What do activists want from accused students? “At first I thought they didn’t want me to participate in campus activities. Then I thought they didn’t want me to graduate. Now they don’t want me to have a job or be part of society. Do they want me to commit suicide? Is that what they want me to do? What is the endgame?”
washingtonexaminer.com By Ashe Schow
Bernie Sanders called for all rape accusations on college campuses to be handled through law enforcement, a controversial stance that puts him at odds with many advocates.
thehill.com By Ben Kamisar
Men looking to attend school in California should take note. The new California policies all but guarantee accused students will be found responsible without a fair or impartial investigation. Schools in California are railroading students and then ruining their lives without any care for the truth or due process.
washingtonexaminer.com By Ashe Schow
A number of law professors, even some with strong liberal feminist credentials, have spoken out against the campus rape panic and the push for harsher measures that they say trample on students’ rights…Gruber noted that in recent years, “publicity about rape culture and the campus rape crisis has created widespread anxiety over rampant rape committed by college men”—despite studies showing that sexual assault is on the decline and less prevalent on campus than off.
weeklystandard.com By Cathy Young
Judge Glen Conrad ordered the release of the documents on behalf of a lawsuit filed by University of Virginia Dean Nicole Eramo, who was maligned in the article and is now suing Rolling Stone for defamation…As it looks now, Jackie was infatuated with a fellow freshman named Ryan Duffin, who didn’t reciprocate her feelings. So Jackie made up a fake student, named “Haven Monahan” and created a fake texting account to talk to Duffin to convince him that Jackie was worthy of affection.
washingtonexaminer.com By Ashe Schow
The setup was predictable. The answers, on the other hand, were frequently shocking…nearly all the speakers had something negative to say about the way anti-harassment guidance is being interpreted by government authorities, and many were openly hostile toward the idea that the prevention of rape was a campus matter. Several others were plainly disturbed by the pitiful state of due process rights on campus. “‘Rights’ is a generous description of what these schools gave the accused,” said Tamara Rice Lave, an associate professor of law at the University of Miami, during her brief presentation.
reason.com By Robby Soave
OCR has followed the highly unusual strategy of releasing the names of colleges or universities under investigation, but refusing to release any of the details as to what prompted the Title IX complaint…OCR hasn’t explained why it has pursued this shaming strategy—whose only purpose seems to be to heighten the frenzy about the campus sexual assault issue and invite the media to assume the worst.
mindingthecampus.org By KC Johnson
The Chronicle of Higher Education has unveiled a new tool for tracking the ballooning number of federal investigations into alleged Title IX violations by colleges and universities.
www.thefire.org By Alex Morey
In recent weeks, Eramo [UVa dean] has asked the court to compel the cooperation of “Jackie,” the UVa student. In her most recent filing in the case, Eramo called Jackie a “serial liar who invented people, events and text messages” to corroborate her story, and that she is not immune from participating in the lawsuit’s discovery phase… the National Organization for Women said Eramo’s effort is going too far. One of Eramo’s attorneys said it was “unfortunate” that “Jackie and her cadre of lawyers have taken the unreasonable and legally untenable position that she is immune from routine civil discovery. And it is even more unfortunate that an organization that is supposed to advocate on behalf of women is supporting a woman who has set the cause for survivor support back so far,” said Libby Locke, a member of Eramo’s counsel.
roanoke.com By Dean Seal
“People often ask, ‘Why teach consent?”…It is a shift from the “no means no” mantra of a generation ago, the idea being that having to give, or ask for, a clear “yes” will help eliminate ambiguity. Can consent only be given verbally, or can it be indicated by body language. What’s the difference between “affirmative,” “enthusiastic” and “effective consent, how does a person gauge or indicate interest, or demonstrate consent, without having to awkwardly ask, “Is this O.K.?”… a thousand times over again- ever more frequently on college campuses — what constitutes consent is wildly more complicated.
nytimes.com By Jessica Bennett