
A Bizarre USC Case Shows How Broken Title IX Enforcement Is - jseliger
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/08/a-bizarre-usc-case-shows-how-broken-title-ix-enforcement-is.html
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jancsika
I'd like to attempt to do a complete end run around the impending anecdote war
and ask: how the hell are academic professors, lecturers, staff, and students
agreeing to serve in a position of power where they make
recommendations/findings/whatever on potentially criminal acts by university
students without having any expertise whatsoever in criminal law?

If one sits on a university panel and is shown evidence that one student raped
another student, how is one's next action _not_ to go to the police station
and hand over that exact same evidence?

If one is not being shown any actual evidence, how can one possibly
rationalize participating in such a proceeding?

If you are an academic and have served in this capacity, please explain to me
how your decision was motivated by anything other than a desire not to rock
the boat. Please also explain how serving in a non-expert position of power
over students who have potentially committed criminal acts is compatible with
being a humble and conscientious scholar.

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extra88
They don't operate with a criminal court's standard of evidence and the
punishment meted out is not criminal punishment.

The accuser is free to go to the police in addition to the school's
administration, if they chose not to it would be wrong for others to do so.

Say you had some friends over including someone you don't know well and a
while later you discovered something valuable was missing. You think that
person may have taken it because you don't know them well and they had the
opportunity, would you not hesitate invite them over because you have no
evidence? "Innocent until proven guilty" is a cornerstone of our criminal
legal system but not every judgement can, or should, be based on the same
standard.

I'm not comfortable with the position school administrations are put in but
recognize that often times it's better than counting on the criminal justice
system in a timely fashion.

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Overtonwindow
Many ages ago I served as defense counsel, of sorts, at a judiciary board
hearing at my university. A young man was accused of stealing textbooks from
the campus bookstore, and selling them back. I was given wide latitude to
investigate, and I poked a ton of holes into that, found there was zero
evidence of the crime. Pure suspicion and assumption. Yet he was suspended for
a semester having been found guilty, reasoning it was "more likely than not"
he committed the offense. This was absolutely laughable.

I am reminded of this because universities have become adverse to conflict
resolution, and conditioned to believe ever accusation, and every "victim" no
matter the evidence.

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ubernostrum
Don't look now, but you're alleging the "believe every victim" (with scary
air-quotes, no less!) in discussion of a story which alleges the problem of
_refusing to believe_ the person the university said was a victim.

~~~
Overtonwindow
I could have said things better, as I was trying to make a point about the
dispute/discipline procedure of a major university. The victim, IMHO, in this
instance is the student. The school believes they are the victim, but they
also happen to be the judge and jury. I found the process, the evidence
procedures, finding of fact, and guilt, to be seriously flawed.

