College Rape Survivor Faces Potential Expulsion For ‘Intimidating’ Her Rapist

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**KalashnikovMarine**

Jezebel is always a little suspect as a source, but meine gott.

http://jezebel.com/5986693/college-rape-survivor-faces-potential-expulsion-for-intimidating-her-rapist

Last month, former University of North Carolina assistant dean of students Melinda Manning, three students and one former student filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights on behalf of themselves and 64 other unnamed sexual assault survivors, alleging that university officials pressured Manning into underreporting cases and violated the Campus Sexual Assault Victims' Bill of Rights, the Clery Act and the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), and equal opportunity mandates under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, Titles VI and VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Now sophomore Landen Gambill, one of the students named in the case, says she's being punished by the Office of Student Conduct for "intimidating" her rapist by speaking to the press about her sexual assault.

.......

On January 29th, 10 days after news broke about the OCR case, Landen received an email from Elizabeth Ireland, the Graduate & Professional Schools Student Attorney General, who wrote that she "received a report of a possible violation of the Honor Code on which you are listed as the reporting party." Since Landen knew she hadn't done anything wrong — she hadn't even (and still hasn't) publicly identified her rapist, even though he lives across the street from her on campus — she ignored the warning and continued to tell her story.

......

Landen said that she attended a preliminary Honor Court meeting and asked whether she could have violated the Honor Code simply by saying she was raped; the answer was yes.

"This type of gross injustice is the reason why UNC students are speaking out and demanding answers," Landen told us. "The reason why I'm so vocal about this isn't because I just want justice for my case. I want to make sure no one else has to go through this if they want to report an assault to the university."

The question I come away with is why the nine circles of hell are schools dealing with felony grade criminal charges /internally/? I'm just a midwest jarhead but it seems to me that rape charges are abit out of the jurisdiction of a panel comprised of undergrad and postgrad students with some faculty. Given what just happened in Penn State though it wouldn't shock me terribly that a school is playing "CYA" as much as they can with just about everything.

**Frazzled**

Crimes on campus should be the subject of the local police (AND NOT CAMPUS RENT A COPS). The college should have no business being involved...AT ALL.

**azazel the cat**

This is the sort of thing I'd expect from Duke, but not UNC!

EDIT: yeah, I can't come up with a good reason why rentacops would ever handle this type of situation.

**KalashnikovMarine**

Well most Campus Police officers are actual cops, at least here in CO they are, but it's not even rentacops dealing with these rape accusations. It's a panel of STUDENTS.

Side note, didn't the Duke lads get acquitted?

**Alfndrate**

Wow... this is a horrible fething story... >_<

Though in my experience, many universities try ot handle things in house so that they don't have to get the cops involved.

**whembly**

Guys... some campus police ARE accredidated(sp?) Police institutions.

Campus organizations/faculties should have NO bearings/jurisdiction on this at all.

There was a story somewhere where the faculties made a student's life hell after he was accused of rape. He was able to prove otherwise, but that didn't change the original decision.

Anyhoo... it really should be addressed by the Police.

**Ahtman**

KalashnikovMarine wrote:
Side note, didn't the Duke lads get acquitted?

They were indeed acquitted and the DA was disbarred, if I recall correctly.

**Lordhat**

I know the police at Arizona State are 'real' police. Also, I don't blame the victims, but why in the world would you LET your rape be 'handled' by an 'Honor Court' instead of a court of law? It seems to me that as soon as I heard the words "Honor Court" I would be hightailing it straight to the nearest City or State Police Precinct off campus to report a felony, and possibly a lawyer's office about civil damages.

**Da Boss**

Well, I suppose if you'd been through something traumatic like that, and stuff was happening, you might go along with the flow of events if it seemed like some sort of sensible resolution was coming. She doesn't seem to be "letting" them do this now, since she's gone public about it.

Very odd case. I can't see why someone talking about this is the university's business. It's between the two people and the law.

**KalashnikovMarine**

Da Boss wrote:

Very odd case. I can't see why someone talking about this is the university's business. It's between the two people and the law.

It has the possibility to damage the university's name and reputation of course.

**Frazzled**

whembly wrote:
Guys... some campus police ARE accredidated(sp?) Police institutions.

.

That means nothing to me. I don't want Barney Fife in charge of solving a crime. Real police please.

**DutchKillsRambo**

Frazzled wrote:
whembly wrote:
Guys... some campus police ARE accredidated(sp?) Police institutions.

.

That means nothing to me. I don't want Barney Fife in charge of solving a crime. Real police please.

On SUNY campuses they're state troopers.

**whembly**

Frazzled wrote:
whembly wrote:
Guys... some campus police ARE accredidated(sp?) Police institutions.

.

That means nothing to me. I don't want Barney Fife in charge of solving a crime. Real police please.

That may be true in your great state of Texas... but, some (not all) University Police are staffed with competent folks. o.O

**DutchKillsRambo**

So re-reading it almost sounds like a non-story. The Honor Court thing is completely student run and has no relevancy to the actual court trial. It could be as simple as something like there being a clause in the Office of Student Conduct that states any interaction with a police matter results in an Honor Court trial.

