
My Title IX Inquisition - privong
http://chronicle.com/article/My-Title-IX-Inquisition/230489/?key=S25xdAJqZHweM35rZm0VNzsAPSY8Mkl5MHpPaipybltcGQ==
======
scintill76
> A week later I heard from the investigators. For reasons I wasn’t privy to,
> the university had hired an outside law firm, based in another Midwestern
> city an hour-and-a-half flight away... the phrase "billable hours" came to
> mind

> I’m no expert on legal fees, but I was pretty sure the meter was ticking in
> $10,000 increments.

> new Title IX complaints have been filed against the faculty-support person
> who accompanied me to the session with the investigators... Another team of
> lawyers from the same firm has been appointed to conduct a new
> investigation.

> At the end of the interrogation, the investigators asked if I wanted to file
> my own retaliation complaint against the student who’d revealed the charges.

Well, I see one party who's winning it big here.

On a related note, it's obscene how locked-down the process sounds. Forbidding
having an attorney present, forbidding the recording of the proceedings, being
extremely unwilling to reveal the charges ahead of interrogation so that a
defense could be prepared. Is it even legal to forbid recording? Some quick
Googling suggests the jurisdiction the author is in is a one-party consent
state, but IANAL. What would be the consequences of refusing to accept their
terms?

> Also that my tweets were apparently being monitored.

Well, "monitored" is too strong IMO -- really, people just got angry enough to
stalk the author on social media until they found something damning. Then
again, as this and other pitchfork mob cases show, you may as well treat
everything you say or write as if it is monitored; because someday, someone
will probably find a reason to dig through it.

~~~
caseysoftware
This is one of the big problems with these things being handled as
"administrative" processes instead of criminal.

You don't have the right to an attorney. You don't have the right to know the
charges against you. You don't have the right to face the accused.

This is rule 12 from Alinsky's Rules for Radicals:

"Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it." \- Cut off the
support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not
institutions; people hurt faster than institutions.

------
gizmo686
I don't think the main problem here is our infatalizing students (although
that is certainly a problem, and a part of this story, that I could write at
length about). Rather, it seems that the main problem is that we enacted
policies with good intentions without considering whether the policies
themselves were a good idea. In large part, I think this is true because as a
society we are to a large distinguish between criticisms of a policy with
criticisms of the stated goal of the policy. [1]. This led to a policy where
it is possible for a single person (although in this case it was 2) to
initiate the entire inquiry [2]. In a system as large as a university, you
have to be prepared for such entities.

[1] More cynically, policymakers want to be seen as doing something, and do
not care sufficiently what it is that they are actual doing.

[2] The author did acknowledge this nature of the problem.

~~~
HillRat
Excellent points! I'd also note that these kinds of policies often have to
start out with a hair trigger due to the fundamental asymmetry between the
parties; the more powerful have many avenues to shut down the weak, so the
weak need large-caliber cannon to take on systemic discrimination.

But when the systems begin to balance out -- not many universities maintain
anti-feminist or pro-racist cultures, though I can name a few that _do_ \--
then those same powers are easily abused, simply because there _aren 't_
significant targets to go after. So, minor figures, often on the same
political side as the aggrieved, are attacked using laws that are the
equivalent of using grapeshot to kill a goldfish.

Unfortunately, as you point out, it's hard to reform those laws, because when
you have people who want to repeal progress entirely, it's hard to distinguish
(and, practically, there might not be any difference) between "reform" and
"repeal."

