February 16, 2015

"I recently assisted a young man who was subjected by administrators at his small liberal arts university in Oregon to a month-long investigation into all his campus relationships..."

"... seeking information about his possible sexual misconduct in them (an immense invasion of his and his friends’ privacy), and who was ordered to stay away from a fellow student (cutting him off from his housing, his campus job, and educational opportunity) — all because he reminded her of the man who had raped her months before and thousands of miles away. He was found to be completely innocent of any sexual misconduct and was informed of the basis of the complaint against him only by accident and off-hand. But the stay-away order remained in place, and was so broadly drawn up that he was at constant risk of violating it and coming under discipline for that. When the duty to prevent a 'sexually hostile environment' is interpreted this expansively, it is affirmatively indifferent to the restrained person’s complete and total innocence of any misconduct whatsoever."

From a Harvard Law Review Forum piece called  "Trading the Megaphone for the Gavel in Title IX Enforcement/Backing off the hype in Title IX enforcement" by lawprof Janet Halley. (Boldface added.)

100 comments:

campy said...

Only a few more steps to go in the grand plan.

David said...

Unfortunately, this is unsurprising. But I am please that some high quality academics are starting to push back.

Larry J said...

He should sue the Hell out of that college under Title IX for sex discrimination.

FleetUSA said...

Liberal perversity

BarrySanders20 said...

Why are you doubting her experiences?

Always picking the side of the rapists.

Gahrie said...

We should just leap to the obvious solution and ban men from college campuses.

hawkeyedjb said...

On the one hand he's innocent. But on the other hand, he's male. One fact is more important than the other, and in a university setting, we know which one.

ddh said...

Kafka must be a college administrator these days.

Michael K said...

Women are far too delicate for college. Finishing schools would be more appropriate with only single sex, plus trannies of course.

Birches said...

This sounds as if it was straight out of Catch 22.

Laslo Spatula said...

"all because he reminded her of the man who had raped her months before and thousands of miles away."

Now THAT's charisma.

I am Laslo.

Sebastian said...

Two remarkable assumptions in this line:

"My own hope is that governance feminists designing and running a new campus sexual assault establishment can acknowledge the full weight of the responsibility they are taking on."

Questions: should colleges have "sexual assault establishments"? and should they be run by "governance feminists"?

buwaya said...


Was trying to think of where this sort of thing was likely to happen, by reputation, but there are at least 6 suspects among Oregon colleges.

madAsHell said...

Reed College?

rehajm said...

...it is affirmatively indifferent to the restrained person’s complete and total innocence of any misconduct whatsoever.

and we all agree that's a bad thing, right?

n.n said...

The precedents were established with affirmative action and the civil rights movements generally.

tim in vermont said...

I would say that parody is dead, except that it appears to have morphed into real life.

Why were women's and men's colleges such a bad thing again?

Marc in Eugene said...

I see that Sebastian has already noted this but a longer citation:

".... (A)s feminists issue a series of commands from within the federal government about what the problem of campus sexual violence is and how it must be handled, and as they build new institutions that give life to those commands, they become part of governmental power."

I'm pleased to read that some of those involved in this nonsense (a certain part of which is truly nonsense and worse) are honest about what is going on. Now to read the rest of the HLR Forum essay.

Buwaya Puti, please move north and take Dr Kitzhaber's job!

chuck said...

Reed College?

That was also my first thought.

Troubled Voter said...

Wtg HLR Forum for posting a relevant piece that will be relevant to the current discussion of the topic. Online law review publications are getting to be much better than their printed issues, and law profs should be rewarded for publishing actually relevant pieces in them.

MadisonMan said...

You would think that the College would offer counselling to the woman to help her deal with the trauma of the rape rather than harassing an unfortunate male.

(I would also guess Reed)

John Althouse Cohen said...

Androphobia.

Birches said...

And it entails a commitment to the idea that women should not and do not bear any responsibility for the bad things that happen to them when they are voluntarily drunk, stoned, or both. This commitment cuts women off — in theory and in application — from assuming agency about their own lives. Since when was that a feminist idea?