Overall it seems strange and I'm guessing there is more to the story.

**hotsauceman1**

Wth is an honor code? Or court for that matter? Looks to me that they want to sweep this under the rug by getting rid of everyone involved.

**whembly**

DutchKillsRambo wrote:
So re-reading it almost sounds like a non-story. The Honor Court thing is completely student run and has no relevancy to the actual court trial. It could be as simple as something like there being a clause in the Office of Student Conduct that states any interaction with a police matter results in an Honor Court trial.

Overall it seems strange and I'm guessing there is more to the story.

Honor Court trial is a BAD thing. That's the issue.

**Manchu**

DutchKillsRambo wrote:
So re-reading it almost sounds like a non-story.

Looks like you cracked the code!

**DutchKillsRambo**

I'm guessing an Honor Court is similar to the student-run judiciary committees in my school where if you were involved in any legal trouble (off-campus or not) they would decide if any further action from the school was necessary. Pretty common I believe.

**Grey Templar**

Frazzled wrote:
Crimes on campus should be the subject of the local police (AND NOT CAMPUS RENT A COPS). The college should have no business being involved...AT ALL.

Lots of Colleges have real Cops. The Junior College I went to had a jurisdiction half the size of the city it was located in, and my current College's police force is the same size as the town.

But yeah, the College itself has no business dealing with these charges.

**Manchu**

hotsauceman1 wrote:
Wth is an honor code? Or court for that matter? Looks to me that they want to sweep this under the rug by getting rid of everyone involved.

An honor code is a set of rules that people belonging to a voluntary association agree to abide by on pain of expulsion from that association. Claiming that you were raped does not relive you of your obligations under that agreement. If you conduct yourself in violation of the code, usually in the determination of your peers, you will be expelled. The artcle OP quotes (but fails to cite) doesn't bother to clarify what behavior potentially violated the honor code. OP does mention, however, the unreliability of the source.

http://jezebel.com/5986693/college-rape-survivor-faces-potential-expulsion-for-intimidating-her-rapist

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jezebel_(website)

**Frazzled**

DutchKillsRambo wrote:
Frazzled wrote:
whembly wrote:
Guys... some campus police ARE accredidated(sp?) Police institutions.

.

That means nothing to me. I don't want Barney Fife in charge of solving a crime. Real police please.

On SUNY campuses they're state troopers.

Yes and my church hires AIPD. So what? They have to have the organization. Unless the State of NY is given jurisdiction, its not relevant. Now, having said that, that may be the case there.

But these are two separate issues I think. You have the criminal aspect then the student life aspect (getting expelled from campus or dorm that sort of thing). For the student life aspect, there's no good outcome here. Sometimes people are actually innocent.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

whembly wrote:
Frazzled wrote:
whembly wrote:
Guys... some campus police ARE accredidated(sp?) Police institutions.

.

That means nothing to me. I don't want Barney Fife in charge of solving a crime. Real police please.

That may be true in your great state of Texas... but, some (not all) University Police are staffed with competent folks. o.O

And these nattering nabobs have the resources to investiogate crimes like rape? Hardly, even if they were freaking Sam Spade.

**Alfndrate**

whembly wrote:
Frazzled wrote:
whembly wrote:
Guys... some campus police ARE accredidated(sp?) Police institutions.

.

That means nothing to me. I don't want Barney Fife in charge of solving a crime. Real police please.

That may be true in your great state of Texas... but, some (not all) University Police are staffed with competent folks. o.O

Not my university's security officers...

They're all incompetent feths...

We had a guy who was in college for set design and thatrical production or some such crap... One night he decided to get drunk and pull an insane prank on one of our fraternity brothers while he was at another college partying (would be returning later that night). As he drank pure vodka from a gatorade bottle, he proceeded to remove the door number, move it 1 room down, drywalled over the door, painted it to match the rest of the hallway. Security stopped by twice while he was doing it, the first time they found it funny he was pulling the prank (a blatant violation of the school's rules), and didn't smell the vodka on him. Then because he forgot about the kid's posters, he climbed on to the roof of the building, and slid into the window and stole the posters from the door. Proceeded to climb back out and get them up on the door 1 room down. Security came back because there were reports of someone on the roof, again didn't think anything of this...

the kid who was being pranked came back sober and started ripping the wall down, and got written up, and then got the rest of the fraternity in trouble except the 1 person that wasn't on campus all weekend (had receipts for gas purchases, etc...), and wasn't on the video they made while doing this whole thing...

Suffice it to say that's just a single anecdote, but there have been several officers getting fired for buying booze for students, letting students into buildings when they weren't on the 24 hr access list, and various other stupid things.

**Grey Templar**

Depends on the school I guess. All the colleges here in Cali that I have experience with have real full on police forces.

**Frazzled**

DutchKillsRambo wrote:
So re-reading it almost sounds like a non-story. The Honor Court thing is completely student run and has no relevancy to the actual court trial. It could be as simple as something like there being a clause in the Office of Student Conduct that states any interaction with a police matter results in an Honor Court trial.

Overall it seems strange and I'm guessing there is more to the story.

