The College of the Holy Cross in Massachusetts expelled a young man the day before he was supposed to graduate last May with a 3.13 grade point average. The expulsion was punishment following a college board's determination that the young man was responsible for raping a female student. Now the young man, Edwin Bleiler, 23, is suing the school for breach of contract and for violating his civil rights in a case that raises an important issue with possibly widespread implications.
At issue is this: if a male and female college student engage in sexual activity while intoxicated (not incapacitated), should the male be deemed a "rapist" while the female is deemed a "victim"? That's what Mr. Bleiler alleges happened in his case, and if that's correct, it's a gross distortion of even the semblance of equal justice, not to mention a breach of the school's contract with its students.
According to the complaint: “The college’s sexual misconduct policy imposes a form of strict liability on male students: if a male and female student are both intoxicated and engage in sexual activity, the male student could face expulsion for violation of the policy without any evidence of coercion, manipulation, force or any additional culpable behavior.”
The complaint also raises a potentially egregious hearing impropriety. The board was composed of five members, including two students. Both of the student members knew the alleged victim: one was her friend, and the other was her former resident assistant, according to the complaint. The first student board member was allegedly biased against Mr. Bleiler during the hearing and had to be verbally restrained by the board, the complaint said. Further, according to the complaint, the administrator's impartiality was also questionable, as she had appeared on National Public Radio contending that most rapes go unreported, with the offenders going free. If these allegations are true, the hearing was tainted with impermissible bias and partiality, and the failure of the two students and the administrator to recuse themselves represents an unpardonable interference with the fair administration of justice.
According to a news report: "The complaint said Mr. Bleiler and others on his behalf spent roughly $220,000 for his education and without a diploma he cannot apply to graduate school nor have any employment prospects commensurate with his education. It is also difficult for him to enroll at another college to finish his degree."
This is not the first time Holy Cross has been charged with running roughshod over the rights of its male students accused of sexual assault. See here. All that smoke spewing from Holy Cross is reminiscent of Denison University--it's the reeking, malodorous soot that blots the sky when the U.S. Constitution is tossed into the incinerator, the smoldering burn of students' sacred rights being reduced to ash.
But we are seeing a very positive trend: increasingly, male students who say they've been wronged by skewed college administrative hearing processes are taking their schools to court. In the halls of academia, the one thing that trumps the smug, PC, attribution of evil to young college males is the pain of having to pay out big monetary settlements to those same young males.
Keep it up, men. It's the only thing that's going to force the pendulum to start swinging back toward the middle.
Sources:
http://www.telegram.com/article/20111127/NEWS/111279830/1116
http://thefire.org/article/13907.html
Here is Holy Cross' sexual assault policy: http://offices.holycross.edu/generalcounsel/policies-procedures/sapolicy
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9 comments:
He would also have others grounds for legal action, arguing that the college discriminates on the basis of sexual orientation. Since only heterosexuals, not homosexuals, would be subject such regulation and disciplinary procedures.
Excellent point, anonymous. I look forward to seeing this argument used, not only on this issue but also, for example, in family law.
Any custody bias against a man in a hetero divorce can be compared with that of a man in a gay divorce and discrimination can be proven this way.
If you want to see some false rape apologism, read this:
"Situations often arise, Phelps said, where the perpetrator will argue the charges are questionable because both parties were under the influence.
“The excuse that gets jumbled is ‘I was drunk, too, so technically didn’t we rape each other?’” Phelps said. “You don’t get off for killing someone when you’re drunk, so why would you get away for sexual assault when drunk? Alcohol does not make it okay.”
http://badgerherald.com/news/2011/12/07/alcohol_culture_fost.php
Massachusetts is a stronghold of law enforcement misinformation alliance that has "Empowered" the North East Gender-feminist establishment.
Please remove the prior comment I sent a few minutes ago. Or put it as anonymous or whatever.
