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http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/lawsuit-men-treated-unfairly-college-sex-assault-cases-44171202

Here's something that happened in my backyard. In a he said-she said case they both made claims of sexual assault. She admits to performing an oral act on him while he was unconscious without his permission. College believes her, mandatory reporters DON'T report his claims, he is expelled and she gets to go on with her life.

Regardless of what actually happened I see four problems with the university's actions. They failed in their mandatory reporting. They never investigated his side of the story. There was no evidence other than her story, which shouldn't pull any more weight than his. They fully ignored her confession.


I honestly hope this college gets millions taken from them and it serves as an example to others.

Since the Department of Education sent their letter that mandated universities obliterate common standards of evidence and due process, and then followed it by putting 20 universities on a list of bad schools that had to prove themselves in compliance, this whole issue has been severely F'd up on US campuses.

I truly hope that with a new President the pendulum swings hard back to sanity.

 cuda1179 wrote:
I truly hope that with a new President the pendulum swings hard back to sanity.

No chance. The man lives in a reality-proof bubble.

 feeder wrote:

 cuda1179 wrote:
I truly hope that with a new President the pendulum swings hard back to sanity.

No chance. The man lives in a reality-proof bubble.

That is not what was implied but ok buddy.

greycatfish wrote:

 feeder wrote:

 cuda1179 wrote:
I truly hope that with a new President the pendulum swings hard back to sanity.

No chance. The man lives in a reality-proof bubble.

That is not what was implied but ok buddy.

Huh, I read that as "swings back to reality".

But what was implied? The president's firm hand will guide America's higher bastions of learning?

 feeder wrote:

greycatfish wrote:

 feeder wrote:

 cuda1179 wrote:
I truly hope that with a new President the pendulum swings hard back to sanity.

No chance. The man lives in a reality-proof bubble.

That is not what was implied but ok buddy.

Huh, I read that as "swings back to reality".

But what was implied? The president's firm hand will guide America's higher bastions of learning?

I think the implication is that this is another "Thanks, Obama" moment, but considering the President-elect has his own history with sexual assault I am not sure how much attention he will give this matter.

Although, given Trumps sexual assault history, perhaps "the hard swing back to sanity" will be a return to the glory days of Animal House-style college shenanigans.

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:

 feeder wrote:

greycatfish wrote:

 feeder wrote:

 cuda1179 wrote:
I truly hope that with a new President the pendulum swings hard back to sanity.

No chance. The man lives in a reality-proof bubble.

That is not what was implied but ok buddy.

Huh, I read that as "swings back to reality".

But what was implied? The president's firm hand will guide America's higher bastions of learning?

I think the implication is that this is another "Thanks, Obama" moment, but considering the President-elect has his own history with sexual assault I am not sure how much attention he will give this matter.

Although, given Trumps sexual assault history, perhaps "the hard swing back to sanity" will be a return to the glory days of Animal House-style college shenanigans.

We are hoping for the days before Rolling Stone and Mattress Girl witch hunts without due process, or even common law, the days before University kangaroo courts beholden only to ideology and few laws.

The helicopter will be with you shortly.

greycatfish wrote:

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:

 feeder wrote:

greycatfish wrote:

 feeder wrote:

 cuda1179 wrote:
I truly hope that with a new President the pendulum swings hard back to sanity.

No chance. The man lives in a reality-proof bubble.

That is not what was implied but ok buddy.

Huh, I read that as "swings back to reality".

But what was implied? The president's firm hand will guide America's higher bastions of learning?

I think the implication is that this is another "Thanks, Obama" moment, but considering the President-elect has his own history with sexual assault I am not sure how much attention he will give this matter.

Although, given Trumps sexual assault history, perhaps "the hard swing back to sanity" will be a return to the glory days of Animal House-style college shenanigans.

We are hoping for the days before Rolling Stone and Mattress Girl witch hunts without due process, or even common law, the days before University kangaroo courts beholden only to ideology and few laws.

The helicopter will be with you shortly.

Fair enough, but what specifically will Trump do to bring back the golden age of due process and fair trials?

 feeder wrote:
Fair enough, but what specifically will Trump do to bring back the golden age of due process and fair trials?

He will make sexual assault great again.

Wait a second...

greycatfish wrote:

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:

 feeder wrote:

greycatfish wrote:

 feeder wrote:

 cuda1179 wrote:
I truly hope that with a new President the pendulum swings hard back to sanity.

No chance. The man lives in a reality-proof bubble.

That is not what was implied but ok buddy.

Huh, I read that as "swings back to reality".

But what was implied? The president's firm hand will guide America's higher bastions of learning?

