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.
A misogynistic religious zealot? Never heard of that…. /sarcasm
*sigh* These people cling to rape myths like they’re going out of style. Meanwhile a judge in Canada pulled this crap: https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/qvv5zv/a-hockey-players-assault-sentence-was-postponed-so-it-wouldnt-hurt-his-internship
Kittens for all who need ’em.
@Moggie re: ‘Irish’ slogan: BWAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA!!!
Thanks for the laugh. <3
I’m going to make this as brief as I can – hurricane barreling towards me and mine and all, you understand – but.
@Schadrach: I say this as the niece of two Black men who were lynched decades before my birth, and the descendant of countless Black women who were raped by White men with total impunity for CENTURIES. Comparing the thousands of innocent Black men (and WOMEN) who were lynched in this country with the flimsiest of legal pretexts and/or accusations of ANY crime to our contemporary judicial climate and its treatment of rape is…are you kidding? No. Stop it. You DO NOT get to EVER make your fucked-up rape-culture-cheerleading arguments invoking this. YOU. DO. NOT.
Your lack of empathy and inability or unwillingness to see everything that is wrong with what you’re saying is alarming. You’re either ignorant or an extraordinary asshole. PLEASE have the decency to be ashamed of yourself, and shut the fuck up forever with this angle.
Fuck you. Lynching was about racism. Not misandry and false rape accusations. It’s a myth that rape was used as a pretext for most lynchings.
Also, trying to get universities to take rape accusations more seriously is not the same as advocating for a lack of due process when it comes to the criminal prosecution of rape.
Hell, most of us here would just like the criminal justice to actually properly investigate rape cases rather than just victim blaming and putting the rape kit in storage, never to be tested.
A T,
Sometimes rape victims also commit suicide because nothing was done to punish the rapists. Isn’t it curious how local police seem to always be unable to investigate rape when the accused are football players?
http://www.espn.com/espn/otl/story/_/id/12507869/sasha-menu-courey-death-investigation-closed-columbia-missouri-police
Seconding the not wanting conservatives on board. They are pro-rape except for when it comes to a stranger attacking a white virgin with a weapon type of rapes. AKA “legitimate rape.”
Yeah, I’m pretty fucking tired of this “we need to get the conservatives on board” shit. How we’re supposed to be nice, and reasonable, and polite, and make compromises, and extend hands of friendship and all the rest.
You didn’t hear the republicans telling each other that they needed to be more reasonable and to build more bridges with the democrats after obama took office, did you? You didn’t see the hordes of moderates and fence-sitters being turned away from voting republican by the sheer awfulness of the party and its hard core supporters, did you?
Given that we’ve already established that a) you can regain political power whilst holding your opponents in total contempt and attempting to sabotage their every move, regardless of merit and b) the conservatives have shown absolutely not one iota of any intent to be reasonable or make compromises, it seems quite reasonable to just tell em all to go fuck themselves.
So please feel free to rephrase your argument in a way that doesn’t require kissing regressive’s asses, mmkay?
@Schadrach
I look forward to hearing about how much more effort will be put towards testing rape kits under the current conservative government, and not simply destroying as soon as possible. For the good of all those falsely accused men.
Lol. Schadrach’s name sounded familiar so I Googled to see if he posted here before. Looks like he has a little hate crush on David.
Oh, and the name sounded familiar because he posted in support of MRAs falsely accusing David of doxxing an MRA
https://www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/2015/11/10/mra-jack-barnes-is-trying-to-silence-me-with-increasingly-explicit-threats/comment-page-3/#comment-570796
Love how MRAs are soooooo against false accusations but have no problem making false accusations themselves.
Possibly not the name person, but “Schadrach” (same spelling and everything) is also the name of a hardcore gator-type user on a gaming forum I’m a part of.
@Schadrach
None of those legal systems made it easier for rapists, in particular, to avoid legal consequences. They apply equally to all crimes.
