Oh? What do you mean, because i don’t get it.
It’s an artifact of the time when universities were an “in loco parentis” for young men and women of younger than their “majority”, especially the young men and women of the upper-middle/upper classes. It was part of the social deal to allow women into the university in the first place: the university was supposed to be parental surrogates. It was a patriarchal solution then, and only remains because of the lack of confidence in townie justice which is probably not any more competent than the university rentacops. But at least if we update the system to clarify authority, we can start holding the police and local prosecutors to account rather than distracting universities from their mission of education.
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I´m not sure that it´s a university´s job to keep students “safe”, whatever that means, but i am sure it´s their job to take an interest in whether their employees are grabbing student´s asses when they meet them to talk about their thesis.
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I thought I was agreeing with you. Basically, I meant that it’s not particularly surprising that universities are expected to “keep students safe”, since they’ve had their own governance systems for a very long time.
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But still, when a crime is reported, and sexual assault is a crime, then surely it is the university’s responsibility to refer that crime up to the judicial system to investigate it properly, not attempt to handle it themselves.
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She did go to the police, and it was just as bad. She had people with her as witnesses.
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The campus officials have an interest in covering up or downplaying sexual assault, and the police and courts are notorious for ignoring rape cases or victimizing the victims all over again.
There is no reliable social institution that addresses the problem of rape. That’s the real problem.
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AND to handle it themselves.
again, it’s not an either/or scenario.
I certainly hope the student code of conduct at a prestigious institution isn’t more or less ‘‘don’t be found guilty of a crime’’.
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It is their job to keep students safe BECAUSE a safe environment is conducive to learning.
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I’m not saying that they shouldn’t do their own internal process too, but they should always always always refer out of the institution as well. Not sure why you assume I am saying otherwise.
And some colleges and universities are run by the Catholic church, so that should go double for them, right?
Well, I wonder.
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Well, yes, but that´s exactly what they didn´t do, isn´t it? They didn´t refer the crime to the judicial system to investigate it properly, instead they ridiculed the students who came to them for help and handled the issue by protecting the assailant without any further investigation. As a young woman of 20 years or so, who likely thought long and hard about the decision to even raise the issue with university authorities, are you going to take it to the next level and involve police after that kind of treatment?
And really, you don´t actually believe the judicial system will start an investigation into the case of a university assistant unable to keep his hands to himself, especially when his superiors are already covering for him, do you?
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in the current climate of things in the UK, i absolutely believe they would.
Though, to be fair, campus officials also have an interest in avoiding the negative publicity of being painted as tolerant of sexual assault.
No, I just use different words for the same thing. Harassment, I suppose.
If you’re curious, it was the ‘not’ in the next line.
where, IMHO, an ‘and’ would have communicated what i now know that you meant.
‘‘and handle it themselves’’
I was understanding you to mean that they administrators should have a more hands off policy (literally hand off the problem) and leave it to law enforcement entirely.
I think it is probably the responsibility of the victim to report the crime to the criminal authorities, and the universities, also.
I think RR is referring to the “preponderance of the evidence” legal standard of proof. The department of education laid out a preponderance of the evidence standard for campus disciplinary proceedings involving sexual assault in their “Dear Colleague” letter in 2011. Preponderance of the evidence is a lower legal standard than “beyond a reasonable doubt,” and requires only that the accused is more likely than not to have committed the act.
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Fair enough, my mistake
not even a mistake. Just my POV. cheers.
