The Crime Of Being Male On Campus
That's what the government's abuse of Title IX in order to railroad men amounts to.
For example, from Ashe Schow's WashEx column on the government's dictates for colleges to adopt an overly broad definition of sexual assault:
A male student [was] suspended for a year because he sent multiple Instagram follow requests to a female student and once looked at her on campus.
No, this is not a joke. Yes, this really happened.
Schow explains:
Colleges are treating accusations as if the accused were a potential rapist, even when the accusation involves nothing more than requesting social media connections one too many times.
Schow asks the question about the Instagram example and another example she gives:
Even if these behaviors were inappropriate, is a one-year suspension justified instead of, say, someone simply telling the kid to stop?Most college kids who get that kind of warning from an authority figure would be thoroughly frightened enough to stop. But disrupting their life for a year over social media requests and what could have been an errant look?
On today's college campuses, anything deemed offensive can be used as a weapon against college men in accusations of sexual assault and harassment. And colleges, under pressure from the federal government to find students responsible, have created pseudo-court systems that eviscerate due process in order to get those findings.
"Herein lies the problem with campus tribunals determining if a crime of sexual misconduct was committed," Lau said. "[S]tudents can be wrongly accused because the accusation becomes the proof or, simply, because the definitions are too broad and too ambiguous; students can be accused months or even years after the incident; and those wrongly accused are denied due process."
This is not the country we're supposed to be.
Sadly, I predict that it will take some sort of tragedy for this to be overturned. Beyond an individual male's future being ruined. I hope that's not the case, but I suspect it might be.
There was this from three days ago (did I read that from you? (thought I had, but I can't find it.))
https://reason.com/blog/2015/10/02/12-year-old-boy-suspended-for-looking-at
12-Year-Old Boy Suspended for Looking at a Girl. At Her Face. That’s It.
At least he wasn't arrested.
Robby Soave|Oct. 2, 2015 3:07 pm
jerry at October 4, 2015 11:26 PM
How long until boys are required to wear hijab like veils over their eyes to prevent their #starerape?
Hmm, possible kickstarter....
jerry at October 4, 2015 11:30 PM
As you've said before, Amy, if there are claims of sexual assault the proper channel to handle them would be the judicial system; not some college "tribunal."
Although, given the state of mind of many prosecutors, which is win, win, WIN, at any cost (think Mike Nifong), I'm not sure a prosecutor would be the safest for an innocent college man; but, it is still better to have a jury of ordinary folks instead of college grievance mongers judge such accusations.
It will take a lot of tragedies to change the course this is taking; it will take a lot of young men's lives ruined before things change; and it will take quite a few radical feminist's son's lives ruined before some of them wake up to realize just what they have done.
Even then, I'm not so sure many of them will realize what they have done.
They will most likely find blame elsewhere; if one of these ruined lives decides to switch to an all male school he will be labeled "sexist," if one of these ruined lives commits suicide they will blame lack of mental health care, if one of these ruined lives goes on a shooting rampage out of frustration they will blame guns, if one of these ruined lives does something else they will blame the "patriarchy." They will always blame the patriarchy since they believe it is the root of all problems.
charles at October 5, 2015 5:37 AM
Amy Alkon
https://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2015/10/the-crime-of-be-2.html#comment-6232769">comment from charlesBlame is so often the first step in ducking responsibility.
There's always a furor when some celeb (like Serena Williams) comes out and says -- gasp! -- that it's ill-advised to get blasted at a party and think that nothing will happen to you.
(And what could happen is not just rape but being mugged or killed as you are staggering home across campus.)
Amy Alkon
at October 5, 2015 5:58 AM
Who the fuck raises these girls? Do they not have sons as well? Do these girls have no brother, no dad, no male in their lives anywhere, at any point?
My mom used to tell us kids "no, no one has the right to hit you just because you mouth off, but you know what? This is the real world, and if you run your mouth you're likely to get popped", and as we got older, similar things, as far as taking control of our own actions in a common sense way because we can't control other people. My former-Marine dad was more succinct: "don't be a panty-waist"-worked for pretty much any situation.
Common sense is truly dead?? Everywhere?
momof4 at October 5, 2015 6:06 AM
"Who the fuck raises these girls? Do they not have sons as well? Do these girls have no brother, no dad, no male in their lives anywhere, at any point?"
Well, around 50% of those girls were raised in single parent (i.e. mother only) families. Also given the trend for college students to come from smaller families there is a significant chance she is an only child. So you easily could be right that there are no men in her life
Ben at October 5, 2015 6:30 AM
Tragedies are already happening but unless it happens to the son/daughter of a prominent politician (ie. Related to the president/vice-president) no one will bother at all.
Case in point: Down here in the middle of The Americas in this tiny Caribbean Nation; when the Express kidnappings began to happen, politicians went "Yes! Yes! We're gonna do something about it!" And yet they did nothing AT ALL. The kidnappings began with poor people (in here means close your eyes and point at someone at random), then the middle class, then the small business owners, then the factory owners, bankers, all the way up towards the cream of the crop. Of course, there were plenty of botched kidnappings that ended up in the death of the victims.
And all this time the politicians were like the porcelain bobblehead pugs just nodding their heads but doing nothing at all.
It took the botched kidnapping of a president's son (they found the young man's dead body on a ditch)for the politicians to realize that they were not safe too.
So don't hold your breath. Reform is not going to happen any time soon.
Sixclaws at October 5, 2015 7:29 AM
it will take a lot of young men's lives ruined before things change;
No it wont. You have to ruin WOMENS lives to make people notice.
It wasnt until enterprising lawyers targeted the first groups of successful women for outrageous child support and alimony settlements that people began caring about the "unfairness" of lifetime alimony and exorbitant child support payments.
It wasnt until underage girls began being charged as child pornographers and made to register as sex offenders that people began talking about the ridiculousness of such charges for minors.
Men have literally set themselves on fire to protest such issues and no one gave a shit until WOMEN were squeezed by these laws.
You want to change things?
You have to be willing to sacrifice blatantly innocent women to the bloody cogs of such soulless machinations.
lujlp at October 5, 2015 9:35 AM
The next step for this type of ruling is the workplace, Mark my words.
This isn't just an assault on human rights, it's a basic denial of human nature, which unfortunately is the underpinning of most progressive thought.
Can Dan at October 5, 2015 10:46 AM
I agree with all the points (seems like blog readerships are often all on the same page, though I do enjoy flaming right-wing theocrats).
Any thoughts on WHY the "infantilized woman" acts as she does? Something deeper than she's an asshat? Perhaps the proliferation of paranoia due to relentless exposure to the world via teh interwebz and 24/7 media, and the slip of our institutions and culture into scenario fulfillment and helicoptering? These could lead to solutions, not handslapping. But the stick works too.
DaveG at October 5, 2015 12:41 PM
...theocrats on the sites they lurk in. Haven't seen any here.
DaveG at October 5, 2015 12:43 PM
flaming: as in I flame them, not an adjective.
DaveG at October 5, 2015 12:44 PM
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