progress of "yes means yes" laws and policies

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[Moved from Love and Dating to PPR]

False or true accusations aside, why should the whole thing involve the college, instead of just the police? It's not a college's job to play police and court.

this is what you said. and you and tant explained to me that using women in that sense is implying all women. so I read it as such .
like saying women want.. or women don't lie. I guess I'm middle ground on most issues. I side with most people report they were raped, but I don't think there aren't some who lie about it.

seems close enough. or do you not consider tinfioil-hat conspiracy people cowarding and afraid of stuff? also petrified.

Actually, it usually is. Obviously I don't know about this specific university, but usually upon enrolment the student will sign a code of conduct. That binds the college to protect the student, and the student to behave well. If Mr Accused has committed triple rape, then that is a disciplinary offence that breaches said code and is liable to see him expelled. The college is probably compelled to act by its promise to protect the women.

i was speaking of women like the women in this case, who make reports with the police. if you're willing to go to the cops and talk to investigators about it over and over and over again, get grilled on the awful details over and over and over again, the likelihood goes down that your average person would be willing to "put on a show" just to accuse someone of something they didn't actually do. yes, some women will do that--but the number of women who are capable of it is small, because that would take a pretty disturbed individual to make something like that up, make up all the details and be willing to lie over and over again convincingly, get upset in a convincing way, over and over again. THAT was my point--and the FBI stats on false rape claims to police (about 2% of all claims to police) supports what i said--that only a small minority of women who report rape to the police do it falsely. i said it's not easy to make a false rape claim to police. i didn't say it's impossible or it never happens, it's just very rare (as in 2% rare).

Maybe, but I don't see why it should regulate things unrelated to studies more than what the law says. And if it's illegal (like rape), the police/courts do a better job at determining if one is guilty. When the university plays court, there is a risk of a lowered standard of proof. Vice versa, if the rape actually happened and proven, just an expulsion is a too lenient punishment compared to the jail sentence the perpetrator deserves.

I don't know how common false accusations are, I hope they are rare. But she doesn't have to make up all details. She just has to tell the sexual encounter that actually happened, and claim that she didn't consent. According to one theory, it usually happens when she consented and enjoyed the encounter at the moment, but due to society's pointless stigma on female promiscuity, she feels ashamed afterwards. And she (in rare cases) diverts the guilt by realizing that she didn't give a legal, formal consent, which is easier and easier to claim with today's "yes means yes" type laws.

The key phrase here is "If Mr Accused has committed triple rape". The university has a duty to treat all its students fairly--even the accused ones. He is innocent until proven guilty.

I have to say I read a bit about this and was a bit confused. As I understand in one state they were trying to pass a law that was specifically to do with universities and the information they give out.

With sexual crimes especially, I think you can't have a mixed message, or particular environment where you say something different from the general law. In other words if the law need to be changed it need to be changed everywhere, or not at all.

So universities may be require to spread this yes means yes message, but the law actually says something different. The law can accept an implied yes, so long as it remain consensual. If consent would not be possible then that is automatically rape. Or if someone withdraws consent at any point during, then it is rape to continue. The only point at which you can't withdraw consent is after, becuase it is a legal impossibility, you can't set conditions where consent may be withdrawn retrospectively, as consent was given at the time.

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding what they are trying to do.

Actually language used during consensual sex cannot be policed, it a violation of right to try to do this. Therefore language itself is only one part of the equation. A person may say no or use language pertaining to no you expect the other person to stop, but if then say they don't mean to stop the exclamation was about something else that is an ambiguous situation that can cause problem legally. Granted an edge case, but you always have establish if consent was given, this goes beyond just words.

Normally there an initiator, but legally speaking if you had a yes mean yes law, both would have say yes each time. This isn't really workable. Actually in most jurisdictions, this is not how the rape laws work, it is not down to words alone.

I support victims of sexual crime, and equally due process.

