Writing in Reason,* Cathy Young reports that evidence is once again necessary for a rape conviction at Harvard.
Welcome back to America, Crimson Tide. We missed you!
From “Unwanted Sex: A turning tide on date rape“:
The wars over campus date rape are no longer in the headlines, but the latest news from this front is sure to get some attention. Harvard has adopted a new policy under which sexual assault complaints will be investigated by the school’s administrative board only if there is some corroborating evidence. While this policy will also apply to other offenses, such as theft, the discussion of the new rule has focused almost exclusively on the issue of date rape — which is particularly likely to involve he said/she said charges.
[…] Most people today would agree that physically forcing another person into sex, or threatening to use force, is rape — even if it happens on a date and even if the unwanted sex was preceded by consensual sexual contact. But anti-date rape activists also use the term to describe situations in which someone is pressured into sex through ‘continual arguments,’ verbal persuasion not including threats (such as ‘everyone is doing it’), and non-violent but persistent advances.
[…] Thus, in a notorious 1996 case at Brandeis University, third-year undergraduate David Schaer was found guilty of engaging in unwanted sexual activity and punished with suspension and probation. His accuser claimed that she fell asleep in his bed after engaging in some foreplay and telling him that she didn’t want to have sex, and then woke up to find him having sex with her. Schaer insisted that the woman was awake and the sex was consensual. The university board made its decision based in part on such ‘evidence’ as a campus police officer’s statement that the complainant ‘looked like a rape victim’ a month after the encounter, and testimony from a ‘witness’ who described Schaer as an ‘egotistical bastard who had no respect for women.’
Columbia University has gone so far in turning its sexual misconduct investigations into star chamber trials as to deny an accused student the right to confront the accuser or to obtain a transcript of the hearing. When this policy was met with widespread condemnation, one anti-rape activist wondered aloud why there was so much concern about ‘the rapist’ — a comment which reveals a frightening contempt for the presumption of innocence.
The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts has ruled, in rejecting Schaer’s lawsuit against Brandeis, that college disciplinary boards are not required to afford their students rights similar to the ones they would have in a legal proceeding. It is true that a college cannot impose criminal penalties on a student; at worst, he or she can be expelled.
Still, especially when dealing with alleged offenses that are not merely violations of academic rules but ‘real-world’ crimes, blatant disregard for the rights of the accused is shockingly unfair, even if it is legal. If the new policy at Harvard signals a turning of the tide, it will be a victory for true gender equity.
Again, glad to have you back, Crimson Tide! Now, go convince Columbia and William Mary and Dartmouth what a great country this is.
Who knows, maybe they’ll dig what you’ve got to say and re-join the union proper…?
*Ms. Young’s column originally appeared in The Boston Globe.
This is backwards. The main complaint about Harvard’s “Administrative Board” is that they did <i>not</i> take accusations of rape seriously enough. Cases in the recent past suggested that it was easier to get kicked out–or forced to take time off–because of plaigarism than because of rape. (And, from what I know, it wasn’t merely stray accusations of rape; it was sustained complaint, with some corroboration.)
Further, the new policy is that corroborating evidence is needed for <i>investigation</i>, not for “conviction.” There are merits and demerits to this idea–but, good God, shouldn’t a university always investigate allegations of rape? While investigations are often their own punishment, shouldn’t the focus of “reform” be on the fairness of those investigation, and the transparency of doling out discipline? (And there are problems with the Ad Board, but that’s another matter…)
What’s striking about this is that since Harvard institutes a policy requiring evidence for investigation, it’s assumed that <i>before</i> there was free-for-all of PC hysteria where every guy who grabbed a tit (or was accused of grabbing a tit) was kicked out as a rapist.
Not so. If anything is striking about rape and date rape at Harvard, it is not that one hears about it too much, but that one barely hears about it at all. I don’t know how life on other campuses is, but if there is a problem on this one, it is likely to be one opposite from the one Cathy Young describes. But what’s reality when you have a PC-dragon to slay? (But that would be un-<i>Reason</i>able…)
Go check out F.I.R.E.’s archive of cases like this. I believe Young is addressing a much wider issue than you seem to be crediting her with.
You bring to the fore one of the problems with these kinds of issues, though—that no one really hears much about them. And that’s because universities work hard to keep these things quiet. It’s not the number of cases that’s at issue here, after all—but rather the means by which investigation and punishment is handled by those universities.
I’d submit that the P.C.-dragon is real, in this case. And that sometimes it’s just as easy to go after P.C.-dragon <i>slayers</i> as it is to go after P.C.-dragons.
Regardless, Harvard is to be commended for this—at least in principle. If, as you suggest, Harvard is not prosecuting <i>actual</i> rapists, clearly there’s a problem.
Like I said, I really can’t speak about other universities. I just don’t think her analysis applies to this one, and it’s unfair to assume that it would.
She’s projecting an image of the Other onto this campus; she’s a Harvarddentalist. OK, nevermind, I’ll leave the wisecracks to you
Or maybe she’s just a Yalie..?
snicker.