By David Futrelle
Sorry I was out of commission yesterday! This is part of the reason why: my latest piece on The Cut about education secretary Betsy DeVos’s new campus rape policy, which turns out to be not really much of a policy at all.
Here’s the basic argument, minus most of the fun details about the terrible Men’s Rights activists and other reactionaries whose bad ideas she’s basically absorbed.
DeVos had been widely expected to use her speech today at George Mason University in Arlington, Virginia to announce a rollback of the Obama administration’s guidance on how colleges should deal with accusations of rape. This she did, declaring the 2011 “Dear Colleague” letter — requiring that colleges take rape accusations more seriously — basically null and void. …
So what does DeVos propose as a replacement for this “failed system?” She’s got nothing.
That’s right. After torpedoing the “Dear Colleague” letter, she offers college administrators precisely zero guidance on how the Department of Education expects them to fulfill their Title IX responsibilities. …
Instead of guidance, DeVos offers only a promise that her department “will launch a transparent notice-and-comment process to incorporate the insights of all parties in developing a better way.”
So the “era of ‘rule by letter’” is over, but the “better way” is yet to come. What exactly are college administrators expected to do in the in-between days? More to the point: what are victims of sexual assault on college campuses supposed to do?
Betsy DeVos literally has no answer.
It’s going to be a mess.
Naturally, the MRAs are thrilled. More on that tomorrow.
Oh, yes. And look, it worked…barely anyone is talking about Jr’s testimony.
I cannot believe this shit…there’s so much happening so fast, I can’t process it all.
And maybe that’s the plan.
THE_SAMURAI:
I’m sorry. So sorry.
I’m sorry, Samurai and Sandra, and to everyone here who’s been assaulted.
Your experiences are relevant; no need to say sorry for telling it like it is or call it a sob story. It’s a crime and wrong, one Devos is acting to make easier to get away with.
There’s a comment on The Cut saying (paraphrased) “rape is a crime! You should report it to the police, not to your school! Would you report a rape by a coworker to HR???” and it’s incredibly infuriating because, yes, it is perfectly reasonable to report an assault by a coworker to HR. Apparently this person thinks you should just report the crime to the police and then just keep working alongside your attacker like nothing has changed until such time as the cops drag them off to jail.
Looking back on it, i’m not sure that Margaret Atwood understood how disgusting and amoral a real life Betsy Devos could be. I know she was disgusted by the Phyllis Shadfly ladies in her time, but Betsy managed to find rock bottom and keep burrowing.
….and college aged women everywhere said, “Whew.”
Another win for the administration of the pussy-grabber-in-chief. Lookin’ out for his sexual assault peeps.
re Betsy: Golly. Gag me with a canoe. Not surprising, but totally horrifying, and enraging.
In OT news, an uber-nationalist anti-muslim anti-immigration group which has hived off the Canadian Soldiers of Odin is planning a rally Sept 30 in Lacolle, PQ and in Ottawa:
The men-only anti-immigrant group, known as the Northern Guard, plans to show its colours in a rally on September 30
Is it just me or is there a ridiculous number of natural disasters right now?
First Harvey and the south Asian typhoon. Then the Irma/Jose/Katia three pack. Now a 8.4 magnitude quake off the Mexican coast + tsunami fears
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/08/mexico-earthquake-warning-tsunami
The fuck?
Nope, fuck it. Just back from an old friend’s funeral, whose body I found. I’ll deal with this tomorrow.
@wwth
Is this what the End Times is supposed to be like?
@Ooglyboggles
In a shadowrun group on facebook someone speculated that these are all the result of the “Great Ghost Dance” an act of magical warfare by the future “Native American Nations” who will be recognized as sovereign nations in 2018 with the signing of the “Treaty of Denver”,
its a little off from shadowrun cannon since the Great Ghost Dance was supposed supposed to cause a bunch of major volcanic eruptions last month.
@Gijoel
If you want them all the hugs are yours.
@Gijoel
So sorry to hear about your friend. Take good care of yourself.
I always like to do a bit of pro bono legal work, so….
Dear Indians
Re: Treaty
Don’t trust the white man.
Regards
Alan
@ gijoel
Ugh, hugs if needed.
I don’t do hugs, but kittens for all who need them.
In other OT news, this is kind of hilarious:
https://thegeekygaeilgeoir.wordpress.com/2017/09/06/even-racists-got-the-blues/
Summary: US racists make T-shirts supposedly saying “Blue Lives Matter” in Irish (because reasons), but the word they chose for “blue” actually means (in this context)… “black”. Owned!
The Shadowrun timeline is running around 20 years behind. We were supposed to get the Supreme Court ruling that “corporations are people” back in the mid-90s, though we haven’t yet hit “and therefore have Second Amendment rights” yet. Also, I was privately lightly disappointed when a dragon didn’t eat an airplane back on Christmas Eve 2011.