It's political, college sexual assault has become a hot topic, and the feds, wanting to be seen as 'doing something', have decided that Title IX allows them to dictate sexual assault policies to universities, including the 'preponderance of evidence' standard used at these kangaroo court inquiries, on pain of federal sanctions. I think that they know that sex crimes have always been difficult to prosecute, often lacking hard evidence and coming down to a he said/she said argument (not what a prosecutor trying to pad his conviction rate is looking for), and decided that the way to go was to shred due process by lowering the bar for "conviction", while putting it on the colleges to sidestep any legal issues with the court system, so that they could show that they were making "progress", innocent victims be damned. I liken it to laws named after dead children, where an emotional appeal (who isn't against rape?) is used to force an ill considered and counter-productive law through the system, that we're going to have to live with until its failure becomes too difficult to ignore, like 3 strikes laws or the drug war or some aspects of the sex offender registry. Of course, in the meantime innocent lives will be ruined, but that's just political collateral damage.

Reading up on psychopaths on wiki is fun.

They make up like 2% of the population and can lie without blinking, in fact they like to lie.
They spend their time playing power games and if someone yells rape, they are quite happy to join in to feed their narcissism.

Wonder what the punishment for repeatedly yelling rape against different guys is in the states. It's a talking to by the police here. Not that anyone would dare point out that the same girl seems to get raped at least once a month. That would be victimizing the victim.

Equality is a tricky thing, and you get attacked for demanding it.

Sure, that's why I included that key phrase.

I do think there are occasions where it may be suitable for private bodies to use lower standards of proof than "beyond reasonable doubt". I know sporting associations often use "the balance of probabilities", and I think civil courts do too. Whilst I wouldn't want this standard to be used in criminal proceedings, I think it is appropriate in some other situations, and this may well be one.

Agreed, very much so. Sex ed was so useless. It's great if you want to learn how to avoid an STD or pregnancy, but doesn't deal with relationship dynamics, boundaries, communication, respect, abuse, or pretty much any of the s**t that goes on all around us. Abuse and consent is not a simple, black and white issue, yet too many people seem to treat it as if this were so. #culturalfailure

@People who are defending 'the system', no one wants to falsely accuse anyone. But sexual assault is extremely difficult to prove, and thus is often pushed aside. Recently, the local college where I reside had a sexual assault case that was caught and posted online, evidence beyond any kind of doubt. What punishment did the guilty perpetrators receive? Expulsion AFTER GRADUATION (!?!?!?!). If you were a woman, and you knew someone, or a friend of a friend who has reported an assault or rape, of which nothing came of it (which is often the case. These cases are frequently dealt with in the dark, usually with no harsh consequence (or no consequence at all) coming from them, even when proven guilty beyond reasonable and unreasonable doubt), do you think you would feel motivated or encouraged to report your case? I am guessing not, and this is the case for many. That means there are a LOT of rapists frequenting the streets, a very discomforting thought (and I'm not a woman, which means I don't have to deal with this reality starring me in the face everywhere I go). Due process DOES NOT WORK because of the nature of the crime, how difficult it is to prove, how long and thoroughly one must relive the event before it even makes a first appearance in court, and how our culture deals with it even when the rapist is proven guilty. If we lived in a culture where women were taking advantage of the legal system to throw innocent guys in jail, it would make sense to speak up about "due process", but the opposite is true.

Also, the woman in the article did another interview where she said that the police said she had a good chance of holding the rapist accountable, but it would have required that she stay there until after graduation. She's going to Columbia, she's undoubtedly a very ambition person who's put a lot of work to get to where she is. To force her to choose between holding her rapist accountable (for putting her through a traumatic experience whose effects she'll feel for years, decades or a lifetime to come), and pursuing whatever prestigious opportunity she's worked her ass of for for the last who knows how long is absolutely ludicrous. It's insulting and disgusting. I think too much faith is put in the Powers That Be.

If she don't report it to the police, the perpetrator obviously won't be seriously punished; I don't see how that could be changed. If she reports it, I'd assume she has to appear a few times at court (again, hard to change). I don't see how she would've had to stay there other than that; if she would've had to, that's a problem, but completely unrelated to college proceedings or yes-means-yes laws.

I see the problem that it's hard to prove who tells the truth in rape cases; I don't see the solution. However, I don't see that culture deals with rape leniently; rather, even a suspicion of rape can lead to serious ostracism.