Monthly Archives: January 2020

OWEN LABRIE: How A ’90s Internet Law Determined a 2014 Rape Case

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OWEN LABRIE: How A ’90s Internet Law Determined a 2014 Rape Case

In June 2014, Labrie, then 18, was accused of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old classmate at the St. Paul’s School in Concord, New Hampshire—a charge he continues to deny. The case had everything the media could want. St. Paul’s, arguably the nation’s best boarding school. The circumstances of Labrie’s case were tabloid gold. There were plenty of emails put into evidence of Labrie wooing the girl. The young woman testified that she went willingly to meet Labrie in an academic building after hours and stripped to her underwear, but then insisted he stop. She insisted that her friendly and flirtatious notes with Labrie after the encounter were indicative of her own fear, not consent.

A New Hampshire jury offered a mixed verdict that accepted parts of each of their stories. The panel of nine men and three women found Labrie innocent of felony sexual assault but guilty of sexual misdemeanors—basically, of a teen having sex with a slightly younger minor, the kind of charge that rarely comes to trial. And the jury did one other thing, something you should discuss with any teens in your life. It convicted Labrie of breaking a New Hampshire computer crime law, one of many enacted across the country in the 1990s, when the Internet went from oddity to necessity and parents began to fear pedophiles enticing their children not only on playgrounds but also on their PCs. It’s an old law that has failed to keep up with the changing times. Like statutes in many other states, it declares that soliciting sex from a minor using computer services is a felony, even if you’re a teen. And, like most teens, Labrie used his computer and smartphone to look for love and sex. Had he used snail mail, no felony. Phone call, no felony. Text? No felony. Internet? Felony.

Who to believe, her or him? Labrie’s interviews with Newsweek were his first since his arrest—a chance to explain his life, his hurt, his efforts to rebuild. “I’d do it the exact same way,” he says of rejecting the plea deals. “It was the only thing that sustained me, knowing I had told the truth. I had done what was right. I walked out of the courthouse with my chin up.” His words might seem to strain credulity, since he had been looking at only three weeks in jail reading books, but he insists that “not caving” was one of the things that kept him going.

newsweek.com-Cooper

Owen Labrie Will Not Go Down Quietly Nor Should He

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TITLEIX LAWSUIT: Male Had Consensual Premarital Sex. Indiana WesleyanU Says That Is Rape

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TITLEIX LAWSUIT: Male Had Consensual Premarital Sex. Indiana WesleyanU Says That Is Rape

At Indiana Wesleyan University, female students can freely break campus rules on sexual activity, coed dorm visits and even climbing through windows – as long as they accuse a male student of sexual assault. That’s the narrative told in a Title IX discrimination lawsuit against the Christian institution by a male student on the verge of graduation, who found himself suspended.

Jane Roe went to extraordinary lengths to demonstrate she consented to sexual activity with John Doe, her regular hookup partner, on the evening of Nov. 16, according to the federal complaint. But after she unexpectedly accused him of sexual assault, IWU took her word as gospel and judged John guilty largely based on his admission that they had sex. “Throughout the process, John never had an opportunity to make arguments to a panel of decision-makers, participate in a hearing, prepare for and present a case, confront and cross-examine witnesses, obtain legal representation, submit written statements, procure expert testimony, or appeal on the basis that the decision was wrong,” the suit claims. Jane had reason to falsely accuse John so that she herself would not be punished: IWU offers “complainants complete amnesty for violations of campus rules uncovered as part of a sexual misconduct investigation.”

John and Jane had previously had sexual intercourse before their Nov. 16 encounter, which involved Jane “climbing up a rope ladder and crawling through the second floor window” to visit John in his room. In addition to violating the premarital sex prohibition, Jane violated IWU’s prohibition on visiting the other sex in their dorms and climbing through windows.

John is functionally stuck unless a court intervenes, he argues. A member of the baseball team when he was accused, “his baseball career is over” and he probably can’t attend a different college for the next year while he’s suspended. This puts him “at serious risk of losing future employment opportunities.” IWU violated Title IX by ignoring John’s evidence, giving him no chance to challenge the evidence against him and acting against him before an interview, the suit claims. “The IWU official involved appears simply to have chosen to believe Jane” – and ignore her documented violations – “because she is a woman and to disbelieve John because he is a man.”

thecollegefix-Piper

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BAD: Judge Dismisses Male’s Lawsuit Against WashingtonU St.Louis, After Expulsion.