But, seriously, young people. What the hell? (And get off my lawn!)

~~~
hoopd
> Unfortunately, as you point out, it's hard to reform those laws, because
> when you have people who want to repeal progress entirely, it's hard to
> distinguish (and, practically, there might not be any difference) between
> "reform" and "repeal."

As somebody who often takes the "reform" side I'd say it's not an accidental
misunderstanding when people think I'm saying "repeal". FWICT it stems from a
deep and fundamental disrespect for the views of others. It's a common
pattern: the default response to someone being critical of any social justice
movement is an accusation of racism, sexism, bigotry, etc. Honestly it's why I
try to only discuss these things anonymously on the internet where it isn't so
risky.

------
JesperRavn
This is the logical conclusion of title IX, which is the education version of
section VII of the civil rights act.

Both define discrimination in such a broad way, that expressing an opinion
could be considered as discrimination. Whether that opinion is "girls are not
as smart as boys on average" or "political correctness has gone too far" is a
detail. In principal, holding any _incorrect_ opinion could indicate a bias
that leads to discrimination.

~~~
Frondo
If a university professor is standing up in front of class and saying, "It's
just my opinion, but girls are not as smart as boys on average," then it's
hard to see how that wouldn't come part and parcel with some sort of gender-
based discrimination.

It's like a cockroach--you never see just one cockroach, if you do, there's a
lot more you're not seeing.

"It's my opinion that girls are not as smart as boys on average, but I will
treat everyone in my class fairly" doesn't pass the sniff test for
believability.

~~~
JesperRavn
_It 's like a cockroach--you never see just one cockroach, if you do, there's
a lot more you're not seeing._

This is a great example of the kind of reasoning I was talking about. Because
of your _political beliefs_ you have determined that no reasonable person
thinks "girls are not as smart as boys". From this you conclude that the only
reason a person would conclude this, is because of some deeper bias against
women. Therefore you conclude that such a person is very likely to treat women
unfairly in the classroom.

Your political beliefs have become law, because the law interprets
discrimination in a way that is informed by your beliefs.

EDIT: After more research, the government's advice is that title IX never
applies to protected speech alone [0]. So saying "girls are less intelligent
than boys" in fact could never, in itself, violate title IX. However, the
definition of harassment is so vague that it's understandable that
universities can't figure out how to reconcile the first amendment with title
IX.

[0]
[http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/firstamend.html](http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/firstamend.html)
_Harassment, however, to be prohibited by the statutes within OCR 's
jurisdiction, must include something beyond the mere expression of views,
words, symbols or thoughts that some person finds offensive. Under OCR's
standard, the conduct must also be considered sufficiently serious to deny or
limit a student's ability to participate in or benefit from the educational
program. Thus, OCR's standards require that the conduct be evaluated from the
perspective of a reasonable person in the alleged victim’s position,
considering all the circumstances, including the alleged victim’s age._

~~~
Frondo
Actually, it's from an evidentiary position that I think no reasonable person
would hold the opinion "girls are not as smart as boys". Just like I think no
reasonable person would hold the opinion "The summer sky is typically green".
Both are wrong, but one suggests that half of someone's students won't get a
fair shake.

As far as I can tell, you're the one politicizing speech here.

~~~
mattnad
A reasonable person, lets say a neurologist or developmental psychologist,
might very well say there are differing levels of intelligence between girls
and boys. It depends on what you're measuring. When they study intelligence
closely enough, there are absolutely differences between the sexes. I don't
think it's sexist to say that girls are generally better at interpersonal
communications than boys (a form of intelligence). Even if it's that debatable
(and I'm sure it is), moving from a disagreement on opinions to a title IX
complaint is not warranted.

~~~
Frondo
And in a class about neurology or developmental psychology, putting it to a
question, "are boys smarter than girls?" and then using that to explore
different kinds of intelligence, is a very different thing from a professor in
an unrelated field declaring, "It's my opinion that girls are less intelligent
than boys, blah blah, office hours at 3pm on Wednesdays, etc.."

One is ok, the other suggests a bias that's going to cut half the class off at
the knees.

------
vaadu
She was attacked and subjected to significant legal harassment, merely because
she wrote an op-ed on sexual politics on campus, and some people didn’t like
her opinion. They then used the badly written Title IX law, passed in 1972 by
Congress to “deal with gender discrimination in public education”, to get her,
and her supporters, charged and interrogated repeatedly by lawyers.