This conversation, and the sentence you quoted, are regarding Betsy DeVos’s decision to remove consequences (or the necessity for consequences to be enacted within a particular scope, that being as far as the responsibilities of a school administration when a student is accused) for rape in particular.
She did not make any change to how schools are advised to handle other types of assault, murder, theft, or non-criminal ethical violations like cheating on exams. She is only concerned with reducing consequences for rape.
Maybe you are lost, or didn’t read the article or the rest of the comment you are attempting to respond to.
If you think lynchings were instigated by women accusing black men of rape or were intended to reduce incidents of rape, you are severely lacking both facts and historical context.
Just to second what WWTH has said, due process is merely one aspect of resolving what MRAs so often dismiss: rape culture. Reflecting on a recent story in nearby Hamilton, it struck me how much the “cover-your-ass, preserve institutional reputation” bullshit permeates not only Fraternity culture, but college football culture in the US. There’s a reason Joe Paterno’s name is mud now; it’s not that he actually committed assaults personally, but that he knew about what Jerry Sandusky was doing and did nothing about it. Art Briles from Baylor pulled the same crap and last week gave me another reason to loathe the Ti-Cats for even considering hiring that little shit: https://www.thestar.com/sports/football/2017/08/28/ticats-hiring-of-former-baylor-coach-shows-some-things-never-change-arthur.html
Administrators definitely need to step up their game, but there’s plenty that the ordinary student and faculty member can do, and it’s break this culture of silence that allows sexual abusers to operate.
@Kat, Treeperson and Alan. Hugs are always good.
To me, Schadrach will always be the Hakeswill-replacement in Sharpe’s Challenge, played by Peter Hugo-Daly. Since the latter India-set TV movies were based on the prequel books and Pete Postlethwaite’s vile Obadiah Hakeswill was already killed off, they basically had to throw in a Hakeswill-like character into Sharpe’s Challenge and Sharpe’s Peril. So Sharpe’s Challenge featured Sergeant Schadrach Bickerstaff betraying Sharpe and doing all the stuff Hakeswill did to him in the book series.
First thing Sharpe does it beat Bickerstaff so hard it knocks out his two front teeth (after the latter was harassing a sepoy), then after all the betrayals, Harper blows his ass away with a Nock Volley Gun at point-blank range.
Oh Harper, you are the living end!
Reminder: Universities are unable to press criminal charges. They aren’t law enforcement entities. This is all about preserving the learning environment. A large part of that is about ensuring the safety and comfort of the students.
This is the point where assholes pipe up about special snowflakes needing safe spaces. Goa head and rant at your screen for a moment if you feel the need, libertarians and conservatives.
Got that out? Good.
People can’t learn when they’re distracted. Distracted by worrying where their next meal’s coming from, by fourty hours of work buzzing through their skulls, by family conflict, by the horrible nausea of how that guy made them feel last Friday. It’s about creating a space where people can learn effectively. Telling someone to toughen up and deal with it is macho bullshit that’s been shown to not work. Telling them date rape isn’t real rape is equivalent to saying I don’t care what you think happened, it isn’t an argument, just an erasure.
We protect students from extraneous conflict in the classroom so they can learn. The courts, as awful as they are, are where criminality is decided. The school’s role is to create that learning environment, and DeVos failed in that regard (because she’s interested in profiting off of students, not educating them). I mean for goodness’ sake, we will kick a student out of a classroom for being too noisy, but we can’t separate an alleged rapist from their victim? Ludicrous on its face.
@Schadrach, your argument boils down to “we are unable to attain perfect justice, therefore we should not strive for any.” You’re an authoritarian. Push off.
Well it looks like the author of this site made “the cut” once again. I still cant decide if this site is for real or not, especially after reading the comment section. Being an old geezer who was around when title ix was supposedly about sports, even though it was really about money it’s strange to see how this supposedly helpful ruling for women in sports is now in the judge, jury and executioner business.
