Accused Rapists Have Rights, Too
And we protect all of our rights by standing up for the rights of the accused.
For example, we have a presumption of innocence until proven guilty and the standards of evidence and due process that we do have -- or did have, before college campuses established kangaroo courts for accusations of sexual offenses -- come out of how we have been a society founded on the protection of civil liberties.
The more civil liberties are eroded, the more they can be further eroded.
In The New Republic, Judith Shulevitz clearly lays out what goes on now on college campuses in the wake of a sexual assault accusation, and the subtitle of her piece is important: "The victims deserve justice. The men deserve due process."
Yes, men are sometimes rape victims, too. But mostly the accusers on college campuses are women and the accused are men.
Shulevitz writes:
This August, Columbia University released a new policy for handling "gender-based" misconduct among students. Since April, universities around the country have been rewriting their guidelines after a White House task force urged them to do more to fight sexual assault. I was curious to know what a lawyer outside the university system would make of one of these codes. So I sent the document to Robin Steinberg, a public defender and a feminist.A few hours later, Steinberg wrote back in alarm. She had read the document with colleagues at the Bronx legal-aid center she runs. They were horrified, she said--not because Columbia still hadn't sufficiently protected survivors of assault, as some critics charge, but because its procedures revealed a cavalier disregard for the civil rights of people accused of rape, assault, and other gender-based crimes. "We are never sending our boys to college," she wrote.
Columbia's safeguards for the accused are better than most. For instance, it allows both accuser and accused to have a lawyer at a hearing, and, if asked, will locate free counsel. By contrast, Harvard, which issued a new code in July, holds investigations but not hearings and does not offer to obtain independent legal assistance. But Steinberg, like most people, hadn't realized how far the rules governing sexual conduct on campus have strayed from any commonsense understanding of justice.
Most colleges that do allow lawyers into sexual-misconduct hearings or interrogations do not permit them to speak, though they may pass notes. Students on both sides must speak for themselves. This presents a serious problem for a young man charged with rape (and in the vast majority of campus cases, the accused are men). On one hand, if he doesn't defend himself, he'll be at a disadvantage. On the other, if he is also caught up in a criminal case, anything he says in a campus procedure can be used against him in court. Neither side may cross-examine witnesses to establish contradictions in their testimony. A school may withhold the identity of an accuser from the accused if she requests anonymity (though it may choose not to). Guilt or innocence hinges on a "preponderance" of evidence, a far lower standard than the "beyond a reasonable doubt" test that prevails in courtrooms. At Harvard, the Title IX enforcement office acts as cop, prosecutor, judge, and jury--and also hears the appeals. This conflation of possibly conflicting roles is "fundamentally not due process," says Janet Halley, a Harvard Law School professor whose areas of expertise include feminist legal theory and procedural law.
...What's happening at universities represents an often necessary effort to recategorize once-acceptable behaviors as unacceptable. But the government, via Title IX, is effectively acting on the notion popularized in the 1970s and '80s by Andrea Dworkin and Catharine MacKinnon that male domination is so pervasive that women need special protection from the rigors of the law. Men, as a class, have more power than women, but American law rests on the principle that individuals have rights even when accused of doing bad things. And American liberalism has long rejected the notion that those rights may be curtailed even for a noble cause. "We need to take into account our obligations to due process not because we are soft on rapists and other exploiters of women," says Halley, but because "the danger of holding an innocent person responsible is real."
The simple solution if you are accused of misconduct by the university. Simply state, "You are an institution that takes federal money for student loans, and as such, are obligated to respect my constitutional rights. I am exercising my right to avoid self incrimination by remaining silent under the Fifth Amendment, and if you interpret this statement as voiding that right, please look into Lois Lerner's Congressional testimony." Regardless of whether you have an attorney or not, make them file a legal action against you in a real court of law if they are going to be jerks about it.
spqr2008 at October 17, 2014 5:52 AM
Headline as stolen:
“Rape Culture” Justice: Better 10 Innocent Men Suffer, Than 1 Guilty Man Escape
But Ashe Schow makes a bold prediction. I'll make a bolder prediction: that any man who puts forward a preemptive sexual assault claim against a woman will be laughed at by the Usual Suspects and told to "check his privilege".
I R A Darth Aggie at October 17, 2014 6:16 AM
More from the Free Beacon (how come I always dyslexia that into Free Bacon?):
So, of course we must throw the witch into the river. If he sinks, he was an innocent, but if he floats...all in the interests of getting sorcery and witchcraft out of our society.
I R A Darth Aggie at October 17, 2014 7:13 AM
But Ashe Schow makes a bold prediction.
Posted by: I R A Darth Aggie at October 17, 2014 6:16 AM
_________________________
Here's what's actually HAPPENED (or rather, not happened) in a few places:
http://www.thenation.com/article/181911/why-yes-means-yes-so-misunderstood
(Last third of column - and you may be pretty surprised by the first two thirds of the column)
"Indeed, Canada already requires voluntary agreement to engage in sexual activity, and sexual assault hasn’t gone away. But at the same time, Rhode notes dryly, 'the sky hasn’t fallen in.' Nor has it collapsed in New Jersey, where, as the sociologist Susan Caringella writes in her book Addressing Rape Reform in Law and Practice, a state Supreme Court decision in 1992 'upheld the affirmative consent rule and defined that in the absence of "freely-given permission of the victim" sexual penetration was sexual assault.' Nota bene: as with 'yes means yes' on campus, consent in New Jersey can be expressed through behavior or actions. Variations of the same idea are law in Washington and Wisconsin, and courts in those states are hardly overwhelmed with newfangled sexual assault complaints. In 2012, according to the FBI, New Jersey had the lowest number of reported rapes per capita of any state (Washington was thirty-fourth; Wisconsin, ninth). The highest number of reported rapes, by the way, were in decidedly old-school South Dakota and Alaska.