Her accusers were allowed to remain anonymous. She was denied the right to use
a lawyer. The specific charges against her were never provided in writing. And
they were apparently based merely on the fact that her op-ed offended her
accusers.

Since the attacks against her were instigated by the students, who represent
our future, this story will give you a good sense of where our society is
heading. And it ain’t paradise.

~~~
pacaro
Barratry [1] should be more broadly treated as either a crime or grounds for
disbarment

[1]
[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barratry_(common_law)](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barratry_\(common_law\))

~~~
Intermernet
Interesting, I didn't know the common law definition, but I did know the
maritime law definition, but can't remember where from... I think it was from
a David Eddings book from my child-hood.

"In maritime law, barratry is the commission of an act by the master or
mariners of a vessel for an unlawful or fraudulent purpose that is contrary to
the duty owed to the owners, by which act the owners sustain injury." [1]

EDIT: Link

[1]: [http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/barratry](http://legal-
dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/barratry)

------
paulsutter
Anytime someone tells you that you can't have a lawyer present, you definitely
need to call a lawyer.

From
[http://www.nacua.org/onlinecourses/title_ix_coordinator_trai...](http://www.nacua.org/onlinecourses/title_ix_coordinator_training_2012/docs/ReviewSexualAssaultPolicy_Feb2012.pdf)

"State and federal courts — not OCR — have the final say in determining
relevant due process requirements. Courts are likely to give accused students
a right to legal assistance"

(OCR is the DoE Office of Civil Rights which controls Title IX)

~~~
blisterpeanuts
Yes, this was a red flag in the article. She's a tenured professor being
attacked by a pair of anonymous malicious students who could destroy her
career with one false, perverse accusation, with impunity? And the idiot
administration is taking these accusers seriously enough to hire an out of
town law firm to prosecute the case? She should definitely have lawyered up
and threatened a big, glaringly public, embarrassing lawsuit. Bureaucrats are
cowards, in general, and such a tenuous case would likely have been dropped.

------
parennoob
The author is writing a book titled "Men: Notes From an Ongoing
Investigation"; and dared to suggest in this article [1] that radical
feminism-influenced policies were turning college campuses into a version of
middle school. There was no way she was _not_ going to be attacked by said
radical feminists and "triggered" students.

Of course, the people who currently benefit from it (the hordes of
administrators who enforce these ridiculous policies) are never going to admit
that they are in the wrong, or that they should allow for more reasoned due
process. Hopefully, enough people read articles like this, and realize that
Title IX is a complete farce. Pressuring legislators to throw out Title IX is
the only sensible course of action against it.

[1] [http://chronicle.com/article/Sexual-Paranoia-
Strikes/190351/](http://chronicle.com/article/Sexual-Paranoia-Strikes/190351/)

~~~
EliRivers
_Pressuring legislators to throw out Title IX is the only sensible course of
action against it._

Do you disagree with the principle of Title IX (i.e. that federal money should
not fund educational activities that discriminate on the basis of sex), or is
it that Title IX has led to bad events and the only way to stop those bad
events is to remove Title IX?

~~~
parennoob
The latter. The majority of Title IX complaints today have nothing to do with
federal funding of men's athletics programs, which was what the law was
originally written to address.

------
dikaiosune
The one thing I'm not clear on is why she didn't consult with a lawyer to
begin with. They might have said to her that a lawyer couldn't be present, but
I think that might have changed if she'd talked to one anyway.

~~~
dpifke
I concur. If you're ever in a dispute with your employer and they tell you
you're not allowed to hire a lawyer, _you should probably hire a lawyer._

~~~
rhpistole
I would go so far as to say that if you're in a dispute with anyone and they
tell you you're not allowed to have a lawyer present, you damn well better
have a lawyer present.

------
DiabloD3
When did being an adult stop meaning being an adult? If you're old enough to
be in college, you're old enough to respect other people even if you disagree
with them (and especially so if you disagree with them because you're wrong).

This has nothing to do with rape or feminism or any other of these issues: it
has to do with respect and self-respect, neither of these the student body at
that school seems to be rich in.