To put things into perspective a college is a place where people pay for a service or product, in this case to learn a skill that will earn them a good wage. If you go to the grocery store to purchase products and you’re attacked by another shopper the police are called. So far no one has ever called for the Kroger court of appeals to decide the case.
@John Halaway
Cool story, bro.
What tipped you off, super sleuth? Was it the bit in the title where he says he wrote a piece for The Cut?
And if shoppers are routinely attacking other shoppers, a grocery store will likely take steps to protect the non-violent customers. For example, the attacker will probably be banned from coming in the store again. They might hire private security. Retail establishments take steps to prevent theft and protect customers beyond just calling the police after a crime occurs all the time. Your analogy is very full of fail.
I think I stumbled on an idea for a new MRA human rights campaign though!
Mall cops = false shoplifting accusations = lynching!
This made my day! An added bonus: the first comment I saw on the article literally suggested the author was a “childless cat lady.” She replied that she has one child and no cats.
@Alex
Welcome! I hope you enjoy your stay in our little corner of the web.
@Schadrach
May you always discover the cat puke in your slippers as you’re putting them on.
@kupo
Make that after they put them on.
@Gussie
I knew I recognised the name ‘Shadrach’ from somewhere. I enjoyed the Sharpe’s Peril and Sharpe’s Challenge, but because I’d read the books they’re based on I couldn’t help comparing the two.
@TreePerson
The idea being, they discover is as they’re putting them on because it’s now all over their foot. Probably could have been better stated.
@Dimmy:
“You actually compared protecting rape survivors to murder.”
Actually, I said that taking the approach that discarding anything that “makes it easier to rape and get away with it” as being inherently evil leads you down that road. Whether or not you reach the hanging tree at the end depends on how far you’re willing to go.
*ANYTHING* that falls under due process or rights of the accused by definition “makes it easier to rape and get away with it” because it puts obstacles between accusation and punishment. I invoked lynching because it’s one of the most evident, modern, and American examples of going straight to punishment on the flimsiest of accusations.
People act like Obama-era application of Title IX to sexual assault wasn’t what led to some of the frankly ridiculous policies various colleges have taken up, or that it’s necessary to have a setup where guilt is presumed, the accused isn’t given time to prepare a defense, the accused doesn’t necessarily get access to the evidence against him, the accused doesn’t get to cross-examine testimony against him, there is no appeal, and he has no right to counsel in order to protect alleged survivors. Because anything that sits between a woman pointing her finger and a man being punished “makes it easier to rape and get away with it.” And I’m specifying woman and man there because there’s at least one case that led to a lawsuit where a man accused a woman, so in response she accused him and they dropped *his* case as “retaliatory” before putting him through the usual wringer.
@weirwoodtreehugger: chief manatee
“Also, trying to get universities to take rape accusations more seriously is not the same as advocating for a lack of due process when it comes to the criminal prosecution of rape.”
You’re right, but mostly in that all the college can do is wreck his future educational and career opportunities, rather than having the power to lock him in a cell. I’d throw in the possibility of vigilante violence against him too, but any vigilantism isn’t on the hands of the school. The premise is no different, just the stakes.
“Sometimes rape victims also commit suicide because nothing was done to punish the rapists. Isn’t it curious how local police seem to always be unable to investigate rape when the accused are football players?”
No, no one is surprised that very wealthy or high status people can get away with basically whatever the fuck they want, without a whole lot of exceptions. It’s not unique to football players, nor is it unique to rape.
“Oh, and the name sounded familiar because he posted in support of MRAs falsely accusing David of doxxing an MRA”
I didn’t say David doxed Jack. Actually said someone doxed Jack and threatened him and his kid and expressly named David as to why he/she/etc would do such a thing, and I suggested that David might want to look at himself, his platform or his audience if people are using his writing as a reason to threaten children. Also that I wasn’t too shocked that Jack went after David over it because people have a bad habit of getting irrational and aggressive when someone threatens their children (which is why threat narratives involving children are quite effective at manipulating people). There are plenty enough reasons to hate Jack Barnes if you pay attention to him at all (really, the guy’s quite the asshole), but the person who did this invoked David writing about him as his/her/etc impetus.