It was sent from the wrong google account that mistakenly was not logged out. m...pousadas
Best you publish it as anonymous, if you can do that. The comment is interesting, about Title IX being used to discriminate against men.
Sorry for the mistake.
Mangina warning: "You don't get off for murder when you're drunk, so why would you get away for sexual assault when drunk? Alcohol does not make it OK." I agree with Archivist that this braying by Phelps is the worst sort of false rape aplogism. Wow. That clarifies it for me. But let's see if there's a difference that might apply. After all, it is to be presumed we're talking about consensual sex with some degree of enthusiasm on the part of both parties, at least at the time of the act - not penetrating some poor innocent virgin coed who is passed out cold (I can go for calling that rape).
When someone is murdered, there's usually a dead body (the murderee?) lying around cluttering things up. And it's usually not too hard to tell who's dead (the murderee) vs the killer (the murderer) [if he/she is known and hasn't fled].
When someone is screwed, now, let's see. Who was the screwer (criminal) and who was the screwee (victim)? If both were drunk, neither could "give informed voluntary consent". Shall we assume whoever was on top is the screwer, liable to criminal penalties, and whoever was on bottom was the screwee (innocent victim)? (Nah, side-by-side positions would be problematic here.)
Could comparison of blood alcohol levels of the parties help to determine criminal liablity, with the least drunk one presumed to be acting voluntarily and the drunkest one presumed to be the party with the greatest relative inablity to consent? (But timely blood alcohol levels are rarely available in these cases, and do we really want to set up a law encouraging blotto, drooling, staggering, puking drunkeness as the preferred method of establishing your status as a victim and the ultimate arbiter of innocence?)
Oh, I've got it - lets assume that whoever got the erection and did the penetrating was the screwer (criminal) and the other was the screwee (victim) regardless of the degree of drunkeness, or the positions of the two involved parties, or who disrobed first, or who "initiated" penetration? (That should settle all those nasty gender bias issues, as clitoral erections might be suspected but never proved, and other physiologic responses (lubrication, orgasm) could be excused as "involuntary reactions".
This diminished capacity of the female to consent when both parties are drinking/drunk should be completely discounted. It is in this era a legal monstrosity, the likes of which legal bias against females would never be tolerated. It is a holdover from another era in which double standards may have had some validity - today they no longer do. If Phelps wants a legal analogy concerning drunkeness and responsiblity, a better one is that being drunk does not excuse you from the poor decision to drive an automobile when you get busted for DUI, and being drunk does not excuse you for the poor decision to strip off your clothes with and to spread your legs voluntarily for another drunk!
Good luck to the young man. It is great to see young men fighting back. Meanwhile the White House supports taking the police out of the investigation and leaving it to these college misandry kangeroo courts.
Atlas Laughed
I believe that an earlier commentator is on to something when he suggests that American law enforcement is in fact discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation.
For example, if law enforcement are called to a domestic dispute between two homo sexual men, the two homo sexual men are basically treated as equals in interrogation, witness believe ability, ect, ect.Same thing with lesbian couples, both are treated as equals.
But with the federally funded perversions of American law enforcement, hetero-sexual couples are not treated as equals, and hetero-males are in fact being discriminated against.
Now Quack-ademic Gender-Raunch will argue this point, but there will be a time in the future where real academics will study this point in US history, and it will clearly show in the statistics that hetero-sexual males were in fact being discriminated against.
Archivist--
“The excuse that gets jumbled is ‘I was drunk, too, so technically didn’t we rape each other?’” Phelps said. “You don’t get off for killing someone when you’re drunk, so why would you get away for sexual assault when drunk? Alcohol does not make it okay.”
The argument and analogy is faulty. He's not arguing that he should be excused from rape because it was drunk. He's saying that if having sex with a tipsy but incapacitated person is rape (which it shouldn't be and naturally isn't) then if he's guilty of rape then so is she. The was inebriated by not incapacitated too. No force or threat of it was used in either direction.
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