
Ordeal by Title IX - fortran77
https://quillette.com/2020/08/13/ordeal-by-title-ix/
======
treis
This guys not wrong about Title IX being kangaroo courtish. But he also had a
sexual relationship with a graduate student that he advised. The fact that it
happened after he de facto stopped advising her doesn't help his case much.
She's still very dependent on him for recommendations and his connections for
her career growth. The potential for abuse there is very high and it's not a
relationship he should have engaged in.

Was he railroaded? Hard to tell when it's just one side of the story. But he's
not innocent.

~~~
leephillips
So he did wrong because of the “potential” for abuse, even though the woman
involved had no complaints, and even stated that there was nothing abusive in
the relationship?

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Just because the relationship wasn't coerced (one form of abuse) doesn't make
it appropriate. As noted, its a very bad idea to 'go there' because of the
confusion of further favors (recommendations/appointments) with sexual favors.
Its reasonable for an institution to discourage this kind of relationship.
Just like many private corporations do.

~~~
sukilot
It's called a "conflict of interest" and is simply handled by recusal.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
But a Professor's recommendation is very valuable - in some industries, the
only path to employment. The temptation to forego recusal is large, especially
for a valued graduate student. Unequal relationships (mentor/student etc) are
so full of pitfalls, they've been forbidden by many, many institutions.

~~~
sukilot
What industry relies on a recommendation from a Masters degree advisor of
someone who has a PhD from a different University? And even if that's true,
the problem is the discrimination practiced by the employer, not the advisor.
In corporations, supervisors are banned from giving recommendations for former
employees, due to conflict of interest concerns.

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csa
Misguided politics like this is one of the reasons I left the academic world.

Universities may have crossed the Rubicon in terms of becoming farcical
entities. Bloated bureaucracies, commodification of faculty and students,
financial structures based on questionable lending practices, focus of form
over function (like in this story), and a big bag of other misaligned
incentives make me think that universities don’t have a bright future (at
least in their current form).

The author of this story is no angel — he certainly should have been more
careful with that relationship with his former student in several ways. That
said, I can’t really see that he did anything worthy of destroying his career.
This was just another case of modern-day witch-hunting.

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sukilot
> Even though they were all dismissed, these three cases implied a pattern of
> harassment on my part. The other possible interpretation—that this was an
> organized campaign to damage my reputation for reasons that had nothing to
> do with sexual harassment—was not considered.

He's missing the obvious "systems" answer -- the current culture is to
investigate every suspicion, and human nature is to suspect that where is
smoke there is fire. The drastically lower bar for investigation -- fine on
its own, but then combined with the assumption that accusations likely have
some merit (even if they are merely notifications, not accusations!), leads to
"guilt by slippery slope".

It's the same thing that happens with "mandatory reporting" for child abuse,
and the same thing that BLM and similar complain about with overstrict
policing.

------
strstr
This reads like someone in his department targeted him with the conclusion in
mind: termination. Someone wanted him fired. They tried every option
available, and they eventually succeeded.

~~~
leephillips
And that’s why Obama’s threat to universities leading them to abolish normal
evidentiary requirements did so much damage. When there is nothing like due
process, you can use the arbitrary process to do anything to anyone. Rolling
back Obama’s abuse and restoring some sanity to Title IX was one of the few
good things to come out of the Trump administration.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Hm. It's not a courtroom. A private company may hire and fire, without a judge
and jury.

Still, there's much that's public about it. Surely some rules are desirable.

~~~
gwright
Due process is important even in private organizations but a public university
is not a private organization so, at least in that context, I think there is a
Constitutional argument that due process and respect for other Constitutional
rights is required.

~~~
throwaway894345
Do we know which university it was? Specifically do we know that it was a
public university? It’s abhorrent either way, but I’m curious about the
identity of the guilty university.

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mcherm
All of the author's complaints come down to issues of "due process".

Due process doesn't mean running a trial or decision-making process in the
particular way that US courts do, rather it means running such a process in
some fashion that is consistent and reasonable. Personally, I believe that it
is extremely important to maintain due process in our trials and procedures.

In this case the author fundamentally has two complaints. The first complaint
is that when he was accused of a Title IX violation, the procedure was so
unreasonable and so biased against the defendant that winning cost him $27,000
and an entire year of no contact with his university and no response to the
charges (thus destroying his reputation). The second complaint is that he was
slated to receive an extremely harsh punishment (loss of tenure and being
fired) for what he considers a rather minor violation (having a consensual
relationship with a former student who was technically still associated with
the university). All told, I agree: the ultimate outcome (him resigning) may
be reasonable, but the process for reaching it clearly was not.

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prepend
It seems that these investigations are a huge revenue source for the firms
conducting them for the university. If it cost the author $27k to defend, it
must be far higher for the investigating firm. Since they have multiple
attorneys on the case, and spend more time.

So this seems like a situation where there is a vested interest in conducting
lots of these investigations.

------
cma
So he started a relationship with a student after she had mostly finished, but
hadn't walked to get her diploma yet, and he issued her grades during that
time that were considered perfunctory. Every professor knows tenure protects
from almost everything except sleeping with a student, especially if you are
their advisor or involved in their committee.