Yea, and that everyone is held confidential or such. The accuser could have violated that. Like I said, if you remember that sometimes people are innocent (I know it burns for me to say that), then commencing operation Pillory in the Public Square is not right either.

Visualize "the victim" going around saying you (Mrs. Innocent) got him drunk and raped him? Lets imagine there's a criminal investigation going on but nothing has moved forward. What if that person tried to get you thrown out of your dorm room, out of school itself?

Now flip it. The victim sees the police called in. Yet her attacker is in plain sight, the school star jock. He's still there, seemingly invulnerable. Nothing is being done! So you speak out, and the school closes ranks against their star jock and starts threatening YOU.

Yerg.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Grey Templar wrote:
Depends on the school I guess. All the colleges here in Cali that I have experience with have real full on police forces.

Sufficient to investigate a rape? Horse gak.
The colleges I went to in Cali had Barney Fife's. Good for writing a ticket. Not good for anything else.

**Manchu**

Frazzled wrote:
if you remember that sometimes people are innocent (I know it burns for me to say that)

Nevermind that, this is a rape story. Of course there was a rape. Saying otherwise means you hate women and want to rape them. That's right, now you're a rapist -- and you know what it means if you try and deny it.

In all seriousness, please see how the article refers to the mystery man as "her rapist." As determined by which court of law again?

**Alfndrate**

Manchu wrote:
Frazzled wrote:
if you remember that sometimes people are innocent (I know it burns for me to say that)
Nevermind that, this is a rape story. Of course there was a rape. Saying otherwise means you hate women and want to rape them. That's right, now you're a rapist -- and you know what it means if you try and deny it.

In all seriousness, please see how the article refers to the mystery man as "her rapist." As determined by which court of law again?

That does go back to KM's warning at the beginning about Jezebel as a source...

While women's rights isn't equal with men, looking at tumblr for posts marked misandry have lead to hours of laughter on my part... And with that, I'm off to the camp where they send the "women-hating men"...

**Lordhat**

Frazzled wrote:

Sufficient to investigate a rape?

ASU certainly does. It's an actual honest to god Police department, whose jurisdiction just happens to be the college campus.

**Frazzled**

Manchu wrote:
Frazzled wrote:
if you remember that sometimes people are innocent (I know it burns for me to say that)
Nevermind that, this is a rape story. Of course there was a rape. Saying otherwise means you hate women and want to rape them. That's right, now you're a rapist -- and you know what it means if you try and deny it.

In all seriousness, please see how the article refers to the mystery man as "her rapist." As determined by which court of law again?

Of course it was. I'm not denying it. BURN HIM! See I flow like water baby because me likes da wimminz.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Lordhat wrote:
Frazzled wrote:

Sufficient to investigate a rape?

ASU certainly does. It's an actual honest to god Police department, whose jurisdiction just happens to be the college campus.

I am not faulting the police officers. But they are not going to have the resources and experience in handling major crimes.
1. If you were the victim would you trust them to solve your crime?
2. They have a conflict of interest, to protect the school's reputation.
3. If they were experienced in this area, maybe it would be wise not to go to that school? Jeezh

**KalashnikovMarine**

Manchu wrote:
hotsauceman1 wrote:
Wth is an honor code? Or court for that matter? Looks to me that they want to sweep this under the rug by getting rid of everyone involved.
An honor code is a set of rules that people belonging to a voluntary association agree to abide by on pain of expulsion from that association. Claiming that you were raped does not relive you of your obligations under that agreement. If you conduct yourself in violation of the code, usually in the determination of your peers, you will be expelled. The artcle OP quotes (but fails to cite) doesn't bother to clarify what behavior potentially violated the honor code. OP does mention, however, the unreliability of the source.

http://jezebel.com/5986693/college-rape-survivor-faces-potential-expulsion-for-intimidating-her-rapist

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jezebel_(website)

whoops sorry, coulda sworn I pasted the link in there.

**Grey Templar**

Frazzled wrote:
Manchu wrote:
Frazzled wrote:
if you remember that sometimes people are innocent (I know it burns for me to say that)
Nevermind that, this is a rape story. Of course there was a rape. Saying otherwise means you hate women and want to rape them. That's right, now you're a rapist -- and you know what it means if you try and deny it.

In all seriousness, please see how the article refers to the mystery man as "her rapist." As determined by which court of law again?

Of course it was. I'm not denying it. BURN HIM! See I flow like water baby because me likes da wimminz.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Lordhat wrote:
Frazzled wrote:

Sufficient to investigate a rape?

ASU certainly does. It's an actual honest to god Police department, whose jurisdiction just happens to be the college campus.

I am not faulting the police officers. But they are not going to have the resources and experience in handling major crimes.
1. If you were the victim would you trust them to solve your crime?
2. They have a conflict of interest, to protect the school's reputation.
3. If they were experienced in this area, maybe it would be wise not to go to that school? Jeezh

I don't know about that.

College campuses would have their fair share of crime. Crimes related to Alcohol and Drugs(of which Rape is one of them) would seem like their speciality.

Rape is one of those crimes that goes hand in hand with drunken frat parties. So I would say that College Police departments would be specially trained to handle it as it comes with the territory so to speak.