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September 13, 2016 11:19 AM UTC
11 Comments
Regardless of the issue to which it applies, due process is a core value of our country. Whether it applies to a public university, or private schools which benefit from government loans and grants, this critical constitutional protection should apply to all.
As someone who hung around college campuses for my extensive education and as a first career, I believe there is no easy answer or "right" approach to investigating sexual assault, and still less agreement on what should be done about sexual assaults on campus. Throw in the fraternity and sorority groups and the prejudicial attitudes towards them (for and against) and there is a bubbling stew nearly certain to justify strong feelings about what should be done.
As a board member, Katy Brown may or may not strongly believe in the legislation. Probably would be worthwhile to ask her. I would find it more interesting to know if she thinks national legislation should mandate a single approach for all institutions, and whether the federal government really should have so much power.
I don't understand why the crime of rape is treated as an in house university matter at all. I don't understand why we have a parallel sort of university justice system. Rape, like every other crime should not be handled by universities but by law enforcement. Yes universities should do their best to maintain safe environments via rules and education and have the right to shut down fraternities, expel students and take other measures in response to campus crime but crime should be a police matter and matter for our criminal courts whether it takes place on or off a college campus.
If a crime is committed at a place of work the employer doesn't determine how it should be handled or what the punishment should be. The police and the criminal justice system do. Why should it be different only for universities?
Actually, there are a lot of very good reasons. Please read:
Why schools handle sexual violence reports
Translation: due process isn't good enough when it comes to "rape culture" witch hunts.
A woman who can't afford to go to a university has to go through the criminal justice system if she's raped by someone who lives in her apartment complex or shares her place of work. She has to either file charges or deal with the close proximity of that person. There will be no in house process to deal with it at her apartment complex or place of work. Nobody will get evicted or fired if she isn't willing to file charge and bring the guy to trial. Why should it be different for young women who can afford to go to college and live on campus than for the townie who works at a car dealership?
Why should the coed have a special process that is more sparing of her feelings that isn't available to the townie? Crime is crime on or off campus and college women should have no right to special treatment not available to blue collar and white collar working women.
On the flip side young men attending college should have the same right to due process in the criminal justice system when they are accused of a crime as anyone else.
I say, remove the universities from the equation. If a crime is committed it should be dealt with via the criminal justice system/
Your buddy Mike Coffman would disagree with you, Modster -at least as far as if the military should have a parallel reporting structure for sexual assaults. in a 2014 op-ed, Coffman wrote
This is one of the few instances that I actually agree with Mike Coffman. He's actually pretty good on this issue – cosponsoring legislation protecting military whistleblowers, and extending protections to male victims of sexual trauma, for example.
I wonder if Coffman's going to change his principled stance now that his buddy Donald Trump has claimed that sexual assault in the military is the fault of women serving alongside men.
On the issue of how universities handle sexual assaults, I'm in favor of the university being a supplementary system, but not replacing the criminal justice system. I don't think universities should have the option of not reporting assaults. One of my family members was assaulted in their junior year and dropped out. There were no support systems back then. It cost this person an educational opportunity.
Yes, and yes. It is a matter both for law enforcement and for the university to handle.
You cite the workplace as a parallel, and it is a good one. If a rape happens in the workplace, the employer is well within their rights to investigate and take action they deem appropriate against the alleged perpetrator even before the wheels of justice have run their course. In fact, they have an obligation to do so. Employers must provide a safe work space for their employees. Similarly, university is obligated to do the same for their students. It is also worth noting that the burden that must be cleared for an employer or learning institution to take remedial action (generally "substantial evidence") against an alleged perpetrator is not nearly as high as in a criminal court (beyond a reasonable doubt).
But we're not talking about the difference between levels of evidence. We're not talking about civil v criminal, preponderance of evidence v reasonable doubt. If a woman refuses to report a rape to police and proceed via our criminal justice system at all then I don't see where a university or employer or apartment manager has any grounds to take any action. If you've been raped it's the police you need to report that to first, not your university, employer or apartment complex manager.
I see what you are saying, but disagree. If a coworker punches you in the face, you can report it to your employer and they can take appropriate action of terminating the perpetrator. You are not, however, under any obligation to report the assault to the police….and the fact that it was not reported to the police does not shield the employer from taking action they deem appropriate. Same with students at a college campus. Employers/schools should not cover anything up or discourage victims from reporting, on the contrary, they should encourage it, but ultimately they must take action independent of the decision made by the victim.
Anyone can accuse anyone else of anything and believers in our system of justice can't approve of any action taken against anyone on the basis of accusation alone.
But even that is beside the essential point that criminal matters should be handled through the criminal justice system first and foremost. It's certainly not as if universities have proved adept at handling these crime related issues in any case. Quite the opposite. Injustice abounds, mainly for the victim. It's also not as if no one has ever been falsely accused or had their lives ruined by the false accusation and action taken against them as a result.
Mistakes are made even in the context of our criminal justice system. Some of these mistakes result in victims failing to receive justice, some result in the falsely or sometimes just mistakenly accused failing to receive justice.
It strikes me that such mistakes are much more likely to be made by non-professionals less qualified to handle these matters and faced with more conflicting motives. If anything, the result at universities most often seems to come down on the side of being unsatisfactory for the alleged victim rather than the other way around.
That's why I believe that criminal matters should be handled via the professionals in our criminal justice system instead of by people with vested interests in the outcomes such as university officials who have all sorts of conflicts of interest including consideration of the reputation of their institution, the involvement of star athletes who bring in lots of money, maybe the involvement of respected colleagues or students with wealthy parent donors, very much like the inherent conflicts in the military where the justice system is completely entwined with the chain of command.
I don't think these conflicts can be resolved and justice can reliably be achieved without removing the most vested interests from the equation. In the case of universities that should mean turning the matter over to the local criminal justice authorities outside of the institution for the greatest chance of a fair and just resolution.
If the criminal case failed for falling short of the "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard but a preponderance of evidence was brought to light in the proceedings then the university could address the case via an in house procedure as a civil court addressed the OJ case after the failure to convict in criminal court and possibly find against the accused at that point based on the lesser standard as was the case with OJ.