The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Campus Kangaroo Courts

Posted on | January 26, 2015 | 78 Comments

Federal law trumps campus policy:

A lawsuit filed by an Amherst College student who argued the school unfairly held up his academic career over an old, unproven allegation of an on-campus rape has quietly settled.
According to records in U.S. District Court, the college recently reached a settlement with the “John Doe” but neither his lawyers nor school officials will discuss the terms of the agreement.
Doe filed the lawsuit last year after the college decided to revive a 2009 allegation a week before he was set to earn his diploma in 2014 — and after the college had disciplined him for excessive drinking and acting out sexually. His accuser, identified only as “Student A” in court records, said he complained to school officials at the time of his alleged encounter with Doe but never filed a formal complaint. In the meantime, Doe had taken a school-mandated, yearlong “medical withdrawal” from the college in his native South Africa. . . .

Using student disciplinary procedures to adjudicate charges of sexual assault simply won’t do. This case appears to involve a male-on-male accusation, which is unusual, but otherwise the case is quite typical, involving “excessive drinking” as a precipitating factor. And the overreaction factor is also obvious:

During a pretrial hearing last year, Doe’s lawyer, David P. Hoose, told a judge that Amherst College was letting negative publicity around its handling of a number of on-campus rape allegations unfairly drive their treatment of Doe.
“Amherst College has taken a beating in the national press for the last two years because of the way they’ve handled these types of allegations, and now with the benefit of hindsight and the beating that they’ve taken, they want to expiate all of their sins … over Mr. Doe’s body,” Hoose told U.S. District Judge Mark G. Mastroianni.
Amherst College remains among dozens of colleges under under investigation by the U.S. Department of Education for potential mishandling of sexual assault or harassment allegations.

Read the whole thing. Cases like this remind us why our Constitution has certain protections, such as the right to a speedy trial and no double jeopardy, for criminal defendants. Nobody wants criminals to go unpunished, but neither can we allow the law to become a weapon of abuse. “John Doe” in this case cooperated with the school’s policy, only to find himself retroactively punished five years later because activists have stoked a witch hunt.

Powerful emotions surrounding the issue of rape are being exploited by feminists, who have created a climate of hysteria and who terrorize their critics by defaming as “rape apologists” anyone who disagrees with them. (Really: George Will is “pro-rape”?) Christinia Hoff Sommers points out that the momentum behind this tsunami of “rape epidemic” rhetoric began with the media:

The frenzy over college sexual assault now sweeping the nation was triggered by a specific event.
In 2010, a small team of investigative journalists published a report revealing, so they claimed, an epidemic of college rape. The report was a jumble of highly selective reporting and dubious statistics, as we shall see. But the reporters spread the news far and wide and no one thought to question their accuracy. . . .
That year, reporters at National Public Radio teamed up with the left-leaning journalism organization Center for Public Integrity (CPI) to produce and promote a 104-page “investigative reporting series” (PDF) entitled “Sexual Assault on Campus: A Frustrating Search for Justice.” . . .

Read the whole thing. The dangers involved in this kind of hysteria are perhaps underappreciated by those too young to remember the McMartin Preschool case and the Wenatchee witch hunt.

(Hat-tip: Greg on Twitter.)

 

Category: Crime, Education, Feminism

Comments

78 Responses to “Campus Kangaroo Courts”

  1. Jeanette Victoria
    January 26th, 2015 @ 9:30 pm

    I thought it was a witch-hunt from from the start

  2. DeadMessenger
    January 26th, 2015 @ 9:37 pm

    I’d upvote your last sentence 100,000,000 times if I could.

    I mean it, those sadistic pukes literally get off on sucking the life and money out of people and destroying families. If you had been part of a gay couple, why, that would’ve changed everything, too.

    I think that the one snd only reason my “case” didn’t go further is because around here they weren’t used to people standing up to them real assertively, as I did. This was several years ago, too, and it would probably go down much differently today.

  3. Zohydro
    January 26th, 2015 @ 9:54 pm

    Thanks for the rest of the story! Forgive me if it seemed that I was prying!

  4. Zohydro
    January 26th, 2015 @ 10:11 pm

    Wonder when we’ll see our fluffy friend again… Tax season is spooling up, then he’ll need to feed, then sleep, then pon farr, I suppose…

  5. DeadMessenger
    January 26th, 2015 @ 10:19 pm

    No…it seems kind of funny now in retrospect, but of course, at the time it didn’t. You should’ve seen the looks on their faces when I said, “Sure, I’m happy to cooperate. Can I see your warrant please?” LOL!

