Confronting sexual assault: University conduct hearings receive plenty of criticism

Submitted by Mastodon on Tue, 2014-12-02 08:36

Article here. Excerpt:

'The Chronicle of Higher Education reported in September on young men found guilty in university hearing procedures whose lives were turned upside down.

One drives a delivery truck and may never finish college, The Chronicle reported. Another was expelled from his dream college, although, he said, his ex-girlfriend had wrongly accused him of sexual assault. A third lost a $30,000 scholarship and his place on the football team.

All three were expelled after their colleges found them responsible for sexual assault, The Chronicle reported. They join those who think the movement to bring attention to sexual violence on college campuses has gone too far, labeling innocent students rapists.

“The way that universities are handling the entire situation is terrible,” one of the men, Joshua Strange, told The Washington Post in an Aug. 20 article. “It’s kind of a broken system.”'

Like0 Dislike0

Comments

Pretty much. One college admin said he thought the prepond. std. put the accuser and accused on a "level playing field". No, it doesn't, which is why in criminal matters, guilt must be proven beyond reasonable doubt. As for civil matters, it is indeed preponderance. But the protection vs. abuse is still weak since it's he/she said-he/she said and often, it's up to a coin toss. Sexual misconduct allegations are not typically involved unless proven first in a criminal court and used as the basis for arguing for compensation.

Now take these extra-judicial boards or whatever else they may be called. Any allegation of misconduct, unless it can be refuted (shown by someone to be patently false), will result in a guilty "verdict". Punishment includes anything up to expulsion, which means for all intents and purposes, the money paid to the uni. is as good as spent on chewing gum (well, at least w/ that, you get the gum. In a civil court, as in criminal, you can confront and X-examine any witnesses (Exceptions: small children, partially incompetent witnesses due to temporary or permanent cognitive problems, and in many cases, any woman accusing the defendant of rape, as she can be in a totally diff. bldg. and not even have to hear the defendant much less see him.)

If the accused cannot refute the allegation not just reasonably well but very thoroughly, the accusation will by itself be seen as evidence. The denial will not. Lacking material evidence or witnesses putting the accused somewhere else at the alleged time of incident, and not just in the next dorm room getting stoned and eating pizza, but on the other side of campus (or maybe on Mars) in the company of 100 others who saw him there all throughout the alleged incident time, the guy'll be "found" guilty and that'll be that.

Like0 Dislike0
Submitted by Matt on Tue, 2014-12-02 23:22