The American Association of University Professors (AAUP), an organization with 47,000 members, sent a letter to the Education Department outlining its concerns over the sexual harassment guidelines in the agency's April 4 directive. The group cited the “preponderance of evidence” standard for proving an instance of harassment. The previous wording for the type of evidence required had been “clear and convincing.”
“Given the seriousness of accusations of harassment and sexual violence and the potential for accusations, even false ones, to ruin a faculty member’s career, we believe that the ‘clear and convincing’ standard of evidence is more appropriate than the ‘preponderance of evidence’ standard,” the letter says.
Glenn Ricketts of the National Association of Scholars previously condemned the directive here: http://www.nas.org/polArticles.cfm?doctype_code=Article&doc_id=2011
These are further indications that the unconscionable dangers to the presumptively innocent posed by the April 4 directive are widely apparent to important voices who do not write about "gender" issues. The April 4 directive represents an extremist position that is simply not consonant with our shared cultural values and the most fundamental notions of our liberty.
We've written about the directive extensively. See, e.g., here.
See http://www.newsmax.com/TheWire/federal-education-guidelines/2011/08/19/id/407961 and
http://www.themoralliberal.com/2011/08/22/reflections-on-aaups-criticism-of-ocrs-preponderance-of-the-evidence-standard-in-defense-of-faculty-rights/
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
19 comments:
"to ruin a faculty member’s career"
I am glad they oppose it, but clearly, they are out for themselves, not the young men attending college.
I am guessing that the 1 in 4 bogus rape stat will still be preached as gospel, and young men will be thought of as rapists as usual.
At least they are trying to stop things from getting worse. Albeit motivated by selfishness.
ScareCrow, I am very familiar with the academy, for reasons that I won't divulge, but the view that young men are predators is not one shared by many administrators. The administrators allow these rape policies as an appeasement to an angry sub-group.
FYI, here's what one prof. told me:
"What exists is a situation in which a core group of academically marginal people in the faculty and admin., who have demonstrably little in the way of legitimate academic credentials and accomplishments, have all gravitated to the easily-mouthed cliches of feminism and other forms of p.c. By doing so they accomplish two things: 1) They give one another a false veneer of both liberalism and academic accomplishment without actually ever doing anything in the way of real research or substantive teaching; and 2) They arm themselves with McCarthyistic bats with which they instantly attack any opponents as sexist, homophobic, racist, ... who speak against them.
"Because so many of these folks actually have so little in the way of real credentials (and in some cases some demonstrably fraudulent ones), they are always hyper-vigilant against any critics, hence comes their willingness to be drawn into efforts to curb the free speech of those whose views threaten them. If the were truly secure in their credentials and accomplishments, why would they be afraid of open exchanges of views? They also seek to hire, tenure, and promote in their own image, so they are not confronted with (and will seek to get rid of) accomplished young people who would never take them at all seriously. In regard to an English dept. job candidate here several years ago, for example, one prof. on the hiring committee actually proclaimed in defense of her hiring in deadly earnest: 'She may not be competent, but she's not a threat.' (And the woman was hired!) Other such stories abound."
Since women often recant for fear of being disbelieved and because colleges often misrepresent their findings to the Dept. Education, I think it's appropriate to use "preponderance" as the new standard.
Anon at 2:35: Even if you could support your premise with objectively verifiable sources (and, for the record, some recanations are properly rejected by law enforcement personnel and courts because they are made for improper reasons, but these seem rare; and it is true that colleges sometimes misrepresent their findings -- by overreporting sexual assaults to get more funding -- http://falserapesociety.blogspot.com/2009/10/overreporting-sexual-assaults.html), your conclusion is a non sequitur.
How on earth does tramping on the rights of the presumptively innocent serve to solve the problem of women who improperly recant or any putative underreporting of sexual assaults? The one has nothing to do with the others.
Shouldn't we be focusing instead on whatever problems exist rather than greatly increasing the risk of making a mistake and expelling an innocent college guy or woman?
And by the way, this isn't just a position advocated by wacky men's rights bloggers. Some important and serious voices share this critical concern. Your comment suggests you haven't carefully thought it through, and it strikes me that there is a streak of gender get-evenism in your comment.
Oh really: colleges overreport sexual assaults to get more funding?
No. Colleges are subjected to checks and balances from both sides of the aisle.
I won't do your homework for you but WSU is a good place to start.
BTW, women recant all the time. Please do not attribute recantation to lying.
First, to the real issue: even if the problems you suggest existed, what does that have to do with the standard of proof?
Wait. I'll answer it for you: nothing.
Now, to your red herrings. So, colleges DON'T overreport to get more funding?
Well, all due respect, sir or madam, a client of mine was caught up in that Davis scandal a couple of years ago where the administrator was padding the numbers, and when the lid blew off of that, it was revealed that this is a practice that goes on elsewhere (makes sense because colleges chase after scarce federal dollars).
Amusingly, Heather MacDonald chronicled how schools are downright embarrassed to have low numbers of sexual assaults. http://www.city-journal.org/2008/18_1_campus_rape.html I'd call that "sick," but that's just me.