    Oh, you might like this story about the same kid.

    When he was 4, my husband stayed home with him and our infant daughter. My father-in-law lived next door, and every day my husband would take the kids over there to visit. My son liked to run ahead so he could barge in and surprise “Papa”.

    One day, he ran ahead, and my husband was carrying our daughter and the diaper crate…I mean, bag…and was literally about 20 seconds behind him. When hubbie got next door, no Sean. So he and my father-in-law looked, couldn’t find him. They mobilized the neighbors and everyone looked. No Sean. After a short while, my husband was forced to call the police, who sent out on- and off-duty cops, off-duty firemen, and off-duty cops and firemen from the next county. Then my husband had to make the hardest call of all, to me, at work, an hour away.

    The local cops started searching with dogs. Finally, shortly before I got home, one cop drove by the local public library about 1/4 mile away. This library had playground equipment out front. The cop sees a little boy playing alone and asks him if he wants to see his dog. Sean agrees, the cop finds out his name, and that it’s the “missing” kid, so he brings him home.

    I was plenty steamed when they got there, because we’d both warned that kid probably thousands of times about running off. Of course I was worried, and his behavior put him in real danger, plus caused trouble for lots of people, probably about 100.

    Sean was only 4, but he knew by then that when I narrowed my eyes just a little, he was going to get it, and I had that look then. A young cop delivered him to me, and Sean started to cry and said, “Now she’s gonna spank me!” The young cop starts to chew me out about punishment was undeserved in this case and that he was “scared enough” (right, buddy).

    I said, “You don’t have any children of your own, do you officer?” Answer, “No, and I wouldn’t spank them if I had them.” Then the cop gave a Sean a cop badge sticker.

    Punchline: Sean smiles and says, “See Mommy? That policeman rewarded my bad behavior!”

    The young cop glared while the older cops and firemen laughed.

    I have tons of stories like this. Like the time they had to close the local mall because of him…

  6. DeadMessenger
    January 26th, 2015 @ 10:26 pm

    This is what you get when you talk to people of any kind and don’t live in a vacuum. You could’ve been in a coma, they would’ve come to “investigate” and when you didn’t answer, you’d have been arrested for “resisting.” Or if it were today, they would’ve tazed you to death.

    I’m not sure how we all came to live in Bizarro World, but somehow we did.

  7. M. Thompson
    January 26th, 2015 @ 10:26 pm

    Might as well add Accountants to this.

    http://dilbert.com/strip/2011-01-12

  8. DeadMessenger
    January 26th, 2015 @ 10:27 pm

    Oh sure, it always comes back to Florida, lol…

  9. DeadMessenger
    January 26th, 2015 @ 10:29 pm

    BWAHAHAHAHAHA!

  10. Jeanette Victoria
    January 26th, 2015 @ 10:35 pm

    I have little respect for today’s law enforcement. I was arrested twice while I was in the ICU for “assault” I have NO memory of the events as I was in postictal state recovering from several seizures and full of Ativan (which agitates me but they give it to me anyway). Cops didn’t care, neither did the DA (who was a former paramedic and had transported me several times) letters from my neurologist and the Epilepsy Society had no impact. Apparently facts are meaningless in today’s courts

  11. Zohydro
    January 26th, 2015 @ 10:35 pm

    I don’t know whether to be grateful or perhaps feel guilty that I’ve led a life relatively free of real trauma, drama, and adversity…

  12. DeadMessenger
    January 26th, 2015 @ 10:36 pm

    Well, sometimes trauma brings funny stories with it later. Much…much…later.

  13. Jeanette Victoria
    January 26th, 2015 @ 10:37 pm

    Still what I wouldn’t give for a dull life!

  14. DeadMessenger
    January 26th, 2015 @ 10:56 pm

    Facts? Facts??? We don’t need no steenkin’ facts!

    Here’s a reason why they don’t need no steenkin’ facts, too:

    I sat on a jury where the arresting cop committed the most egregious and glaring violation of the 4th amendment that I have ever personally heard of. It was so glaring that the cop himself admitted under oath that his own boss had ordered him not to do what he was getting ready to do, but he did it anyway.

    We get in the jury room, and every single other person there immediately voted guilty. Except me. I was asked, “Don’t you think the accused is guilty? Obviously she was, the cop found dope in her apartment!” I explained how the Constitution and the 4th amendment worked, and we argued for hours over this. The other jurors also argued this: “But the lawyer said…” and I had to explain, as patiently as possible, that the lawyers were not witnesses. “Were they sworn in?” I asked. That question sort of softened them up a bit.