~~~
themartorana
If we feel righteous in empowering 18 year olds with the tools of war and
dispatching them to rain down our wrath - and perhaps be killed in the act -
then they should be treated with the same capacity for adult thought and
reason as anyone else - and with it the same great responsibility that comes
with adulthood.

To that point, I think they (18+ year olds) should be allowed to drink, too,
but that's a topic for a different day.

~~~
FrankenPC
If they can kill, they can drink.

~~~
hvis
Maybe the idea is that the first few years the youngsters spend in the killing
trade, it should be without the influence of alcohol.

------
ZeroGravitas
I've not read this article, but I did read her original article. The first
half seemed utterly naive (apparently nobody was sexually assaulted in the
golden age of the 60s?) and then took a very unwise turn with the recounting
of the ongoing court cases. I'm surprised anyone thought this was a good idea
to publish and I'm not surprised it had repercussions (though I've not read
the latest article to find out what they were and if they were an
overreaction).

What particularly struck me was the refusal to believe professors had any
power over students, followed by a story of an author being harassed by an
editor, followed by the argument that if students aren't exposed to harassment
at university then they won't be prepared for real life. That's not even
internally consistent on several levels.

~~~
rweba
1) "The first half seemed utterly naive (apparently nobody was sexually
assaulted in the golden age of the 60s?)"

\- But should she be subjected to an investigation for writing a "naive"
article? I think not, as surely the freedom of thought includes the freedom to
have "wrong" opinions?

(2) "then took a very unwise turn with the recounting of the ongoing court
cases."

-Disagree. These cases are in the public record. Why shouldn't she mention them? It's not as if she has sworn confidentiality or she had inside information.

(3) "What particularly struck me was the refusal to believe professors had any
power over students"

\- I don't think this is an accurate summary at all. You don't have to agree
with her opinion, her point was that the new attitudes she's complaining about
greatly exaggerate the power of professors over students. A professor has the
power to give a student a bad grade or write them a bad recommendation. A
student has the power to complain about the professor to the dean/chair and
give him/her a bad evaluation. If a student alleges sexual harassment or
assault the professor's career could be destroyed even if the charges are not
proven. Basically a professor has some power, but not some kind of unlimited
power over individual students, which seems to be what is being alleged.

(4) "if students aren't exposed to harassment at university then they won't be
prepared for real life."

-Nope. I would phrase it as "If students are overly coddled and swaddled they will not develop psychological coping skills to deal with a real world which is not going to exquisitely cater to their sensitivities".

------
bkurtz13
I can't read it because of an obnoxious paywall.

There needs to be a better way to monetize written content online than this...

~~~
mcherm
[http://archive.is/CwQAP](http://archive.is/CwQAP)

~~~
Sheerluck_H
Thanks! (how'd you do that?)

------
l1n
Anyone else getting blocked by a paywall?

~~~
PeterWhittaker
Yup.

------
afarrell
If free speech only applies to government suppression of speech, then what
would be the problem with a movie studio refusing to hire actors or directors
who had been involved in the Communist Party?

Let's assume that the studio is outside CA so the following law does not
apply: [http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-
bin/displaycode?section=lab&gr...](http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-
bin/displaycode?section=lab&group=01001-02000&file=1101-1106)

------
afarrell
Running a system of justice is expensive, difficult, and subject to failures.
Failures are injustices. If we as a society decide that universities should
run their own justice systems, we must accept that it will cost a lot of money
and result in some amount of injustice. If that means denying education to
some that cannot afford it, that is a trade-off that we must acknowledge it or
increase public funding of universities.