Before revealing he had a relationship with his student, he gives a bunch of
innuendo that he was only fired because he mentioned opposing some kind of
affirmative action in a hiring committee, but he doesn't prove that was why
and doesn't give the committee "due process" to defend themselves.

The vast majority of people in this country are hired at will and don't get
anything like a long trial to stay on and are subject arbitrary firing with no
real due process. It is the norm in employment rather than a new trend (unless
you are unionized), but professors have just been protected from it by tenure.
But it isn't a new trend that tenure doesn't protect you if you sleep with or
have a relationship with a student. It's the one thing everyone with tenure
knows isn't covered by tenure.

~~~
itronitron
Title IX is some weird shit though, and I doubt that any US company holds
itself to the same crazy standard.

For example, under Title IX if your colleague shows up with a black eye one
day and says they got it from their roommate then you are _required_ to report
it to the university.

~~~
cma
Many (if not most?) companies will fire over a relationship between a boss and
a subordinate, or order them to work at separate locations and not be in
either's chain of command. He resigned so we don't know how it would have even
played out.

The process sounds kafkaesque in his telling, but most people subject to at-
will barely get any process at all when they are fired.

~~~
csa
> Many (if not most?) companies will fire over a relationship between a boss
> and a subordinate, or order them to work at separate locations and not be in
> either's chain of command.

This may be the rule at a lot of places, but it is very rarely implemented,
and these relationships are typically just overlooked.

~~~
cma
I don't know if I agree (just from personally knowing a case where two people
in a relationship formed at work were sent to different stores, not any
exhaustive data), but an official rule that is rarely and or selectively
enforced doesn't exactly sound like due process in the at-will workplace as a
counter argument to the level of due process in a university to a tenured
employee.

~~~
csa
My anecdata is dozens of these relationships with nothing done, and one with
the manager being officially warned and moved to a different department.

The scandalous thing about the case in which something was done was that he
was supervising both his wife and his lover. He ended up divorcing his wife
and marrying his lover. That was the level it took _to get an official
warning_. He retired a few years later, with no negative impact on his career
(he was promoted after the incident).

Do firings happen over these types of relationships? Sure. Is that the modal
response? Very much no in my experience.

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xondono
The amount of this “new puritanism” that the US is displaying is amazing to
me.

The idea of a bureaucracy like university administration controlling the love
life of the professors is ridiculous IMO.

~~~
colejohnson66
It’s not “puritanism;” it’s about _conflict of interest._ If you’re sleeping
with, say, a student, you’d be more likely to give them a better grade than
Jane/John Doe.

~~~
throwaway894345
Of course, that’s not the case here since the relationship took place after
the student left the university. Further, many Title IX cases aren’t related
to conflict of interest at all.

Here is a list, mostly of such stories: [https://reason.com/tag/title-
ix/](https://reason.com/tag/title-ix/). A common theme is consensual drunken
sex in which one party expresses regret at some later time and reports the
other party. Title IX defines “consent” such that drunken sex cannot be
“consensual”—drunken sex is rape per Title IX guidelines. If this sounds
dramatic, please give that link a read; this is the most charitable
interpretation.

The interesting thing about this “drunken sex is rape” interpretation is that
logically it would imply that if both parties were drunk, then they’ve raped
each other. Of course this is ridiculous, so universities either decide that
the man is guilty (presumably in a “Believe all women” sort of way) which is
ironic in that Title IX ostensibly prohibits discrimination on the basis of
sex. Another way in which universities resolve this dilemma is by assuming the
first to report is the victim and the other party is the rapist. There are
probably other universities who elect not to address the dilemma at all and
are happy with the mutual rape interpretation.

In all cases, this seems per puritanical to me.

EDIT: I forgot my favorite example—the Northwestern University feminist
professor whose Title IX criticism was deemed to be a Title IX violation.
Criticizing Title IX is a violation of Title IX, but you still have a swath of
people arguing that Title IX is a Very Fine Law (indeed the law is fine; the
guidelines are problematic).

------
bufferoverflow
Absolutely awful process, very unconstitutional. The guy doesn't even know
what the charges are, who the accuser is, can't face the accuser, and has to
prove his innocence, instead of them proving his guilt.

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fortran77
Another good reason not to let kids back on campus!

This was a complicated story. But the real issue is a third-party can bring up
an issue that happened years ago--even if the primary person involved was ok
with it--just because you did or said something they didn't like. This
retaliatory complaining should never be allowed or encouraged. If you don't
report something immediately, you shouldn't be able to bring it up years
later.

~~~
cma
Most people in the US work jobs where they can be fired at will without any
cause.

~~~
clusterfish
That not being the case for tenured profs is part of their compensation
package. The deals other people agreed to are irrelevant.

~~~
cma
Tenure agreements don't protect for sleeping with students.

~~~
clusterfish
Neither do they protect against witch hunts apparently, nor require so much as
an accuser, let alone a non-kangaroo court process to terminate your career.

Consensual sex is not a crime, and there are no circumstances in this case
that would warrant maximum available punishment for the lowest possible
violation of this policy according to the university's own range of possible
punishments. This is a witch hunt that never cared about any facts, in all
likelihood they just wanted to fire the guy for his political opinions.