Word.

buwaya said...

Reed is on the list, but it could just as easily be Lewis&Clark, Willamette, Fox, etc. Some of these are more "female" weighted than Reed.

Swifty Quick said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
TreeJoe said...

Puritans are making a comeback.

If the man floats, he must be a rapist.

campy said...

All men are rapists, and that's all they are.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Eric the Fruit Bat said...

Perhaps the day will come when guys like me will be persecuted because we remind some young woman of some other guy who was afraid to ask her out.

Left Bank of the Charles said...

There are a dozen small universities in Oregon, but Reed College is not one of them. This story does suffer from not being verifiable. Should we discount it further because it is being told by a woman?

Kyzer SoSay said...

What if a man reminds a woman of the creepy boy who sent her a suggestive Valentine's Day card back in 5th grade? Do we break out the stocks, or go straight to the gallows?

Laslo Spatula said...

I think we need to be careful with our ridicule of the sexual problems on campuses.

When I was in college I had a female student that stalked me. She was a stalker, and she stalked me. She'd show up in my classes, after my classes, she'd follow me to the bar, she'd follow me to another bar.

Inevitably she'd wear down my defenses and give me a blow-job. Day after relentless day she'd follow me to my car and give me a blow-job, she'd follow me to my apartment and give me a blow-job. Sometimes it was a hand-job under the table at the cafeteria, but mostly it was blow-jobs.

It got to where I was afraid to show up on campus because everywhere I went she was there, and then: blow-job. As a result my grades suffered, and I became moody and withdrawn.

Finally I talked to an advisor in administration but he just nodded and then tried to suck my cock.

These situations are serious, people.

I am Laslo.

Wince said...

More quibbling about how to institute the Bizzarro Sharia on campus.

lemondog said...

Suesuesuesuesuesuesuesuesuesuesuesuesuesue, etc., ad infinitum.

Titus said...

Harvard is fab and you yokels hate it because you could never attend!

campy said...

PIV is always rape, OK?

Michael K said...

" Sometimes it was a hand-job under the table at the cafeteria,"

I knew a guy who got one of these but it was in the library. It was in the 50s though so it was OK.

Sam L. said...

The Nuclear Option used again.

Reed? Maybe. Coulda been any college in Oregon. Oregon is leftist, though not as much as college administrations.

Michael K said...

"Meanwhile, though the local prosecutor stands willing to indict and has, unlike the Colleges, the subpoena power to move the identification question to the next level, Anna has refused to release the rape kit."

Why in the world would a woman do this ? It puts the whole story in doubt.

buwaya said...

College-University same-same in such anecdotal writing. Its part of a name, that's all.
Reed is very likely. Its fairly hard to get into and difficult to transfer to somewhere else with a similar repute. So its worth getting a lawyer involved.
Others are easier to switch from to a similar tier. Many schools in that tier are pretty desperate for decent students.
Also, Reed has the highest reported rape rate of any of them (which makes no sense given the nature of the student body) implying a very high reporting rate, further implying a very active administration effort.
Bigger point though is it could be any of them, almost.

tds said...

if it looks like a rapist, walks like a rapist, quacks like a rapist, ...

Fernandinande said...

More stylish school uniforms and quality school things for our dear children!

YoungHegelian said...

Did you ever notice how there are no public "faces" out of Dept. of Education associated with these new anti-rape policies? Arne Duncan every now & then will say something, but he's not out front on this. Think about it: here's these incredibly controversial rulings out of DoE, and NO ONE from DoE's Office for Civil Rights shows up on the talk shows to defend them.

My guess is that after the Obama administration ends, the DoE OCR will be shown to be stocked with a cabal of political-appointee & civil service nutjob feminists. The reason why no one from OCR ever shows up on the talk shows is because if they did we would know from looking up the CV of the OCR employee that, yes, she's a feminist nutjob, and then the jig would be up.

buwaya said...

As for Harvard - its a good place to go to get on the bureaucratic-crony-consulting parasite gravy train, but not a source of useful people. For them you are much better off looking in places like Cal Poly.