@PreuxFox:
“None of those legal systems made it easier for rapists, in particular, to avoid legal consequences. They apply equally to all crimes.”
They help all those accused to avoid legal consequence, but no one talks about removing any kinds of protections from people accused of anything else.
The Obama-era policy that DeVos is tossing primarily worked by specifically lowering similar barriers in college processing of rape and sexual assault accusations. I get the sneaking suspicion that people think DeVos just said “colleges, feel free to cover up rape and sweep it under the rug all you want” rather than what was in the Dear Colleague letter (for example, mandating that the standard of evidence be no higher than a preponderance).
Have you actually looked at what college policies for dealing with accusations of misconduct look like at a few schools? Many of them have specific exceptions for sexual assault where protections granted for other accusations don’t apply any more, and most are pretty terrible to begin with.
“This conversation, and the sentence you quoted, are regarding Betsy DeVos’s decision to remove consequences (or the necessity for consequences to be enacted within a particular scope, that being as far as the responsibilities of a school administration when a student is accused) for rape in particular.”
She didn’t remove consequences for rape, she removed requirements that it be treated according to guidelines that are notably different than are used for accusations of other misconduct.
“She did not make any change to how schools are advised to handle other types of assault, murder, theft, or non-criminal ethical violations like cheating on exams. She is only concerned with reducing consequences for rape.”
Rape/sexual assault are the only accusations for which special requirements were placed in the first place. She can’t remove special requirements for other sorts of misconduct because there weren’t any. This isn’t “reducing consequences for rape” this is “not requiring rape have special rules to make it harder for the accused to defend themselves.”
“If you think lynchings were instigated by women accusing black men of rape or were intended to reduce incidents of rape, you are severely lacking both facts and historical context.”
Yeah, rape was the third most common excuse for the primarily black lynchings in the Southern US, after homicide and “other.” Lynchings in the Western US by comparison were mostly white folks and the most common excuses for those were homicide and cattle theft. In all cases it was an excuse to run roughshod over any kind of fairness or justice in order to go from accusation to punishment as directly as possible. It wasn’t about justice, it was about punishment for perceived misdeeds (which may or may not have been the ones accused in any given case). I didn’t pick the example out of a hat.
@Scildfreja Unnyðnes
“@Schadrach, your argument boils down to “we are unable to attain perfect justice, therefore we should not strive for any.” You’re an authoritarian. Push off.”
Not quite. Rather, that we shouldn’t dismantle the barriers that keep attempts at justice from harming the innocent just because we find the crime especially abhorrent.
From your perspective, striving for justice means not giving the accused the same protections in rape cases as in other cases, that we shouldn’t (for example) presume innocence or allow the accused the capacity to build a defense *because* of what the accusation is.
@Schadrach
What’s your replacement?
And by your logic, the rational response to this is to continue to let them get away with it. Seems legit.
You went straight to it because it is hyperbolic. You went straight to it because you wanted to imply that feminists want to falsely accuse black men of rape and then lynch them for it. A little bit hypocritical though considering that you participate in a movement that has as much racism as misogyny. It’s pretty damn common for manurespherians to call black men “thugs,” obsess about cuckolding and refer to refugees as “rapefugees.” Your side is a hell of a lot more toxic and dangerous to black and brown men than feminism is.
Anyway, I’m wondering if you entirely oppose schools disciplining students whether or not law enforcement is involved? Are you against suspending or expelling students for fighting? How about cheating or plagarizing? Or is it only in cases of sexual assault in which you think the offender should get off lightly because we wouldn’t want to ruin his future.