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BAD: Judge Dismisses Male’s Lawsuit Against WashingtonU St.Louis, After Expulsion.

A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit brought against Washington University by a former student who was expelled after being found guilty of sexual misconduct by the University’s Title IX panel. (The accuser did not file with the police department.) John Doe, was expelled in November 2018 and sued the University in February 2019.

In his ruling, the judge concluded that there was no evidence that the University engaged in a “conspiracy to deprive him and other men of their civil rights in order to gain a competitive advantage among potential female students.” John Doe claimed that the University “permitted female students to interfere with [his] rights when it permitted his accusers to protest on campus…and other females called for the jobs of several Washington University administrators if they did not convict [him].” Doe alleged that the protests were “incited by his accusers and intended to prejudice [his] right to a fair trial,” claims which the judge found to be unsubstantiated.

studlife.com-McPhie

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FEDERAL JUDGE RULES: UConn Denied John Doe Due Process.

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FEDERAL JUDGE RULES: UConn Denied John Doe Due Process.

A federal judge has issued a temporary order requiring the University of Connecticut to reinstate a male student who had been banned from campus for two years amid a sexual misconduct investigation. John Doe said in a lawsuit that UConn denied him of his due process rights. John was TitleIX accused by Jane Roe of having non-consensual sex with her. John says the encounter was consensual and initiated by Jane.

A UConn investigator dismissed Doe’s account of events after a single interview and the school blocked him from enrolling in his final semester, according to the suit. As the disciplinary process continued, Doe was denied specifics of the complaint and not permitted to question any witnesses against him or present witnesses of his own.

U.S. District Judge Michael Shea in his ruling said the male student had shown that UConn’s procedures for investigating alleged misconduct and imposing discipline are so one-sided that he was denied an opportunity to present his side of events. “Despite the importance of credibility to the factual dispute, UConn’s disciplinary procedures hampered the plaintiff’s ability to present a meaningful defense on this issue.”

usnews.com-AP reason.com-Volokh thefire.org-Harris

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COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY Found Him Guilty. But He’s Got Recordings of Her Saying Repeatedly ‘Don’t you wanna F-me’? When Feibleman Said No, She Came Unglued.

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COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY Found Him Guilty. But He’s Got Recordings of Her Saying Repeatedly ‘Don’t you wanna F-me’? When Feibleman Said No, She Came Unglued.

What you are about to read is based on court filings, a 30-minute recording, and an interview. Be forewarned, it is detailed and explicit. Last May, Feibleman filed a $25 million lawsuit against Columbia University in New York federal court for expulsion and gender discrimination under Title IX. A female classmate had accused him of sexual assault. He says she assaulted him, not the other way around. Despite the evidence, the school decided he was guilty. His case is now in the discovery phase. The ruling could come any day.

…It was a brisk Tuesday night in October 2016, Feibleman knew her a little from orientation, but they had never hung out. 

She sneaked kisses. She poured beer down his throat. She asked him to walk with her to the roof, where she climbed atop the water tower and beckoned him. She took off her top. He sucked on her breasts. She called him a “pussy” for being afraid when they climbed the tower in the dark. She taunted him about being a Marine who was afraid of heights. She straddled him on top of a ladder, then slapped him hard across the face and bit his lip. He hated the lip biting and told her to stop.  She talked to him in a hot, vulgar way back at her apartment. 

“Don’t you wanna fuck me?” she asked multiple times, on tape, in clear words. In fact, she affirmed her desire to have sex with her classmate no less than 29 times. She wanted him to fuck her and she wanted it, her word, “hard.” He wanted that, too. But something in his gut told him he better protect himself. And not with a condom.  She reiterated her desire for rough sex. When she refused to take no for an answer he pressed record. In total, he claims she bit him three times, yanked his pants down, and grabbed his buttocks in an attempt to “force her mouth on his penis.” When he first tried to leave, she started to cry. He couldn’t leave a woman in tears. He wanted to leave on positive terms. 

For the entirety of the 30-minute recording, she forbade him from leaving. She seemed upset by his refusals, at times questioning her own attractiveness. “Here, Ben,” she said on the recording. “You don’t want to fuck me and that disappoints me.” 

