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[rambis]

What, exactly, does she think Obama did wrong? What is so ineffective about the current policies?

He signed them with his name. I imagine a rewrite that looks 95% the same with a Davos/Trump seal that gives them all the credit.

 

[Emperor_Uriel]

While DeVos's move is just par for the Anti-Obama course, this is a really complex issue.

”Washington has burdened schools with increasingly elaborate and confusing guidelines that even lawyers find difficult to understand and navigate."

I absolutely believe this, though I'd say the issue isn't Washington as much as the laws themselves. There's too much wiggle room for both prosecutors and defense attorneys to make the case that a specific act is or is not a crime.

The laws relating to sex crimes should be incredibly specific. None of the nebulous nonsense about proving intent or assessing trauma. None of this "but he's such a good student and would never mean to hurt a woman!" or "It was just a joke!"

Something like: If person A puts their penis into person B without their consent, it's always rape. If person A touches the private areas of person B without their consent (or even with consent, if the victim is a child) it's always assault. At the same time, if person A did not do these things, then they cannot be investigated or charged, period.

Our legal system relies too much on the lawyers and not enough on the law itself. If you make the rules comprehensive and clear, then it'll be a lot tougher for people to get away with breaking them.

 

[Cagey]

He signed them with his name. I imagine a rewrite that looks 95% the same with a Davos/Trump seal that gives them all the credit.

This "lol Obama did it that's why" mindset undersells the danger here significantly because this isn't merely motivated by doing the opposite of the last guy, as if there's no specific intent behind these sorts of policy changes.

The low-hanging meme joke isn't always appropriate.

 

[Random Painted HIghway]

I'm not the one decrying Obama's attempts. Nothing is perfect. I can't say on the fly how to fix it or what the solution is.

But I can say the solution certainly isn't to shift the focus towards "preventing false accusations" as if that's really the big issue... which is what DeVos is saying and what this topic is about

I don't need to know how to fix it to know how not to fix it.

My point was that just going well Obama's solution wasn't perfect so it needs to change in response to the change that DeVos is putting forward isn't right.


This is DeVos: https://mobile.twitter.com/AnnieWaldman/status/905843753365245956

If you say something is imperfect without elaboration you're inviting the question as to what you feel is imperfect. I was asking you your opinion on this, as you have strong opinions on these matters.

 

[IaN_GAF]

I'm obviously not in an ideal position to judge... But I don't think I would've picked her for this particular task.

 

[Random Painted HIghway]

I'm obviously not in an ideal position to judge... But I don't think I would've picked her for this particular task.

Well, let's get real here there may be fewer than 100 people in the entire community country that thinks she is up for this-trump, the GOP senators and her family and close friends and allies.

 

[Psychoward]

I'm obviously not in an ideal position to judge... But I don't think I would've picked her for this particular task.

Even though this country is full of rape-culture denying shitheads, I think randomly picking a person out of the country would be a better choice than DeVos for this because at least then you're gambling to get someone with compassion.

 

[excelsiorlef]

If you say something is imperfect without elaboration you're inviting the question as to what you feel is imperfect. I was asking you your opinion on this, as you have strong opinions on these matters.

I have strong opinions that regressing and creating a system that focuses on "false accusations" is wrong.

I was not the one saying Obama's was imperfect as a main argument. I was merely allowing that to be a valid concern of others while addressing the dangers of what's happening here.

 

[TangoAlphaLima]

The laws relating to sex crimes should be incredibly specific. None of the nebulous nonsense about proving intent or assessing trauma.

Intent is an element in nearly every criminal law in the United States...

 

[Frozenprince]

Basically "we don't care what Baylor did stop trying to make us care, fuck Title IX"

 

[sonicmj1]

This is a complicated issue, and while parts of it are similar to the issues with how law enforcement handles rape cases (plenty of high profile examples of schools turning a blind eye to major issues), the way many college campuses handle sexual assault now can swing pretty hard the other way. I don't think it's a good system for anybody.

Of course, I wish that the head of the Department of Education tasked with dealing with this problem was someone with expertise instead of Betsy DeVos.

Criminal justice is always a pendulum that needs constant adjustments, there is never going to be a perfect solution to any of this. Right now we are in an over correct mode that allows colleges to set their own policies on a lot of these issues that results in some cases the accused having no real ability to defend themselves. No attorney, no cross examination, nothing. Is it a just result that an entity of students and higher ed personnel make legal and factual determinations on criminal activity that result in significant consequences to the individuals involved?

There's a level where the colleges are driving this, but the real impetus for it came from the Obama administration. They set strict policies schools would have to follow, investigated violations of those policies aggressively, and threatened to pull federal funding if schools did not conform.