------
coreyp_1
I hope everyone reads this.

------
lexx
This is only for subscribers...

------
enknamel
Wow. I've about cases like this but this just a new extreme. It appears
students may now freely censor professors for almost any reason.

------
sova
oh hey they took down the paywall. nice.

------
smegel
Questioning feminism has become like questioning religion in the dark ages.

Let's hope more people like her continue to speak out against these
persecutions.

~~~
loomio
Did you even read the article? The author self-identifies as a feminist. Your
implication that this is about feminism vs not-feminism is simplistic and
missing the point.

~~~
nawitus
Well, broadly speaking feminists tend to agree with these Title IX
"inquisitions". Her declaring to be a feminist doesn't really mean that
feminists tend to agree with her.

~~~
pekk
It is hard to say what feminists broadly speaking think when we do not have a
survey of self-identified feminists in front of us.

~~~
EliRivers
Hello. I am one survey point for you. I believe women should have equal
political and social rights, which makes me a feminist.

I massively disagree with the general thrust of these "inquisitions" as
discussed in the article, although the original Title IX, if I understand it,
was meant to be about equalising opportunity[1] and not about whatever this is
all about.

[1] "The principal objective of Title IX is to avoid the use of federal money
to support sex discrimination in education programs", from
[http://www.justice.gov/crt/about/cor/coord/titleix.php](http://www.justice.gov/crt/about/cor/coord/titleix.php)

~~~
hoopd
> I am one survey point for you. I believe women should have equal political
> and social rights, which makes me a feminist.

I also believe women should have equal political and social rights, yet I'm
not at all a feminist.

~~~
EliRivers
Perhaps we are using different definitions. I'm using this one, and similarly
in other dictionaries:

[http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/feminism](http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/feminism)

So by the dictionary definition, you are a feminist (and, of course, based on
your advocacy of social and political rights for women, I and anybody else
using a dictionary would describe you as a feminist, no matter how much you
insist that you're not).

What definition are you using that means that you're not, and what's the
source of that definition? It's not really fair for you to be using a
different definition without saying so in advance.

~~~
hoopd
I reject the feminist narrative of history, the feminist view of gender and
the feminist idea of patriarchy. Basically the majority of the social critique
that is the backbone of feminism. I'm also deeply suspicious of the notion
that feminism as a movement is interested in equality and not power.

Being called feminist because I believe in social and political equality is
like being called a Christian because I think heaven sounds like a wonderful
place. But IMHO if you don't believe in Jesus you're not a Christian and if
you don't believe in the feminist social critique you're not a feminist.

------
venomsnake
I think that the social discourse is moving in a place where badthink,
crimethink, goodthink and so on can be used unironically. That makes me feel
unsafe, chilled, terrified and having a visceral reaction.

~~~
tracker1
Hell, just look at "gamergate" from the past year... Even without mentioning a
side, or even which way you lean or assign a viewpoint a mention of the
situation garners a visceral response. I myself had only seen it in passing
mention a bunch on twitter a pro/anti gamergate and it took a lot of effort to
even dig into wtf was going on.

Even then it was absurd. I think that people need to grow the hell up, and
develop a little bit of a thick skin here. I also agree with other comments,
any legal charges are best met with legal council, and I don't think the law
firm in question is driven by proper motives, which should be to establish if
the charges have merit and what corrective actions to take if they do. It
seems more about perpetuating murky legal maneuvering.

~~~
Frondo
Many people do need a thicker skin.

The people whose home addresses were published, along with death threats of
unknown credibility (i.e. they could be credible, they could be jokes, how can
you tell at a glance?) don't need a thicker skin; the rest of us need to make
sure that menacing behavior doesn't happen.

It's all fun and games until the death threats/doxxing happen. (That's where
we go from actual civil or uncivil discourse, which should _always_ be ok, to
something that's _never_ appropriate/ok.)