    Finally we reached a point where I said that I wasn’t going to change my mind, now or ever, and that moreover, I was the only one there truly on the side of justice.

    I asked, “Why do you think that the guy’s boss told him not to do it?” One guy asked what I expected the cop to do, other than what he did. I said, “Uh, how about some detecting? Yes, that’s the ticket.”

    Finally, after pulling out my pocket constitution that the deputy forgot to confiscate when we went in the jury room, I was able to convince the others of what the actual law of the land was. And that it wasn’t random. The accused was acquitted.

    Now, how many times would you guess that this same thing happens in jury rooms all over the country, and the entire group votes guilty in the first 5 minutes, and the accused goes to jail? I’m betting “a lot”.

  15. Jeanette Victoria
    January 26th, 2015 @ 10:58 pm

    Try most!

  16. Zohydro
    January 26th, 2015 @ 11:11 pm

    Juror #8!

  17. DeadMessenger
    January 27th, 2015 @ 3:17 am

    LOL! Damn straight! Somebody HAS to be, right?

  18. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    January 27th, 2015 @ 5:40 am

    Look on the bright side, Massachusetts, just as crazy but with much crappier weather!

  19. Fail Burton
    January 27th, 2015 @ 6:13 am

    My understanding is that star chambers were originally created for the elite who were above normal law. Why be surprised insane intersectionalists consider being a man the equivalent of a Tudor noble with winks and nods and rape culture all around.

  20. Fail Burton
    January 27th, 2015 @ 8:05 am

    I’m not following the story about the Quija board. Aren’t they sold right next to board games? Would someone call the cops for playing Easy Money?

  21. Jeanette Victoria
    January 27th, 2015 @ 9:03 am

    LOL you have a point! 🙂 However in this case it was a homemade Ouija board made on a piece of paper. I’m guessing the Pasadena PD didn’t have a lot of work that day.

  22. theoldsargesays
    January 27th, 2015 @ 5:56 pm

    I know exactly what you’re speaking of.
    My daughter went to visit my father and stepmother in Berkeley. My stepmother ran a camp was executive director of a large foundation that ran a kids camp up near Yosemite.
    As it was eventually relayed to me, the kids and counselors were sitting around the campfire one night, the kids talking about being punished by the parents. My daughter mentioned that she’d been spanked by me as punishment (Without being able to recall the exact number of times that I spanked my daughter I am extremely comfortable stating that it was not more than 5 times in her entire childhood).
    About a week after my daughter’s return to Florida we had a visit from a DCF worker who told me that her office had been contacted by DCF California!
    After a brief discussion between the case worker and my daughter she apologized for the visit, explaining that because they got the call they had to come out. No problem for me about the Florida end of this incident.
    I then called my father and stepmother with a big wtf? They told me that even at the mention of spanking, camp counselors were required by California law to notify DCF.
    Un-freaking-believeable!
    THAT was the last time I allowed my daughter to visit her grandparents in California.

    There are people in thuanworld that take themselves and their jobs entirely to seriously and think themselves anointed to protect the world from perceived evils. These folks lack common sense and proper judgment and were it not for government employment, would likely be unable to secure work in the private sector.

  23. theoldsargesays
    January 27th, 2015 @ 6:01 pm

    Being able to later laugh at past adversities is a sign that in the end all’s well.

  24. DeadMessenger
    January 27th, 2015 @ 6:17 pm

    Oh, good Lord. I wonder how these morons would react if they were on the receiving end of that kind of treatment.

    It’s things like this that made me teach my kids that a sign of intelligence is just shutting up.

    p.s. Except when I want to drone on in response to blog posts, because obviously, when it’s me we’re talking about, that’s a whole different ballgame.

  25. theoldsargesays
    January 27th, 2015 @ 7:35 pm

    I’ll wager that if something involving them came up that one of there fellow bureaucrats would just make the file disappear.

  26. Jeanette Victoria
    January 29th, 2015 @ 4:29 pm

    Well objecting to Katie Murphy (@kkmurphy)spreading the LIE that the I “was committed to a mental ward for a year after beating her mother almost to death.” is stalking!

    These people are deranged

  27. Daniel Freeman
    January 30th, 2015 @ 2:58 am

    I’ve read it over twice, and I still can’t see where you ever mentioned Thomas Arzi or @__Lararus__ so… yeah. Self-important fruitcake.

  28. Jeanette Victoria
    January 30th, 2015 @ 6:31 am

    LOL tTThomas Arzi or @__Lararus__ But remember objecting to his posting close to a 1000 times I am a convicted human trafficker which is a lie, is *STALKING*!