Maggie's Farm

I'm about done with the campus sexual assault issue. Neither side is seeking legitimate solutions. I guess we could see them as humanities types who just want to talk about it and feel about it rather than engineering types who look for a solution.

The solution is simple and requires very little modification of an existing system. That system is the manner in which police departments conduct administrative investigations. There is already training available for such investigators, retired investigators who could be hired, and methods to protect rights and not mess up criminal prosecutions.

There are already mediators who could hear the cases to issue an impartial judgement.

How very European of the American universities to implement a complaint adjudication system so unaligned with American values and traditions. That such a a system is pushed upon them by the allegedly American government is somewhat disturbing. But this is at our universities where they supposedly know more than those ignorant, uneducated buffoons who created the modern world. Much better to throw all that off for the backward systems of pre-modern societies.



quotes are from 'The invention of the modern world', Alan MacFarlane

I agree, if there is evidence of a crime that is a matter for the police and prosecutor. Those schools that pressured accusers not to contact the police should be fined to near bankruptcy and the "educators" who did the pressuring banned from all university positions.

But, once the police have investigated and determined that there is not evidence to prosecute a crime, the university still has its rules and policies that apply to the students. Not to mention, a rules violation complaint investigation could uncover evidence that the matter should be handled criminally, but if the school has violated rights then that prosecution becomes difficult. And it doesn't help that universities have a long and storied history of covering up prosecutable crimes by athletes and coaches, as well as professors.

Mediator may have been a poor choice of term. But there are those out there with experience handling administrative proceedings and judging them independently something that does not exist in a university employee.

Given the agenda of the federal bureaucrats, it is unlikely a university could sanction a student who filed a false charge. As for prosecution, that is in the hands of the all to corrupt prosecutors and then only if the matter is brought as a police complaint.

As I said, this is looking more and more like just something those in useless Liberal Arts majors want to bicker over rather than find a workable solution that fairly handles complaints.

It would be interesting to see what majors the accusers and the accused are studying.