"What’s good about 'yes means yes' is less how it will change what takes place in courtrooms or campus disciplinary proceedings, and more how it will become part of our evolving understanding of appropriate sexual behavior. Basically, affirmative consent means both partners have to express their wishes in a way that the other partner can grasp. Men can’t simply have at a passive, silent woman—and women have to assert themselves instead of, for example, drinking to avoid taking responsibility for sex they actually want.
"So, pundits, hold the jokes about sex contracts and the hysteria about most sex now being rape. In a couple of decades, affirmative consent will seem quite normal. And that will be a good thing. Not so long ago, after all, husbands could legally force sex on their wives: that a wife provided sex on demand was part of what 'marital duties' meant. Some called laws against marital rape a denial of human nature and an invasion of privacy. Even Camille Paglia doesn’t argue that anymore."
lenona at October 17, 2014 12:10 PM
"So, pundits, hold the jokes about sex contracts and the hysteria about most sex now being rape. In a couple of decades, affirmative consent will seem quite normal. And that will be a good thing. Not so long ago, after all, husbands could legally force sex on their wives: that a wife provided sex on demand was part of what 'marital duties' meant. Some called laws against marital rape a denial of human nature and an invasion of privacy. Even Camille Paglia doesn’t argue that anymore."
Posted by: lenona at October 17, 2014 12:10 PM
Human nature doesn't work in the logical clear straight forward manner than you think it does.
Take a contracts law class for several thousand examples, of how clear statements and actions can be misinterpreted by not only the party perceiving them, but also by the party making them.
When *any* alcohol is involved it gets even murkier.
The affirmative consent standard will work just about as well on restraining human sexual behavior as the drug war works on reducing drug use.
It is a socialist wet dream. Nothing more.
Isab at October 17, 2014 2:02 PM
"Men, as a class, have more power than women, ..."
I call bullshit on this one.
Ben at October 17, 2014 4:33 PM
Reading the rationals for these new standards and procedures, I'm struck by how much they resemble the reasons (unacceptable word used in Jim Crow South when referring to a Black male, and used today in Hip Hop lyrics) had to be prevented from raping White women, and why White women had to be shielded from the animal magnetism of (unacceptable word for Black males) which could overcome their gentile natures and loose uncontrolled passion. I thought such rationales were the product of sexism, paternalism and racism, but, other than the course language used when referring to Black males, such rationales are consistent with Progressive feminist thinking. All that was old is new again.
Wfjag at October 18, 2014 12:51 AM
To Isab: Did you read the second-to-last paragraph?
As Pollitt made clear both there and in the rest of the column, no, this won't have much effect on those cold-blooded rapists who know exactly what they're doing and don't care. However, every bit of extra understanding counts when it comes to those other young men, especially those whose parents didn't USED to talk to them about rape laws and myths - but who now might have to, so as to avoid the consequences of misinformation from the boys' male peers. Not to mention that a lot of young men have trouble believing that there IS such a thing as unwanted sex.
Besides, it's still pretty early to be making predictions.
lenona at October 18, 2014 7:19 AM
Besides, it's still pretty early to be making predictions.
Posted by: lenona at October 18, 2014 7:19 AM
What? a hundred thousand plus years of ingrained human behavior isn't enough to make predictions about how they will behave and react to some kindof arbitrary verbal consent ritual?
I remember when I was in law school, there was some urban feminist myth going around that men is England always asked politely before initiating sex, as opposed to American men who just proceeded with it.
Total bullshit of course, but feed into their belief that training, and reeducation was all that was needed.
Isab at October 18, 2014 1:56 PM
"freely-given permission of the victim"
Note this carefully. A woman who has sex with a man is always a victim. Because, y'know, when a woman has sex with a man, something extremely valuable has been taken from him. Pussy is worth far more than gold.
"However, every bit of extra understanding counts when it comes to those other young men, especially those whose parents didn't USED to talk to them about rape laws and myths - but who now might have to, so as to avoid the consequences of misinformation from the boys' male peers."
Yes, because the world would work so much better if men were just women with penises. And the all-wise, all-knowing government will make it so.
"So I sent the document to Robin Steinberg, a public defender and a feminist[...] A few hours later, Steinberg wrote back in alarm. "
And yet, nobody involved sees the inherent contradiction.
Cousin Dave at October 19, 2014 1:14 PM
Anytime someone starts saying that "Well, getting rid of that 'innocent until proven guilty' and 'presumption of innocence' stuff is worth it in THIS case!", I point them to this scene:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDBiLT3LASk
Some just get pissed, but it makes some of them think.
Firehand at October 19, 2014 6:55 PM
To Cousin Dave: I don't follow.
What DO you believe parents should teach teen boys about the law, etc. - not just for their pre-21 years, but for when they've finished school and are living on their own? Nothing? How do you know what your sons know or believe, if they don't tell you?
What seems like common sense to adults very often isn't, to teens.
lenona at October 20, 2014 3:46 PM
And, regarding what I posted higher up on the thread:
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man."
- G.B.Shaw
(I'm reasonably sure he was referring to both sexes.)
lenona at October 21, 2014 11:31 AM
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