It wasn’t even a day later when she accused him of sexual assault under the university’s Title IX statute. She didn’t seek medical attention or call the police. “Ben tried to have sex with me,” she told her roommate after he left. She also told her boyfriend, who allegedly questioned how drunk she was. She called him an “asshole” and hung up. That morning she informed the school that Feibleman had sexually assaulted her.

Columbia University allegedly investigated the matter for six months. In June 2017, a panel of three administrators held a Kangaroo-style hearing in which they never used any evidence he provided or asked “Jane Doe” a single question about his side of the story. Neither of the two investigators on the case even showed up. In the end, the school withheld his degree, effectively ending his career in journalism. At one point, they warned him not to utter a word about a medical report he obtained. Feibleman had seven minutes to speak in which he said, “Please please ask me about it,” referring to his allegations against her. School administrators declined. He had no voice — literally. In less than 24 hours, the panel declared him “responsible” for sexual assault “as the result of consensual non-intercourse sexual contact” he had with her prior to her demands for intercourse.

Columbia University is demanding Feibleman’s military records. He served in the Marines for six years and left with an honorable discharge. His legal team is arguing against providing them. “They have not stopped asking for it even though it’s irrelevant to the claims of the lawsuit,” his lawyer Kimberly Lau tells me. “This shouldn’t be a fishing expedition.” Lau says, meanwhile, that Columbia University is being less than forthright, fighting tooth and nail to hold on to relevant documents.  Feibleman’s court filings help tell his story: When he said no, she came unglued.

dailycaller.ben-feibleman-voice-recordings-Rothstein

dailywire-Schow

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SEVEN BIG Lies In The Brock Turner Case, Plagiarism at Stanford

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SEVEN BIG Lies In The Brock Turner Case, Plagiarism at Stanford

A review of Stanford police reports, as attached to the criminal complaint filed with Santa Clara County Superior Court, and other public records reveals a number of major lies, including significant discrepancies and wrongdoing that Stanford itself has failed to address.

Seven Big Lies in the Brock Turner Case:

1. Turner committed rape. Totally false.

2. The hookup between Turner and Ms. Miller was in secret, behind a dumpster. Again, totally false.

3. Ms. Miller wrote the sensationalized statement she read at Turner’s sentencing. Also false.

4. Ms. Miller’s mother drove them to the KA party. There are serious questions whether this is true.

5. Stanford’s police did not record the license plates in the KA parking lot. Again, totally false yet this is what Turner’s lawyer was told three weeks later.

6. Turner ran from the scene and that proves his guilt. False.

7. Turner took and circulated a photo of Ms. Miller. Again, totally false but carefully used in the media campaign against Turner that was already being orchestrated by Prof. Michele Dauber, a member of Stanford’s law school faculty.

Seven Big Lies in the Brock Turner Case

Plagiarism at Stanford:

Stanford defines plagiarism as follows: “For purposes of the Stanford University Honor Code, plagiarism is defined as the use, without giving reasonable and appropriate credit to or acknowledging the author or source, of another person’s original work, whether such work is made up of code, formulas, ideas, language, research, strategies, writing or other form(s). Moreover, verbatim text from another source must always be put in (or within) quotation marks.”

How can Stanford post at the memorial (contemplative garden) words Ms. Miller falsely said she wrote if a student would be punished for plagiarism for making the same false claims and engaging in the same false activities? Faculty likewise are subject to severe punishment and academic scorn if involved in plagiarism in any way. That being the case, does no one at Stanford think it is a serious problem that Stanford is celebrating this blatant and ongoing lie about authorship? And is no one at Stanford going to address these serious violations of academic integrity by a member of their law school’s faculty? Plagarism at Stanford 

Stanford Alumni should care. Stanford Alumni are standing silent and allowing a complex injustice of malfeasance to continue. Stanford Alumni should be ashamed with their own silence. Alice

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ED DEPT Creates ‘Proactive Compliance’ Option For Schools To Avoid Civil Rights Probes

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ED DEPT Creates ‘Proactive Compliance’ Option For Schools To Avoid Civil Rights Probes

Complying with an investigation by the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights can cost a school six figures and a year or more under a cloud of suspicion. Secretary Betsy DeVos announced another option: “proactive compliance” for school districts and colleges before students and employees file complaints. The OPEN Center, “Outreach, Prevention, Education and Non-discrimination Center” will open within OCR’s Washington headquarters.

