of recent high-profile cases at schools across the country that have been scrutinized for turning a blind eye to a “rape culture” on campus.

The Office for Civil Rights is in charge of investigating any potential mishandling of a school’s own investigation and has the right to terminate federal funding at that school if there’s evidence of a Title IX violation.

As part of the White House’s “Not Alone” campaign, ongoing federal investigations of possible Title IX violations are public for the first time, as of last week. Two of West Virginia’s colleges, Bethany and the School of Osteopathic Medicine, are on the list.'

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Comments

Follow the money (*F-T-M*). Universities have lots of it. What comes with Title IX compliance violations (or perceived ones)? FINES, that's what.

Many colleges and universities are flush with cash. Seriously, if people only knew how much money the bigger ones were sitting on, they'd be incensed at the ridiculous prices charged students and parents for the typical mediocre educations so many offer. True, many of the smaller, middle-of-Doorknob schools are struggling; they can't compete with the bigger ones that have Olympic-sized swimming pools, separate dining facilities for sports teams (largely because they're so many of them and the team members have to be on "special diets", meaning they eat better than the other students), and yet even academic resources and opportunities for research and pre-graduation name-making for Sheldon Cooper types that Whispering-Pines-In-The-Middle-Of-Nowhere College with a student body numbering less than 800 cannot possibly match. No surprise such places are shutting down rapidly. Soon, what's left in the US for unis will mostly be behemoths of tens of thousands of students (some already are) that span block after block of city-scape (*cough* Boston U, Penn State, *cough*) and not many others. But these schools cannot possibly comply with each and every possible way to interpret Title IX. Violations can be found everywhere when the guideline is: "Provide equal educational opportunity regardless of sex". It's a blank slate, and a blank check from unis to the gov't for Uncle Sam to fill in whatever number he wants to. And then wait 'til men start suing under it, too (some already have). It's a legal fee-generating, fine-generating *BONANZA*, fun for everyone except the unis and of course the students who eventually finance the fines their schools have to pay.

Hell hath no fury as a vested interest tied to a moral imperative.

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Submitted by Matt on Thu, 2014-05-15 05:03