Laslo Spatula said...

Another time when I was in college I was raped by a lesbian.

We were in the same circle of friends, and -- one night after some drinks -- she told me how she would like, just once, to experience a male cock.

I told her that I was sure there were plenty of men that would be more than willing to have sex, no strings attached, with a young woman with exquisite pouty lips and phenomenal breasts, but she said it had to be me.

I thanked her for her interest, but told her I didn't want to endanger our friendship: I truly valued the friendship with this young woman with exquisite pouty lips and phenomenal breasts. And a great ass.

So, anyway, after the bar closed I was in no condition to drive, and she offered to drop me off on her way home; of course, I gladly accepted.

To make a long story short, she followed me into my apartment, took advantage of my intoxicated condition and raped me on the couch. Twice.

Worse than the feeling of being so cheaply used was that she told her girlfriend of her experience, and then her girlfriend raped me, too.

I realize not all lesbians are this way.

I am Laslo.

Fernandinande said...

(A)s feminists issue a series of commands ... they become part of governmental power.

Let us establish the Party's monolithic leadership system more thoroughly across the Party and society!

MadisonMan said...

Laslo once wrote for Penthouse Letters.

Dan Hossley said...

We are reminded everyday of the wisdom of our forefathers and the arrogance of our contemporaries.

Meade said...

"Also, Reed has the highest reported rape rate of any of them (which makes no sense given the nature of the student body) implying a very high reporting rate, further implying a very active administration effort."

If it is Reed College and the young man leaves without his degree — sometimes known as "dropping out" — he would be in some laudable company:
James Beard
Ry Cooder
Katherine Dunn
Afshin Feiz
Steve Jobs
Chris Langan

Especially Chris Langan.

Seeing Red said...

I'm getting to the point that those who go into gender studies should have their own isolated campus. It will die away slowly.

Meade said...

Accuse me of blaming the victim, fine, but Laslo, what on earth did you expect to happen when you went into that bar wearing a plaid flannel shirt?

Anonymous said...

I agree with the liberals for once. Men should have their own colleges.

We can start a new category. We already have land-grant universities, liberal arts universities, and research universities. People understand these categories.

It it time for single sex colleges known as victim universities and rapist universities.

buwaya said...

I don't think that most such "studies" programs could be moved into their own seminary-type separate institutions, as the only way they survive right now is because universities require students in other majors to take a few classes. To be fair, this also sort of applies to many liberal arts departments also.
There are a couple of colleges that are effectively a bunch of such departments stuck together, such as the New School in NYC. There is a market for this sort of thing but it isn't a large one.

Meade said...

"Men should have their own colleges."

All-Male University.
University president: RHHardin.
Motto: "Just Stop Talking to the Women and Get Back to Your Work"

Laslo Spatula said...

College was a harrowing experience for me.

One afternoon the Professor of my Ethics course called me into her office, and told me that I was in danger of failing her course.

"How can that be?" I asked. "I have scored nothing but 'A' grades on all the tests."

She told me those grades were misleading, and that to pass the course I need to perform some extra-credit work. She then explained that the extra-credit work consisted solely of me fucking her in the ass in her office.

"You're an Ethics Professor," I said. "Surely you see what is wrong in this."

"The first rule of Ethics is that nothing is fair," she replied as she bent over her desk and lifted up her dress.

What could I do? I couldn't afford to fail the course, so I fucked her in the ass; all the while she moaned and grunted the name "Nietzsche" over and over.

There are some lessons you learn in college that you never forget.


I am Laslo.

buwaya said...

You can certainly have coed colleges with no such troubles. Just get rid of in loco parentis and stop trying to organize students out of school lives. This is also a good way to cut costs.
The US has the worlds most expensive universities, for no good reason. Other than a few star institutions they are no better than free state university systems in other developed countries, that are much, much cheaper to operate. Grant funded researchers and high entrance standards (which create the reputation of US star universities) in themselves do not require high expense.
The high cost of US universities is a severe problem in social justice, in a more reasonable meaning of the term, as it hurts the poor and middle class far worse and very regressively, even with all the student aid and scholarship funds.
These costs also can be seen as an egregious misuse of these charitable funds.

tim maguire said...