As for recantations being rampant, sorry, I probably study this issue as closely as anyone, and I know of no support for that. (I won't do your homework for you.) I think it's fairly well accepted that most recantations are legitimate. (You aren't suggesting, are you, that women must always be believed when they say they were raped, but must never be believed when they say they weren't?)
You've tried twice to make your point, and you haven't done it, so kindly go troll somewhere else.
As far as over-reporting goes- didn't you guys do a write up on that woman who was arrested for over-reporting rape numbers in order to get more funding?
I forgot her name, and I cannot find it on google...
She was in charge of a rape crisis thing on a college or something - and was arrested or charged with fraud...
Or did I read that elsewhere.
Anon 3:16 needs to pull his/her head of of his/her arse.
Yes, that was the Davis debacle, when it was revealed that this is a wider problem.
Another quick one:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape
If you visit this page, you can rate it at the bottom...
I gave the first three categories bad ratings.
The last category - writing quality - I gave a mediocre rating to - there were no spelling or grammar mistakes that I could see.
EUREKA!
http://www.calwatchdog.com/2010/12/15/uc-davis-stats-falsifier-arrested/
So, Anon 3:16:
ahem...
Go...
To...
Hell!
That is proof that universities do in fact exaggerate statistics to get funds.
LIAR!!!!
Yeah, I cited a Davis story earlier in the thread. All of it is red herring. The commenter changed the subject to avoid talking about the problem at issue.
Even if the figures were underreported, that's not a valid justification -- it's not a justification of any kind -- for lowering the standard of proof in disciplinary hearings. Here's how I read the commenter's argument: women are oppressed, so it's valid to greatly enhance the risk of punishing the innocent.
If there's improper recanting going on, let's not accept the recantation. If colleges aren't submitting proper reports, penalize the college. But for these and other failures that might occur, don't take it out on the innocent!
Scarecrow; falsifying or "manufacturing statistics" to cash these statistics in for federal dollars should be against the law. If it is against the law, why isn't any branch of American law enforcement trying to reign in those that are "Manufacturing statistics" to cash them in for federal dollars??
Maybe in the near future, there will be here-to obscure universities that will use as their selling point to young men, the fact that they don't let their faculty or any representative of their school, manufacture any misleading and inflammatory rape statistics that build a prejudice against any of there male students.
And if these colleges have to forgo "federal pervert dollars" to do it, then so be it.
Maybe they will attract many of the young men who have been harmed by the gender-feminist mobs while in high school, And their college will prosper!!
I am heartened that men in academia are finally fed up and saying no to feminist injustice.
I guess fear of the female students is greater then fear of feminist professors.
Smart scholars.
I caught another one of your misguided statements on the side bar:
"Allowing a rapist to go free is never as wrong as a wrongful conviction"
I don't think you realize the consequences in allowing a rapist to go free. The unconvicted rapist who goes free is FREE TO COMMIT RAPE AGAIN. He will rape your mother, your sister, your daughter, your girlfriend, your wife, etc.
If he gets away with the first and second rapes, there's no stopping him. He now becomes a serial rapist.
Is this what you advocate?
7:14: I printed your reprehensible statement to remind our actual readers that this not what I "advocate" per se, it's what our jurisprudence is premised upon. From Blackstone to countless titans of the United States Supreme Court, there is not the least disagreement about this principle, except among extremists whose views are so far out of the mainstream of rational thought that they are not accorded any weight. You parade your ignorance to the world when you tout that position, and you would do well never to identify yourself when you do so.
We generally do not post comments that do not abide by our comments policy unless we want to use it as a teaching moment. If you are getting "tired" of having your comments deleted, then I refer you to extremist sites, like David Futrelle's or Amanda Marcotte's, that, I suspect, would welcome your inanities.
to 7:14:
I don't think you realize the consequences in allowing a false rape accuser to go free. The unconvicted false rape accuserwho goes free is FREE TO COMMIT FALSE RAPE ACCUSATIONS AGAIN. She will falsely accuse and send your father, your brother, your son, YOU, etc to 30 years in prison .
If she gets away with the first and second false rape accusations, and she will, there's no stopping her. She now becomes a serial false rape accuser.
Is this what you advocate?
----
Anyway, your inanity aside, you seem to wish to live in a soviet style environment, where accusation implies guilt, and you are guilty until proven innocent, which as we found out with many rape cases, never works.
You should be happy to know such places do still exist. You won't be able to spew your crap in them, but it should serve you well.
Great. Fantastic. A powerful main stream organization fighting the witch hunt.
Yes, unfortunately only in their own interest. Maybe they will change the preponderance of evidence only for employees accused by students?
I still don't understand how Title IX, a non-discrimination statute is being abused to discriminate against males. Very amazing
The combination of law enforcement not charging false rape accusers, mixed with super empowered gender-feminist professors who believe all heterosex is rape, and preach to their students that making a rape accusation is not a crime; you mix these two and you get a now "Culture of false rape accusations" where girls will make rape accusations if they don't want to pay a cab fare
Post a Comment