I think the implication is that this is another "Thanks, Obama" moment, but considering the President-elect has his own history with sexual assault I am not sure how much attention he will give this matter.

Although, given Trumps sexual assault history, perhaps "the hard swing back to sanity" will be a return to the glory days of Animal House-style college shenanigans.

We are hoping for the days before Rolling Stone and Mattress Girl witch hunts without due process, or even common law, the days before University kangaroo courts beholden only to ideology and few laws.

The helicopter will be with you shortly.

Rolling Stone's piss-poor editorial process is a separate issue.

"Mattress Girl" and even the case posted in the OP are extreme examples of this process not working well, no argument here. However, campus assaults are a known issue that need to be addressed and the rights of men and women on college campuses need to be protected while investigations go on. I think most of us could agree on that. There needs to be more work done in this area, obviously, but I highly doubt Trump, or anyone in his administration will handle this issue properly.

Based on Trumps history with women, do you really think he is the president that will move this issue forward in any meaningful way, greycatfish? Or is he the type to reminisce about "glory days" long past when men could grab pussy or raid panties with impunity?

I don't have a daughter, and I am no longer in college as a student, so this issue only concerns me in regards to the embarrassment I feel as an American reading about students being subjected to sexual crimes on opur college campus. As a lecturer at a local state college I am concerned for my students, many of whom I know will experience assault in some form during their time on campus. This is a real issue that needs real solutions.

Is the current system perfect? Absolutely not. Men need more protections, especially during the investigation process. Emily Yoffe wrote a great piece about this two years back on Slate.

However, the shortcomings and overreactions of the policies in place now, do not minimize the problems that exist on our colleges.

So, what makes you think Trump is the man for this job, greycatfish?

Oh, and I am not sure what the feth your helicopter comment is about so I'll ignore that one.

 SilverMK2 wrote:

 feeder wrote:
Fair enough, but what specifically will Trump do to bring back the golden age of due process and fair trials?

He will make sexual assault great again.

Wait a second...

It's funny too. I have a roommate who got suspended from university because he got slapped with a DUI on the heels of being cited for public indecency when he walked black out drunk through the campus naked (his clothes were found along the road to the University campus). Especially with some of the top rated binge drinking schools being PASSHE schools, obviously the university takes students getting black out drunk and causing a scene twice in two weeks a little seriously, and he didn't take it seriously at all. Instead he challenged the school to prove he was drunk which is just... come on XD

Getting thrown out of school isn't a criminal proceeding. There was never due process involved, and the burden of proof burden has always been lower.

That said, if the OP article is an accurate summation, it looks pretty unfair. Both students admit to being drunk. Both admit to stuff maybe happening, and one overtly admits to X without consent, but the person suspended is the person who does not admit to X without consent? That's pretty dumb. Maybe there's more to this than just the article, but then apparently there's other cases. I didn't find them in a google search, but I found four other ongoing legal problems related to the University which doesn't exactly seem normal.

This happened to two friends of mine in college. One got completely drunk and the girl took advantage of him, felt "guilty" for having sex (she had just joined the Bible-group), and blamed the guy who was almost passed out for taking advantage of her. The other was a situation where the guy flirted with every girl under the sun, and one of them took it personally that he WOULDNT sleep with her (he was one of the top guys on the soccer team, she was a pot smoking 400lb girl). So she made up a story. School sided with her.

So girls like this? They're pieces of gak.

One of my biggest gripes with Universities right now (and I've been in universities for basically 7 years now so I've gotten to be very familiar with how they do things) is that they aren't interested in protecting students. University administrations are interested in protecting the university. They don't care how drunk, high, or sexed the student body is unless it becomes a potential news story, and I can think of a lot of instances where I've seen the university prioritize burying the problem over actually solving it (or even just humanely considering that university policy is setting students up for trouble).

It's the current year, identity trumps facts.

I guess I take this article a little on the personal side. As someone that was sexually assaulted in college I tried to report it to campus police. Despite people literally photographing the incident and placing pictures online the police said their was no case and refused to either investigate or file a report.

Colleges really don't care about anything other than appeasing those that scream the loudest, which is a shame for what we are teaching the future.

 LordofHats wrote:
That said, if the OP article is an accurate summation, it looks pretty unfair.

Shockingly enough, it isn't an accurate summation. She said she did initiate a sex act while he was drunk, like the OP said, but what he left out is that this didn't bother the guy at all, he then took the girl back to his place. The OP also left out the bit where she filed her claim the next morning, while the boy only filed his after he was informed about her accusation, it was on this basis that that investigators decided to cancel

Seems a pretty messy case, for sure, and I'm not saying he wasn't treated unfairly. It's hard to conclude much from the story presented in the media, really we'd have to assess the detailed testimony of both people. However, that doesn't mean the OP's story is accurate or should be accepted, because it was fairly selective in presenting the facts.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 cuda1179 wrote:
I guess I take this article a little on the personal side. As someone that was sexually assaulted in college I tried to report it to campus police. Despite people literally photographing the incident and placing pictures online the police said their was no case and refused to either investigate or file a report.