What if he just said no?

Kirby Olson said...

This kind of issue is getting to be bigger and bigger, especially for white males. At Marquette University, the issue that blew up over John Macadams' blog at Marquette Warrior, in which he complained about a totalitarian feminist grad student's censorship of a student who wanted to talk about gay marriage, has now led to Macadams' being fired.

It started here:

http://mu-warrior.blogspot.com/2014/11/marquette-philosophy-instructor-gay.html

White straight men have no protections in academia, or so it is increasingly seen. Macadams will take this to court, and has legal counsel. The entire nation will see what happens and it should set a precedent for the entire gulag archipelago of colleges and universities across the country.

A thousand points of dimming light will either be extinguished, or allowed to burn into the night once more.

It's hard to predict which way this will go.

I still think Donald Sterling should be exonerated, too, because of the illegal recording and the blackmail.

Michael K said...

The way I think it will go is that four year, multi-major colleges will fade away. What will replace them is on-line learning and "certificate" courses.

My middle daughter is two years from a PhD in History and has a BS and MSLS (Library Science). She is not happy with the career choices she has had, although she turned down a couple I thought were good, and now she is taking a series of certificate courses at UCLA. The classes are mostly older (mid-career) people and no nonsense. She is working on a certificate in project management and wants to go into IT.

The certificate trend is a real one and universities must recognize the dead end they are on. MIT started an on-line program and it has gotten huge.

Gusty Winds said...

I want my daughter and son to both get college educations, but don't want them near a campus.

Either way the stats fall, it's a lose-lose. My daughter would stand a 1-in-5 chance of being sexually assaulted, or my son would face a 1-in-5 chance of being falsely accused.

All for a mere $25K to $50K a year.

Think I'll buy them both cars, and they can commute to UWM.

buwaya said...

You will always need engineering schools, the basis of civilization, because of the need for facilities. You cannot learn to operate a power plant without your own pet steam plant, or mech/manufacturing without a machine shop, forge, etc.
And I guess we will need such nice to haves as dental and medical schools too.
The rest can all go online with certification tests, I agree.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

Innocence is beside the point. Insisting on real due process is counterrevolutionary. Asking for basic fairness is equivalent so supporting rapists, and anyone who objects must be pro-rape.

Known Unknown said...

"You remind me of the man."
"What man?"
"The man with the power."
"What power?"
"The power of hoodoo."
"Who-do?"
"You do."
"Do what?"
"Remind me of the man."
"What man?" ...

Krumhorn said...

One justification for biasing the system to favor women and disfavor men is a perception that, in the campus drinking culture, men have more power than women, along with a social-change intuition that a rule shifting bargaining power over sex decisions from the former to the latter, precisely through the threat of predetermined victimhood and guilt, will be an effective way to change that culture. This logic makes sense: get them by the balls and their hearts and minds will follow.

If there ever was a formulation that captured the very essence of what is taking place today, it is this language. It's about power pure and simple.

Don't get me wrong. Over thousands of years, women have been chattel, servants, dependents and, in most cases, powerless in a world governed and controlled by men. We have fortunately moved swiftly away from that social arrangement. But there is unquestionably a strain of political logic today that would make the Y chromosome a trump card that can be played over those who are left merely with a pair of Xs.

And the consequences will be richly earned (in their view).

- Krumhorn

ps ....a shockingly well-written paper if you can tolerate all the jargon and social science-speak. I take that as the writer's device to actually get a hearing of her views. A spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go dowwwn.

James Pawlak said...

Sounds like an actionable tort to me.

I hope he does not look like me.

jr565 said...

This shouldn't be handled by school administrators. but rather the cops. However, he was subject to a month long investigation. If there is an allegation of rape what does he think should happen to him? That he doesn't go through an investigation?

jr565 said...

"But the stay-away order remained in place, and was so broadly drawn up that he was at constant risk of violating it and coming under discipline for that. When the duty to prevent a 'sexually hostile environment' is interpreted this expansively, it is affirmatively indifferent to the restrained person’s complete and total innocence of any misconduct whatsoever."