The OPEN Center provides the opportunity for schools to preempt the “traditional complaint-resolution process,” in which OCR acts after a complaint is filed. OCR head Kenneth Marcus characterized the center’s mission as “voluntary, proactive activities” that allow OCR to “get in front of the problem, partnering with educators and other institutions to better protect students.”

thecollegefix-Staff educationdive-Rosa

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2011: HE MADE BILLIONS With Biased TitleIX Training. 2020: Sokolow’s Observations On The Failure of TitleIX

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2011: HE MADE BILLIONS With Biased TitleIX Training. 2020: Sokolow’s Observations On The Failure of TitleIX

As a guy who earns his living off advising colleges how to run their campus sex tribunals to assure the guy loses while creating plausible deniability to avoid liability, and as president of ATIXA, the Association of Title IX Administrators, an association dedicated to the cause of believing the woman no matter what, Brett Sokolow has long been a primary cheerleader for his tribe, defending the inane and dishonest with rigor.

After all, without the cottage industry of campus sex policing for the sake of saving women’s feelings at the expense of facts and innocence, Title IX administrators would be constrained to get productive jobs. Because of this, Sokolow’s views haven’t been well-appreciated by anyone beyond those who benefit from the grift. Yet, in an LA Times op-ed, it turns out that Sokolow has some observations worthy of note.

To begin with, Sokolow admits that the system has an “unfairness problem,” which might seem akin to admitting that the sun shines during the day but is quite the critical observation. An unfair “resolution system” is a failed system. More importantly, Sokolow concedes that his own tribe, Title IX administrators, are the problem: the system fails because the investigators and decision makers are neither neutral nor impartial.

He’s right. Sokolow is absolutely right. No system can work when the only goal of the investigators and decision makers is to convict the accused. A system run by biased decision makers, bent on believing the women and convicting men no matter what, can’t be fixed by procedural due process if they’re going to convict no matter what. When the facts don’t matter, neither do the procedures. Give Sokolow credit for conceding that his tribe is terminally biased and no process can fix their anti-male animus.

The only rational takeaway is that this “informal” campus sex system can’t work, can’t produce fair results and can’t be fixed without extreme changes to provide both substantive and procedural due process. As Brett Sokolow says, the system is a massive failure. That might be good enough for him, but the Constitution and fair-minded people demand better.

blog.simplejustice.us -Greenfield

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AMERICAN UNIVERSITIES Routinely Ignore & Violate Basic Civil Rights

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AMERICAN UNIVERSITIES Routinely Ignore & Violate Basic Civil Rights

Universities across the country are unconstitutionally punishing those accused of sex-based misconduct with no regard for the civil rights that guarantee due process. They say they are acting lawfully under the so-called Title IX law of 1972. But the meaning of that law has been twisted over the years by a tortured Victorian-era school of thought almost beyond comprehension.

These days, Title IX is invoked for all manner of student grievances. Complaints are most frequently lodged by females against male students and faculty. Some are legitimate complaints alleging sexual harassment or physical misconduct, even rape. But some of the gripes seem whiny. And realize that when a Title IX report is filed, the accused (again, usually a male) is put in the position of basically having to prove his innocence.

Before any fact-finding, or a hearing with witnesses, or any sort of due process, the accused are often suspended, expelled, or denied their diploma. Their job prospects are immediately diminished because a life-altering black mark remains on their school transcript, even if they are ultimately exonerated. The group Families Advocating for Campus Equality, or FACE, says this unconstitutional policy has affected at least 2,000 students whose families have contacted FACE looking for help in fighting the lopsided Title IX process.

Under today’s interpretation of Title IX protections, it is automatically rape if the woman says, “I was too drunk to consent.” The woman doesn’t have to say no; she needs to unambiguously say yes to sexual contact. Really? Have you ever heard of college kids stopping mid-embrace to get an explicit go-ahead agreement? And if a confused student approaches a campus faculty member just to talk about a concerning incident, to try to make sense of their feelings, that triggers an automatic Title IX investigation. “This fosters a climate that takes away women’s independence, a climate that treats women as fragile and in need of constant intervention.”

Yes, a neo-Victorian age really is underway on the American college campus.

theepochtimes-Dimond

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