~~~
tracker1
Just to be clear, I'm not excusing or endorsing any death threats or
disclosing the home addresses of anyone.

------
oldmanjay
strange things can happen when you optimize complex systems for pathological
cases

------
shiggerino
From the op-ed in question:

"It’s not that I didn’t make my share of mistakes, or act stupidly and
inchoately, but it was embarrassing, not traumatizing." [1]

I think this is an important point. These kids can't tell being embarrassed
from being traumatized. Presumably this woman embarrassed herself by getting
too drunk to perform in bed, so she felt traumatized, and the idiotic
professor was the obvious scapegoat.

And when the infantilized man- and womanchildren are dragged out of their
"safe spaces" to face real criticism for their embarrasing ideas, it's a
traumatic experience, so who else to blame, but those who criticise them? In
that mindset it's easy to imagine the op-ed as a retaliation.

1\. [https://chronicle.com/article/Sexual-
Paranoia/190351/](https://chronicle.com/article/Sexual-Paranoia/190351/)

------
indrax
Imagine if some company was dealing with a lawsuit related to sexual
harassment, and some mid-level executive of the company wrote a prominent
article mentioning the case, their own position, and criticizing the victim's
story...

I don't understand how she's shocked that this could be taken as retaliation.
It's disingenuous to say she "mentioned no one by name" when she was clearly
talking about the student that filed the complaint.

If you think professors should be more 'free' than corporate executive, how do
you ensure the students aren't more vulnerable than corporate employees?

This is a person in a high status position mocking someone for being
intimidated.

~~~
parennoob
> It's disingenuous to say she "mentioned no one by name" when she was clearly
> talking about the student that filed the complaint.

Read the article carefully. The student that filed the complaint wasn't the
one who she mentioned in the previous article. It was someone she had
"mentioned fleetingly" \-- so looking at the previous article [1], it might be
the grad student that the professor had previously dated, and that he
subsequently filed a lawsuit against. His reasons for doing so are not
mentioned in the article.

I fail to see how mentioning that the professor filed a lawsuit against
someone he had previously dated is retaliatory. It is a simple statement of
fact, and if anything, paints the professor in a bad light.

[1] [http://chronicle.com/article/Sexual-Paranoia-
Strikes/190351/](http://chronicle.com/article/Sexual-Paranoia-Strikes/190351/)
(paragraph starting "The aftermath...")

~~~
indrax
You can make a lot of propaganda by choosing facts.

>>"The professor sued for defamation various colleagues, administrators, and a
former grad student whom, according to his complaint, he had previously dated;
"

She's repeating a 'fact' out of the professor's complaint, while leaving out
the supposedly defaming statements. The additional relevant information might
include the conditions under which they started and stopped dating, or if it
happened at all.

So this person said something about a sexual assault suspect, then got sued
for it, and he said they had dated. Then some other professor writes about
her, and nothing about what actually happened. (And we, still now, are mainly
relying on that other professor's narrative.) And the article she's mentioned
in is extremely dismissive of the whole situation.

So who's getting attacked for free speech and stating facts here?

Let's not forget the professor's most recent book "Men: Notes From an Ongoing
Investigation (Metropolitan Books, 2014)."

~~~
tzs
The allegedly defaming statements that the professor was suing over are
irrelevant, since she is citing these lawsuits for their existence, not their
content.

> You can make a lot of propaganda by choosing facts.

Like you did by choosing to only quote half of her sentence? The full sentence
was "The professor sued for defamation various colleagues, administrators, and
a former grad student whom, according to his complaint, he had previously
dated; a judge dismissed those suits this month".

~~~
ZeroGravitas
I'm not sure of the relevance of this sentence, but since I just read the
original piece, it may be relevant that the original text didn't have the
"according to his complaint" bit until they made a correction.

Presumably this means the professor is suing someone he claimed to be dating,
who denies that they dated, and again presumably that person has made some
claim about the professors sexual conduct.