This is the problem. Not so much the investigation but that he gets tarred since he has to stay on campus. And because the campus is running the allegation they have their hands in all campus services he relies on.
There should be an investigation, it just should have been handled by cops.

Birkel said...

Not a single resident-Leftist comment so far.

Odd.

Krumhorn said...

But note also the steep asymmetry between the consequences of drinking and drug use for the complainant and for the respondent: for the former, intoxication is, to one degree or another, the basis for a per se finding of unwantedness even when assent — even when consent — has been given; but for the latter, it has no mitigating effect on his conduct.

Another excellent construction of an issue we have discussed on other related threads. Our hostess has, I hope ironically, pointed out the degree to which gender balance in sexual conduct language is so carefully crafted. But that is risible on its face. if the word 'penetration' us involved, there is only one outcome, and this is another example.

- Krumhorn

David said...

He should pee in their reservoir, just to spite them.

furious_a said...

I agree with the liberals for once. Men should have their own colleges.

We had the Service Academies until the harpies infiltrated those, too.

Meade said...

Actually, I think I'll call it Men On Strike University. Even if I do have to pay royalties to Dr. Helen.

Michelle Dulak Thomson said...

Sam L.,

Coulda been any college in Oregon. Oregon is leftist, though not as much as college administrations.

Not exactly. Portland is leftist. Salem (where I live) is not. Nor is the eastern part of the state, though admittedly it's very sparsely populated.

So I'm guessing Reed, too. I think Willamette (in Salem) wouldn't go so far, and George Fox, as an explicitly Baptist college, wouldn't either.

Michael K said...

"And I guess we will need such nice to haves as dental and medical schools too.
The rest can all go online with certification tests, I agree."

I am uneasy with the trends in medical school. Lots of online stuff and little of the hands on stuff I did 50 years ago. I teach in a remaining section of hands-on but I do worry about the trend. Most foreign medical colleges, especially those in Mexico, are lecture only with no clinical experience.

Larry J said...

Gusty Winds said...
I want my daughter and son to both get college educations, but don't want them near a campus.

Either way the stats fall, it's a lose-lose. My daughter would stand a 1-in-5 chance of being sexually assaulted, or my son would face a 1-in-5 chance of being falsely accused.

All for a mere $25K to $50K a year.


I have 3 grandsons and one granddaughter. If this insanity persists, I won't be encouraging any of them to go to college. The rewards are too few while the risks and expenses are just too high. Let them learn a skilled trade and make a living in the real world instead of having them spend years (and vast amounts of money) in an insane asylum known as the modern American university.

campy said...

" I won't be encouraging any of them to go to college."

The ruling class will be overjoyed to have less competition.

buwaya said...

I would think that hands on is most necessary in medicine. How else to learn surgery ?
Do they no longer do dissections ?
I wouldn't think the virtual sort is an adequate substitute.

buwaya said...

The only reason the ruling class values college, and only some colleges, is because they treat it as a sorting mechanism. It has no significant intellectual value on its own, or at least those parts that do add value are not valued as a sorting mechanism for the power elite.
An alternate power base does not have to adopt the same sorting mechanisms, and to the degree that alternate power bases rise the value of colleges as sorting mechanisms will fall.

Bryan C said...

"There should be an investigation, it just should have been handled by cops."

Obviously. But under the current "guidelines" the college is expected to conduct an investigation of their own, no matter what the actual cops or actual courts may decide.

So you find male students, falsely accused, who have been fully cleared of all suspicion of breaking the law. But yet they are still subject to punishment by campus zealots who have no interest in due process and who are eager to demonstrate their devotion to the cause.

David Adelman said...

He was guilty of being a man. That is enough for today's over reaching martial law.

Alexander said...

Bugger that.

The vast, vast majority of men have been servants and powerless. Women were chattel in the sense that in a pre-industrial society, breeding strong backs was the key to societal survival... but the strong backs that did the work were male, and they had as much say in the matter as the women who birthed them.