Good snarky thread on one of DeVos’s houses:
https://twitter.com/davidcrespo/status/905858942579900417
It’s early and my first reaction to this was (as someone who attended that school in the mid 90s) wtf, GMU??
Then I did a little light googling and found that the DeVos speech didn’t go un-protested and I felt a little better.
Love, kittens, and hugs to all who need/want ’em.
Excellent job, David. And you were right. I see Paul “Women Have Supported Me My ENTIRE LIFE And I Take My Self-Loathing Out On All Of Them” Elam couldn’t WAIT to comment. Gross. But excellent job.
Also, @Moggie: BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHA!!!
@CS: “stop and ask yourself: does this policy make it easier to rape and get away with it?”
There are trees in the South notorious for being used to enforce policies that made it harder to rape and get away with it, by simply stringing up the accused without trial. Though I suspect you have a problem with it in that case because those were black men.
Hell, the core constructs of any just court system fundamentally “make it easier to rape and get away with it.”
Presumption of innocence “makes it easier to rape and get away with it” by requiring that some level of proof be offered behind an accusation.
Due process “makes it easier to rape and get away with it” by having to go through a whole bunch of steps to get from accusation to punishment.
Being able to cross-examine witnesses against you “makes it easier to rape and get away with it” because it gives that filthy rapist a chance to counter the accusation made against him.
Not permitting double jeopardy “makes it easier to rape and get away with it” by not letting you simply try and retry until you find the rapist guilty.
etc, etc, etc. The same applies to literally every other safeguard that keeps our system from punishing the innocent.
Remember, more than 2/3 of the people exonerated by the Innocence Project were convicted of sexual assault, and those are people who now have been proven not to have been the guilty party, by virtue of being excluded from the possibility of being guilty due to DNA evidence.
For another fun one, look up the case of Tracy West and Louis Gonzales III. She was dead set no the idea that he raped her, but it was physically impossible for him to have done so, unless he’s the secret identity of the Flash, even *after* she was allowed to change her account because it wasn’t lining up with evidence. We shouldn’t have bothered with all that “evidence” nonsense though, she accused him and that should have been enough.
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jun/26/local/la-me-accused-20110626
***Literally, in your ideal world the right response to a woman accusing a man of rape is a lynch mob. Anything else “makes it easier to rape and get away with it”.***
Just found this site. Hi to everyone on here. I honestly can’t believe why there aren’t way more sites this, unless I’m not looking hard enough; it feels like every corner of the web is filled with those alpha male, red pill, disturbingly right wing type of sites. As far as the article goes, what do people expect from a Trump administration hire, who’s brother is Erik Prince, the owner of the murderous Blackwater now Academi mercenary army, who were instrumental in the George W. Bush era. If you google them, this is unfortunately par for the course.
The problem with this argument over Betsy DeVos` decision is that most of the protections that were suggested by the ”Dear Colleague” have failed quite miserably.
Reducing the standard of evidence necessary to expel someone is not effective and has gotten some people expelled on false charges. Moreover, one person actually committed suicide because of this.
https://pjmedia.com/trending/2017/04/17/student-punished-by-title-ix-after-being-exonerated-attempted-suicide/
I’m all for trying to reform the way sexual assault is prosecuted, but this is not a hill to die on. People getting expelled for no valid reason is not a way to get conservatives on board.
Too bad DeVos has no reforms in mind, and is consulting with the abusers’ lobby for ideas. Which is our actual problem, not your straw idea.
Why do we want “conservatives” “on board”?
+1 to PoM. Why would we want the conservatives to have *anything* to do with how we deal with sexual assaults ?
DeVos wouldn’t have got this article if she proposed something, anything, other than sweeping it under the rug.
AT: “…not a way to get conservatives on board.”
1. With respect, I don’t think you understand the purpose of this website. It’s not “WHTM: Let’s All Hold Hands and Sing Kumbayah with Kakistocrats”.
2. Also: if the threat of their own daughters being raped by frat boys, consequence-free, isn’t enough to “get conservatives on board”…then nothing will ever be enough. That’s a lost cause. We’ve got to focus on other methods now.
3. Also-also: [nyoom]
I’m with those who can’t even right now. My heart with my fellow survivors here.
Why do victims have to be the ones to always get the short end of the stick when people talk about due process. Yes, I believe in innocent until proven guilty, and sadly, this is the terrible crime that rarely leaves evidence that isn’t the victim’s testimony. But instead of throwing out an attempt to bring victims justice, they could enhance it as a tool to help everyone.
Fuck this all, I am so fucking done with the world right now. I think I need to go listen to Kesha’s “Praying” again.
Shadrach: HA HA HA oh wow
You actually compared protecting rape survivors to murder.
Probably should have run that one by Meshach and Abednego first, yeah?