

A Mother, a Feminist, Aghast - davidroberts
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324600704578405280211043510.html?mod=hp_opinion

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spindritf
What's up with those weird kangaroo courts? Why aren't serious cases (sexual
assault, rape) handled by real law enforcement and heard in real courts?

I can understand that universities may want to deal with academic plagiarism,
misconduct, or dishonesty internally but this is bizarre. Yet, apparently,
it's mandated by the government? How is this legal?

Not to mention that government is essentially outsourcing one of its core
functions (competencies). Mercenaries, feudal legal system... the mediaevalist
lobby deserves more attention.

~~~
pc86
For most small colleges (as this "liberal arts college in New England" almost
certainly was), there is an agreement between the college and the local police
department (if one exists) that the college will handle just about everything
internally, and push things off to the local or state PD as necessary.

My college fits the description of the one in the OA. They had a small, self-
important security department of a half dozen part time and one or two full
time unarmed guards. Anything that happened on campus, they'd handle. That in
and of itself is not mandated by the government, but it's a fairly common
occurrence.

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flootch
Here is the former Dean of Harvard as well as the President of the John W.
Pope Center for Higher Education, discussing "Colleges Must Promote Personal
Responsibility, Not 'He-Said, She-Said' Trials"

[http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2013/04/17/colleges-
mus...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2013/04/17/colleges-must-promote-
personal-responsibility-not-he-said-she-said-trials/)

 _In 2011, relying on the gender equity provisions of Title IX, the federal
government issued standards for the conduct of sexual assault proceedings in
virtually all American colleges. The Office for Civil Rights (OCR) of the
Department of Education advised colleges that they must use the “preponderance
of evidence” standard of civil court proceedings, not the “beyond a reasonable
doubt” standard of criminal trials. Within a year, almost all institutions,
including UNC, had complied rather than risk the loss of federal funding._

 _The lower standard of proof will result in more convictions—of both guilty
and innocent individuals. For some, perhaps, a few false positives are merely
the collateral damage of outcomes that are more just in aggregate. But this is
not a convincing argument in a society that values individual rights. The
lower penalty for a conviction in a college court—a “rapist” label and career-
shattering expulsion, rather than imprisonment—does not justify a lower
standard of proof._

Why would the Office of Civil Rights dictate to schools they had to lower the
evidentiary standard in sexual misconduct cases? Who/What was behind that
agenda?

------
danso
The judicial concerns that the OP raises are not trivial, however, I do wonder
if her attempt to tie them to a critique of the feminism movement is just a
bit of a _non sequitur_.

The judicial problems here are orthogonal to the aims of feminism, because
they originate more directly from how difficult it is for schools to act as
extra-judicial bodies and work within the framework of student privacy rights.
At some schools, these adjudication processes deal with victims quite badly:

[http://www.publicintegrity.org/accountability/education/sexu...](http://www.publicintegrity.org/accountability/education/sexual-
assault-campus)

This is not to trivialize what happened to the OP's son. But to cast
aspersions on feminism seems to be missing the bigger point: academic
bureaucracies are not very good at handling these types of cases, which are
mishandled quite often by actual judicial systems.

~~~
moogleii
Hmm, is there a critique of the feminist movement in there? I didn't really
see one. There might be one of Title IX specifically.

I think it more likely that she is merely attempting to qualify herself
against feminist extremists that would not tolerate any critique of Title IX.

~~~
pc86
My guess is she's equating support of Title IX specifically as analogous to
support of feminism generally. Not sure I agree with her on that point.

I think you're right. If anything she states she's a feminist just to clarify
that she's not a far-right political hack.

------
cupcake-unicorn
This kind of confuses me. The mother is calling our witnesses for having no
way of knowing about the alleged events, yet she herself also has no way of
knowing. I'm not saying the process isn't flawed or unfair but something also
seems wrong with me being expected to take the mother at her word while
trashing the credibility of the alleged victim. I also feel that mentioning
feminism came off as a bit of an "angle" for the piece. In addition, I'm not
sure how this got to be trending on HN - I'm concerned about the relationship
to the "men's rights" movement, which while their underlying idea is sound,
the proponents often end up scaring me with their misogyny.

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paganel
I'm going to be that guy, but this right here it's a first world problem
almost to the letter. I mean, we've got an adult (the college guy) hurrying to
call his mother when he gets in trouble so that the latter would help him
solve his problems, and then we've got the mother herself, ready to forgo her
long-held believes (feminism and all that) as soon as her son's "future" is on
the line.

~~~
pc86
Yup. Having your future almost destroyed because of a lying, bitter ex-
girlfriend and not being given proper due process or resources is totally a
first world problem. You nailed it.

~~~
paganel
I read the article twice and nowhere did the author say anything about asking
her son something like: "Hey, did you do that?", nor is the former
girlfriend's opinion mentioned.

And yes, I would like for both parties' views to be on the same page, jumping
to conclusions like "bitter ex-girlfriend " does no good to anyone.