Colleges really don't care about anything other than appeasing those that scream the loudest, which is a shame for what we are teaching the future.

Sexual assault is always a mess, and it is unlikely to ever be solved through legal processes. That doesn't mean legal processes shouldn't be attempted, just that we should accept they'll always be messy and fairly unreliable, and that real improvement will probably have to come more from cultural reforms that stop incidents happening in the first place.

 sebster wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
That said, if the OP article is an accurate summation, it looks pretty unfair.

Shockingly enough, it isn't an accurate summation. She said she did initiate a sex act while he was drunk, like the OP said, but what he left out is that this didn't bother the guy at all, he then took the girl back to his place. The OP also left out the bit where she filed her claim the next morning, while the boy only filed his after he was informed about her accusation, it was on this basis that that investigators decided to cancel

Seems a pretty messy case, for sure, and I'm not saying he wasn't treated unfairly. It's hard to conclude much from the story presented in the media, really we'd have to assess the detailed testimony of both people. However, that doesn't mean the OP's story is accurate or should be accepted, because it was fairly selective in presenting the facts.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 cuda1179 wrote:
I guess I take this article a little on the personal side. As someone that was sexually assaulted in college I tried to report it to campus police. Despite people literally photographing the incident and placing pictures online the police said their was no case and refused to either investigate or file a report.

Colleges really don't care about anything other than appeasing those that scream the loudest, which is a shame for what we are teaching the future.

Sexual assault is always a mess, and it is unlikely to ever be solved through legal processes. That doesn't mean legal processes shouldn't be attempted, just that we should accept they'll always be messy and fairly unreliable, and that real improvement will probably have to come more from cultural reforms that stop incidents happening in the first place.

She admitted doing it WITHOUT his permission. Not to mention he passed out during the act. Either of those two things qualifies it as sexual assault, regardless of if he was okay with it after the fact. Simply because she beat him to the punch in filing a complaint doesn't make it any less valid. The college also had a mandatory obligation to report his complaint, regardless of how "bs" they think it is. They failed to do it.

 cuda1179 wrote:
She admitted doing it WITHOUT his permission. Not to mention he passed out during the act. Either of those two things qualifies it as sexual assault, regardless of if he was okay with it after the fact.

This is where we get in to the complexities of sexual assault. Make no mistake, committing an act like that is a bad idea all the time, but the idea that it demands punishment no matter what is more than a bit screwed up. Drunk people have sex. It happens. If one of the drunk people later feels violated, well then there's a big problem. But if a person only claims to have felt violated once an allegation was made against them, well then taking the stance you did is more than a bit contrived.

Simply because she beat him to the punch in filing a complaint doesn't make it any less valid.

Actually, a complaint being lodged in retaliation is evidence. This is true in tit-for-tat sexual assault claims, or when, for instance, a woman's allegation that she was raped by her husband is made straight after he files for a divorce.

It isn't automatically evidence that can dismiss a case, but claiming it can't be considered at all, let alone as you did just not mention it at all, is pretty clearly mistaken.

 sebster wrote:

 cuda1179 wrote:
She admitted doing it WITHOUT his permission. Not to mention he passed out during the act. Either of those two things qualifies it as sexual assault, regardless of if he was okay with it after the fact.

This is where we get in to the complexities of sexual assault. Make no mistake, committing an act like that is a bad idea all the time, but the idea that it demands punishment no matter what is more than a bit screwed up. Drunk people have sex. It happens. If one of the drunk people later feels violated, well then there's a big problem. But if a person only claims to have felt violated once an allegation was made against them, well then taking the stance you did is more than a bit contrived.

Simply because she beat him to the punch in filing a complaint doesn't make it any less valid.

Actually, a complaint being lodged in retaliation is evidence. This is true in tit-for-tat sexual assault claims, or when, for instance, a woman's allegation that she was raped by her husband is made straight after he files for a divorce.

It isn't automatically evidence that can dismiss a case, but claiming it can't be considered at all, let alone as you did just not mention it at all, is pretty clearly mistaken.

Actually, there have been several cases (both legal and in college dismissals) where a person was found guilty of sexual assault against a person who was completely okay with it after the fact. There have been cases that were significantly less murky than her actions that have resulted in a dismissal. At the very least they both should have been expelled. The college's standards are of a zero tolerance. The simple fact is that they did tolerate her admittedly rape actions.