And that's just how the two lived - that doesn't account for the fact that when necessary, it was the men who were (and overwhelmingly, still are) sent out to die for the good of the tribe.

This whole 'women were bound' is so much bullshit. The history of humanity is overwhelmingly one of chains, and that doesn't change between man or woman, black or white. It really doesn't even have too much to do with class most of the time - either we grow the food and thatch the roof and split the wood and care for the sheep and raise and feed the next generation, or we all starve or freeze and die.

And where there is a ruling class of leisure, the idea that it's just a good old boy club is idiotic. Yes, a man usually fronts the thing: he usually overpowered the last guy on who claimed the spot. But don't tell me that women didn't have their own brand of power and influence through the purple-decked halls; that Agrippina didn't hold more "privilege" than 99% of the males that ever lived in the Roman Empire; that a noblewoman married off was not as much of a pawn in the games of the upper class as the second son.

So unless you can rattle off the soldiers, the truck drivers, the farmers, the clerks, the lumberjacks, the sailors, the bricklayers, the fishermen, the carpenters, the tanners, the trash collectors, et. al. who since time immemorial have lived like Kings and whom history reveres their names in song while the unnamed women toiled... let us put down this doggerel that claims that's the way the world worked.

Kirby Olson said...

Crucify all white men on Lacrosse. That was Duke's gambit.

Unknown said...

Hey this was linked from Ace!!!!

Larry J said...

campy said...
" I won't be encouraging any of them to go to college."

The ruling class will be overjoyed to have less competition.


Perhaps. But perhaps many colleges and universities will have to downsize or close should more parents and grandparents hold similar thoughts to mine. It would serve them right for creating such a poisonous environment.

khesanh0802 said...

An interesting and revealing piece. Someone should edit it to clarify its academic jargon and publish it for general consumption.

Bruce Hayden said...

One justification for biasing the system to favor women and disfavor men is a perception that, in the campus drinking culture, men have more power than women, along with a social-change intuition that a rule shifting bargaining power over sex decisions from the former to the latter, precisely through the threat of predetermined victimhood and guilt, will be an effective way to change that culture. This logic makes sense: get them by the balls and their hearts and minds will follow.

Why do the women lack power, or at least believe that they do? After all, they can now engage in sex on equal grounds with men. No chance of pregnancy (unless they want that). No emotional entanglement. Etc.

Except that isn't really probably what a lot of them want. It was foisted on them, and sounds good. Instead of the dating scene that many of us supposedly had (I had a live in girlfriend for 3 years, which meant that I never needed a date to fraternity functions), they now are stuck in a hookup culture. Women really do want more emotional commitment than men do when initially engaging in sex (on average, of course). There is little courtship left in college. And, so a lot of co-eds engage in the hookup culture, very often getting drunk before, during, etc., because that is all that they have available.

Let me suggest that you can see this with a lot of the he-says/she-says "sexual assaults" that we hear about these days. Mattress girl, by her social media postings seemed somewhat miffed that having sex with her victim didn't translate into a real relationship. And, she isn't alone there - we see it happening time and time again (and, is arguably why these college sexual discipline boards often don't want to see those social media postings).

Overall, this form of inter-sex interaction is not good for many women - and for a lot of men. Why the latter? Because some guys (the alphas, or fake alphas) are getting more than their fair share of sex, and the rest are getting less. I suspect that this was much less of a problem 40+ years ago when many of us were in college, and you essentially had to date a woman to have a chance for sex.

That, btw, is also another part of the problem. Back then, the default position was "no". Now it is often "yes" for women, when it comes to engaging in sex. They are considered some sort of prude if they don't want to - despite the reality that many young women are not comfortable with having sex with strangers.

Peter said...

' jr565' said, "This is the problem. Not so much the investigation but that he gets tarred since he has to stay on campus. And because the campus is running the allegation they have their hands in all campus services he relies on.

There should be an investigation, it just should have been handled by cops."


BUT the issue was not his guilt or innocence, it's the school's Title IX duty (as they saw it) to protect the complainant from him even though he was innocent, on the basis that since he looked like someone who may not be innocent, the very sight of him on campus limited her educational opportunities.