To quote the recent Atlantic article mentioned earlier in the thread:

The most significant requirement in the “Dear Colleague” letter was the adoption, by all colleges, in all adjudications involving allegations of sexual misconduct, of the lowest possible burden of proof, a “preponderance of evidence”—often described as just over a 50 percent likelihood of guilt. (Many universities were already using this standard, but others favored a “clear and convincing evidence” standard, requiring roughly a 75 percent likelihood of guilt. Criminal courts require proof “beyond a reasonable doubt,” the highest legal standard for finding guilt.)

Severe restrictions were placed on the ability of the accused to question the account of the accuser in order to prevent intimidation or trauma. Eventually the administration praised a “single investigator” model, whereby the school appoints a staff member to act as detective, prosecutor, judge, and jury. The letter defined sexual violence requiring university investigation broadly to include “rape, sexual assault, sexual battery, and sexual coercion,” with no definitions provided. It also characterized sexually harassing behavior as “any unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature,” including remarks. Schools were told to investigate any reports of possible sexual misconduct, including those that came from a third party and those in which the alleged victim refused to cooperate. (Paradoxically, they were also told to defer to alleged victims’ wishes, creating no small amount of confusion among administrators.)
...
Investigative practices also changed. OCR began keeping a public list of the schools at which it was investigating possible Title IX violations, putting them, in the words of Janet Napolitano, the former secretary of homeland security in the Obama administration and current president of the University of California system, under “a cloud of suspicion.” (OCR does not publish similar lists for other types of investigations that are still in process.) And investigations, including those begun due to a single complaint, did not result in a narrow inquiry into a given case, but into every aspect of a school’s adjudication process and general climate, and a review of all cases going back years. OCR publicly threatened the withdrawal of federal funds from schools that failed to comply with the new rules, an action that would be devastating to most schools. By 2016, according to BuzzFeed, the average investigation had been open for 963 days, up from an average in 2010 of 289 days. As of March of this year there were 311 open cases at 227 schools.

Of course, now that schools have invested so heavily at the federal government's insistence in creating a bureaucracy around investigating sexual assault, many are reluctant to start reforming things all over again.

I absolutely believe this, though I'd say the issue isn't Washington as much as the laws themselves. There's too much wiggle room for both prosecutors and defense attorneys to make the case that a specific act is or is not a crime.

The laws relating to sex crimes should be incredibly specific. None of the nebulous nonsense about proving intent or assessing trauma. None of this "but he's such a good student and would never mean to hurt a woman!" or "It was just a joke!"

Something like: If person A puts their penis into person B without their consent, it's always rape. If person A touches the private areas of person B without their consent (or even with consent, if the victim is a child) it's always assault. At the same time, if person A did not do these things, then they cannot be investigated or charged, period.

Our legal system relies too much on the lawyers and not enough on the law itself. If you make the rules comprehensive and clear, then it'll be a lot tougher for people to get away with breaking them.

This is noble, but naive. The hard part about prosecuting sexual assault isn't defining which actions are off-limits, but determining whether or not there was consent. That's inevitably going to be difficult, especially in cases where evidence is limited to what the two people involved remember. If you try to make it simpler, chances are you're going to make it either too easy or too hard to charge.

There might be more colleges can do to educate students about sexual conduct (though they already try pretty hard), but I don't think they're a great institution for handling serious criminal conduct.

 

[Emperor_Uriel]

Intent is an element in nearly every criminal law in the United States...

And it makes sense in some cases, such as differentiating between murder and manslaughter. But for things like driving drunk, it doesn't matter if you intended to get behind the wheel or not. I'm arguing that rape and sexual assault should be the same. If you have nonconsensual intercourse with someone or touch them in a private area, it shouldn't matter whether you "didn't mean to" or not.

This is noble, but naive. The hard part about prosecuting sexual assault isn't defining which actions are off-limits, but determining whether or not there was consent. That's inevitably going to be difficult, especially in cases where evidence is limited to what the two people involved remember. If you try to make it simpler, chances are you're going to make it either too easy or too hard to charge.

It's true that consent will always be the focus, but why not silence people who "didn't know" that having sex with someone under the influence was wrong? Whose definition of a "harmless joke" is switching out with another man during a sex act?

People who wouldn't define their actions as rape or assault are a huge part of the problem, we lose nothing by having explicit criteria for what does and does not constitute each. There's even the added bonus of shutting down predatory prosecutors and police who broaden the definitions to target the innocent.

There might be more colleges can do to educate students about sexual conduct (though they already try pretty hard), but I don't think they're a great institution for handling serious criminal conduct.

Elementary schools are the best institution. If you teach kids about consent and the "bathing suit rule" from the time they're learning addition, they'll know their boundaries by the time they're earning a degree.