TITLE IX and Sexual Harassment
Mitchell Abidor’s essay discusses Unwanted Advances by Laura Kipnis…Title IX is being used in circumstances that lack due process to ensure the fairness and safety of outcomes, resulting in what Kipnis likens to witch-hunts. Those accused are not informed of the charges against them; no lawyers are allowed; the adjudicating officer often bases his or her decisions on assumptions about male-female (or male-male, or female-female) relationships. The end result has often been catastrophic. Most alarmingly, lives are ruined based on what a hearing officer deems “preponderance of evidence,” the proper weight of which is determined with no set guidelines. Universities and their Title IX apparatus become a kind of helicopter parent, in the name of a version of feminism that Kipnis does not recognize. “This isn’t feminism, it’s a return to the most traditional conception of female sexuality,” she argues. “What dimwitted sort of feminism wants to shelter women from the richness of their own mistakes?”
jewishcurrents.org By Abidor