And therefore even if he was innocent he must be restricted.

tim in vermont said...

If men have more power than women on campus, it derives from supply and demand. Feminists have created a culture where women greatly outnumber men. Giving men the sexual whip hand. Leaving women to squabble over the few attractive men, or lower themselves to a soon to be regretted encounter with the other guys, the ones who aren't gay, anyways.

Drago said...

Birkel: "Not a single resident-Leftist comment so far"

There are no leftists involved in this caper.

Just honest, trustworthy "reasonable" middle of the roaders who are trying to protect us from the predations of vicious murderous republican/conservatives.

It's all very straightforward and if you obstinate right-wing murderous "believing in crazy rule of law" types would simply stop fighting "the future", this would all go alot more smoothly.

Unknown said...

As Alan Dershowitz remarked concerning the attitude of University administrators, "sexual assault is so heinous a crime that even innocence is not a defense."

DavidMB said...

Reed College
Hmmm... Seems a bit ham-handed (and legally actionable) for an institution whose President is a former Marine and stage Atty General. Lewis and Clark, on the other hand, is currently lead by a former professor of sociology.

bruce lorraine said...

Maybe if all males voluntarily gave up their testicles they would be more socially acceptable.
On the other hand I prefer the 'kiss my Lily white Irish ass' approach to people like these administrators.

chillblaine said...

It won't be long until this scenario plays out in the workplace. Male co-worker reminds an easily triggered female of someone bad, so she claims a hostile work environment.

mikee said...

When I was a callow college youth, I once unknowingly violated the allowed hours of visitation between our small college's all-male dorms and all-female dorms. Yes, there were limited hours when one could visit a dorm in which the opposite sex lived. I also rode dinosaurs as a small child.

Anyway, my rules violation was witnessed by a Resident Assistant who saw me leaving the dorm. She subsequently did her duty by writing me up, and forcing me to visit the office of the Assistant Dean of Students, who carefully inquired into my iniquitous violation of the rules. I was forthcoming and honest about my own failure to abide by the rules, through my misunderstanding of them, due to me rarely having reasons for visiting the girl's dorms.

The point of telling that story is the response of the university. I got a letter, supposedly also filed in my permanent record, which stated as its conclusion, "If such violation of university rules should again occur, further action will be taken." And that was the end of that. Justice was served.

The brevity, ambiguity and complete BS of the punishment letter almost made me change from Chem to Pre-Law.

Oh, that such administrators still prowled the corridors of academe!

Michael McNeil said...

While we are talking rape, this deserves a look: "Confessions of a serial rapist” (h/t: Insty).

Michael McNeil said...

Puritans are making a comeback.

If only these latter day neo-puritans were as dedicated to real democracy and republican (little-r) governance as the original Puritans were in New England 400 years ago (see Alexis de Tocqueville's penetrating discussion of that).

Todd said...

chillblaine said...
It won't be long until this scenario plays out in the workplace. Male co-worker reminds an easily triggered female of someone bad, so she claims a hostile work environment.

2/16/15, 11:15 PM


What do you think will happen when these delicate snowflakes leave the shelter of collage life and enter the world of 9 to 5? They will take all of their learned lessons with them. You can be sure that this sort of crap will play out in the work place over the next dozen years. Companies are already stocking up on the HR staff, the harassment seminars, the hostile workplace presentations and the employee folders. This virus WILL spread...

Unknown said...

This is starting to get scary folks. The social justice warriors are attempting to eradicate men from our colleges & universities. It's real.

jvermeer51 said...

Reading the HLR article, it is unclear exactly what "reminded" her of her rapist means. Was she saying she thought he could be the rapist or only that he was similar but, to her, definitely not the rapist?

Riversong said...

For an in-depth expose of the evolution of universities from institutions of higher learning into witch-hunt tribunals for the “rape culture” advocates, see: New Puritanism – New Paternalism: The “Rape Culture” Narrative Demeans Women, Demonizes Men, and Turns Universities into Witch Hunt Tribunals