~~~
cma
It doesn't require a crime to be fired. And even then:

We don't know that he would have gotten the maximum penalty under the policy,
as he didn't exhaust the appeal that his contract gave him a right to. He
resigned and wasn't fired.

People working at-will can be fired without any reason. 14 months PTO would be
a godsend to them.

~~~
clusterfish
Again, people working at will are irrelevant, as his situation is different.
You keep bringing it up for some reason, almost sounds like you're just
jealous of tenure.

He resigned because the process was consistently of a kangaroo court variety.
He did get the "sentence" to be fired so there is no need to speculate what
would have happened if he didn't resign. There was no point to continue to the
one last step because there was no reason to believe that it would be any more
fair than the numerous previous steps.

You're just finding excuses for his unfair treatment because you don't like
the guy or what he did. If a similarly unfair process was applied to a
professor you like and respect, you'd be screaming in disbelief at how it's
unfair. "Prominent civil rights activist loses tenure", instant 5000 points on
HN. And so if you don't care about an unlikeable guy getting a fair process,
then I guess you only care that people you don't like are punished by whatever
means gets the job done, and that's not something to be proud of. Our society
strives to be better than petty tribalism even if the _legal_ protections
against that aren't always there.

~~~
cma
The tenure agreement doesn't give a right to a trial with due process, just
like at will employeement doesn't. You are saying he negotiated something more
than at-will, so therefore he deserves something even beyond what he
negotiated? And we should consider this a significant problem when the
majority of workers who have nothing close to 14 months paid time off and a
trial of some sort with an appeals process when they get fired?

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theplague42
HN should not allow linking to Quilette.

~~~
mcherm
I'm not in favor of banning ANY particular source. I think it wiser to
evaluate any particular article on its own merits.

~~~
cortesoft
Reputation of a publisher is one of the ways you evaluate things.

~~~
RonanTheGrey
Indeed, and would therefore be up to each reader to decide how that reputation
factors into their evaluation of what they're reading and the subsequent
conversation.

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kilo_bravo_3
It is interesting that quillette chose to publish this piece.

The private machinations of rationally acting rational actors acting in
accordance with the terms of their voluntary associations seems to be
something that quillette would support.

For example, they wouldn't support the assertion that a manager at McDonalds
conduct a trial where evidence, chain of custody, jurisprudence, and counsel
for the defendant be guaranteed before firing an employee.

In fact I bet they have published numerous pieces asserting the exact
opposite, consistently, in the past.

But here we are, criticizing a university for firing an employee.

I guess their internal logic is not consistent and freedom only apply to job
creators, and not "THE LEFTIST ACADEMIC ELITE".

~~~
throwaway894345
I don’t see how it’s in the university’s interest to malign and railroad a
professor, presumably because he challenged the orthodoxy a bit with respect
to its sexist policies. Especially when the cost is him more-or-less idle for
the better part of the year (but still paid) as well as the cost for all of
these administrators and lawyers fabricating nonsense for over a year.
Further, the employee in this case had tenure protection; the university
abuses Title IX and other policies to railroad him out of his position.

If there is an inconsistency, it’s that the folks who love reducing everything
to power dynamics are somehow not analyzing this as a clear-cut case of
powerful university administrators abusing their considerable power over an
employee. I mean, the provost made the unprecedented move of prosecuting a
case that her underlings were adjudicating and flouted the requirement that
she present her argument a week in advance. The author provided lots and lots
of verifiable supporting evidence.

~~~
kilo_bravo_3
It's a straight up reaction to the market.

The majority of people in the market the university cares about think that
professors who bang their subordinates should be railroaded out the
institution.

The power dynamics bit is the best part. The voluntary collective of rational
actors known as "the university" can choose to ignore violations of unjust
policies (the absolute authority given the assent of the managed) the same way
jurors can choose to ignore violations of the law though jury nullification.

Freedom includes the freedom to bend the rules and have an arbitrary and
subjective number of people nod in agreement, thus making it "Okay", no?

If the above statement is not true, then literally, in the literal dictionary
definition of the the word "literal" every single aspect of society will have
to be destroyed and rebuilt from the ground up.

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tus88
And to think this is just a trial of what they want the actual legal system to
be. Always experiment on campus first.

~~~
jasonwatkinspdx
Who is "they" precisely?

~~~
tus88
The lizard-people obviously.

------
tomohawk
Why colleges need their own court system is beyond me. We have a perfectly
usable one that actually has reasonable protections for the accused.

It's sad that officials in the Dept of Education can put in place such an
egregious system, which is literally designed to infringe on people's rights,
and not face any consequences. Like so many things at that level, there are
expectations for officials to act properly and protect our rights, but when
they don't, there is no specified punishment.

~~~
sukilot
Title IX / DOE is a misdirection. This was driven completely internally by Uni
administration, with Title IX only mentioned as the excuse. There was never a
Federal complaint.

