
Former NFL Player, After Settling Title IX Lawsuit, Plots a Comeback - jseliger
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/01/sports/mumphery-lawsuit-michigan-settlement.html
======
throwaway-3891
I write this as someone who considers himself a liberal in the American
political sense. As I see it, there is a serious tension in the way we think
about sexual assault. We assert two things: 1. women very rarely make false
claims of sexual assault, so we should believe their claims, and 2. higher
rates of criminal convictions and incarceration among black people are largely
explained by institutional racism, rather than truly higher criminality among
black people. These things conflict in the apparent over-representation of
black (and minority in general) students in campus sexual assault accusations
[1].

Hard numbers don't seem very common here, but that article contains
qualitative testimony: "In 2015, in The New Yorker, Jeannie Suk Gersen, a
Harvard Law School professor, wrote that in general, the administrators and
faculty members she’d spoken with who 'routinely work on sexual-misconduct
cases' said that 'most of the complaints they see are against minorities.'"

That article offers also one pretty shocking statistic: "In the 2013–14
academic year, 4.2 percent of Colgate’s students were black. According to the
university’s records, in that year black male students were accused of 50
percent of the sexual violations reported to the university, and they made up
40 percent of the students formally adjudicated. During the three academic
years from 2012–13 to 2014–15, black students were accused of 25 percent of
the sexual misconduct reported to the university, and made up 21 percent of
the students referred for formal hearings."

As a result, I struggle to reconcile points 1 and 2 above. My best guess --
and it's similar to what that article hypothesizes -- is that encounters that
already exist in some grey area of drunkenness and consent are more likely to
be viewed as assault when the man is "other", i.e. black or minority. But this
seems awful.

[1] [https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2017/09/the-
qu...](https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2017/09/the-question-of-
race-in-campus-sexual-assault-cases/539361/)

~~~
BurningFrog
> _1\. women very rarely make false claims of sexual assault, so we should
> believe their claims_

This is a big fundamental mistake. Women are just as capable as men of lying.

The principle of "innocent until proven guilty" was established over centuries
of very hard won experience of why this imperfect principle works better than
all the others that have been tried.

How sad that the left of 2019 has forgotten this history and now needs to
relearn it.

~~~
bryanrasmussen
Obviously the reason that #1 exists is because the systems meant to help
victims of crime treated sexual assault victims as liars and people somehow
deserving of their victimization, hence an overreaction.

However regarding statement Women are just as capable of lying as men, I
suppose this is true but I also wonder if there aren't particular crimes that
have different levels of lying about than others, and different types of lies.
For example a companies office gets burglarized, an expensive ring was in the
office but was not stolen. I would expect this to be a temptation to lie and
say it was stolen, because it gives a benefit and who does it hurt, the
insurance company whom everyone hates or the burglars who you would like to
hurt at the moment.

The question to me is what is the rate of lying that people would want to do
about about sexual assault. My gut feeling is not that much, but of course
it's a charged subject so I bet nobody is really researching it and able to
tell us what the rate actually is.

on edit: clarifying that the word overreaction is used under the supposition
that the application of #1 if it results in a false statement being believed
then that is an 'overreaction'

~~~
BurningFrog
How accusations are handled of course also influence the rate of lying.

If an accusation is investigated thoroughly with evidence examined and
carefully weighed, there are serious costs to making a false accusation (also,
unfortunately to a truthful one).

If an accusation is just accepted at face value and the accused is
automatically shipped away to whatever punishment is mandated, making a false
accusation is much more attractive.

So the idea that "since women never lie about rape we can stop investigating
rape accusations" is a bit like the anti-vax idea that "since measles is rare,
vaccinating is pointless".

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jseliger
It seems that most people don't understand how insane and discriminatory Title
IX is: [https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/laura-kipniss-
endle...](https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/laura-kipniss-endless-
trial-by-title-ix)

~~~
cperciva
I don't think Title IX is discriminatory. Rather, it has been applied in
discriminatory ways.

~~~
SpicyLemonZest
I'm not sure that's a meaningful distinction. The literal text of Title IX is
so short it can't possibly be discriminatory:

> No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from
> participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to
> discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal
> financial assistance.

Everything that people normally refer to by the phrase "Title IX", from Title
IX offices to Title IX cases to Title IX procedure, is an application.

~~~
BurningFrog
The text of Title IX is almost irrelevant.

What controls its application is directives from the Department of Education.

The controversial and important one here is the "Dear Colleague" letter the
Obama administration sent out in 2011 that substantially chipped away at due
process rights for defendants in sexual misconduct cases on campus.

[https://reason.com/2017/09/22/breaking-betsy-devos-
withdraws...](https://reason.com/2017/09/22/breaking-betsy-devos-withdraws-
dear-coll/)

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colechristensen
It is disturbing to more and more find myself on the other side of the culture
war.

There is nothing "liberal" about what is going on here and the people who are
doing it are by numbers moderate not extremist.

Where do you go when you support free expression and freedom to pursue the
good life however you see fit?

~~~
thrower123
Quillette? Then people say you are "alt-right", although they are considerably
more nuanced than most outlets.

~~~
colechristensen
Not for me. I don't want to engage heavily on the other side of these topics,
I think the topics are a poison. There is real discrimination in the world and
this isn't it.

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rmason
I live near East Lansing and have friends who know Keith Mumphery. In the
swirl of the Dr. Nassar scandal some well meaning Michigan State administrator
falsely ruled against him in this lady's appeal. I was impressed by this
balanced article and I hope it finally means justice for him.

But as I said on Twitter, will the NFL listen? Sadly the scandals locally are
far from over with at least two court cases against former MSU administrators
ongoing.

~~~
bsder
> But as I said on Twitter, will the NFL listen?

I suspect an incoming lawsuit against the NFL will get their attention.

If they really cut him without any investigation, that's going to be a
violation of his contract. Obviously, you won't win this if you actually get
convicted for a crime, but the fact that he has been exonerated means the NFL
is guilty of a contract violation and is going to have to cough up for it.

I suspect that will finally get the attention of some important people in the
NFL.

~~~
jetti
That may get him some money but I doubt it would get him back on the field or
even on a practice squad.

