Campus Justice Goes Ape
Hemingway, Mar
CAMPUS JUST Like every other college this fall, Columbia University has thousands of returnin g students running to and fro, frolicking and gamboling and skipping and capering and romping and...
...And given that Columbia defines sexual misconduct as broadly as any "nonconsensual contact with a person's genitals, buttocks or breasts," the university administration is practically encouraging abuse of the process...
...Just imagine how one of these transcripts would read published in the Journal...
...This is not to say that drunken women are not often taken advantage of...
...however, a real court would acknowledge they do bear some responsibility, particularly when both parties are intoxicated, as is often the case where date rape is alleged...
...This has given rise to a particularly virulent strain of man-hating feminism, championed by noted academics like Andrea Dworkin, who despite contending that all heterosexual relations constitute rape, has yet to be laughed out of the establishment...
...So the question for college administrators has become : How can they reign this behavior in without coming off like Captain Killjoy...
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...Appealing university decisions will be trick).', however, as complete transcripts or recordings of student disciplinary hearings are not kept...
...Yet none of these egregious violations of justice and decency appears to have ColumSAFER, meanwhile, responded in its usual manner-disThis "ultraconservative" opposition, in fact, includes FIRE Columbia's policy, however, ups the ante even further...
...December 2000 / ]anua~cy 2ooi 9 The American Spectator 32...
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...According to the new code, alleged violators are not allowed to confront their accuser or obtain witnesses on their own behalf...
...Rupp, Columbia's president, has in fact endorsed the new policy), issuing a press release accusing the Wail Street Journal of making "blatantly false assertions" (without citing a single example), and insisting that only "a small, ultraconservative minority" opposes their efforts...
...Given that these academic debates gained momentum about the same time college administrators finally got comfortable backing the condom truck up to the freshman dorm, it's easy to see how things have reached critical mass at Columbia University, the current epicenter of this debate...
...They are not allowed to hear hostile witnesses, cross-examine witnesses, or hear testimony from the accuser...
...for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), "We looked at over loo sexual conduct policies at colleges around the country and this one is far and away the worst...
...ly means in terms of date rape is that if she's drunk and says yes, she reserves the right to change her mind in the morning after she's sobered up...
...Stutage gained by the victim's mental and/or physical impairment or incapacity, of which the perpetrator was, or should have been, aware...
...This opposition hardly matches up with Bill Bennett's Christring to--such as those at Antioch and other schools around the nation--already treat accusations of rape as a matter of guilty-untilproven-innocent...
...At the time it was roundly criticized as one of the great follies of political correctness, but once the ridicule stopped nobody bothered to notice that Antioch's policy became a national standard, serving as a model for major colleges around the country...
...The New York Civil Liberties Union itself has come out against the policy, as has the chair of Columbia's law school as well as two law professors at Columbia--one of whom writes for the Nation and the other a former Clinton judicial appointee...
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...Columbia's policy is "groundbreaking" in that it does not replicate "ineffective disciplinary policies that retraumatize [rape] survivors...
...Look at it this way: Next time you get pulled over for drunk driving, try explaining to the cop you can't be held responsible because you were drunk at bia reconsidering its sexual misconduct policy...
...One wonders why the accused is even asked to show up...
...Meanwhile, SAFER is continuing its efforts through a public awareness campaign that urges students to wear "red tape" on their backpacks and clothing to demonstrate their support of the policy, and, not surprisingly, the virile young men of Columbia arc quite eager to sport some red tape and declare-loudly and clearly--their aversion to rape...
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...Not that this is much of a surprise--sexual harassment codes like this on university campuses are nothing new...
...And secondly, the code is explicitly stating that the accuser's mental state cannot be called into question...
...Kaya Tretjak, a senior at Columbia and one of the leaders of SAFER, sees this distinction differently...
...Back in 199z, Antioch College gained national attention when it adopted a sexual conduct code, so explicit in nature it required students to gain sexual consent each time they reached a "new level of physical and/or sexual contact/conduct," e.g., "May I place my hand here...
...According to Thor Halvorssen, executive director of the Foundation board members and advisers like Harvey Silverglate (co-founder of the organization, a member of the ACLU, and defender of the Black Panther Path'), and journalists Wendy Kaminer and Nat Hentoff...
...Two things are especially notable here: First, the use of the word "perpetrator" implies guilt within the context of the policy itself...
...Stone, a former employee of the Clinton administration and therefore no stranger to legal distinctions when it comes to sex, defended the policy, pointing out that there is an appeals process by which students have "the opportunity to rebut...
...Mostly the results are just plain absurd : sex-ed at orientation programs, courses on the intellectual implications of pornographya few years back the student government at the University of Oregon even installed apple-scented urinal screens in the men's bathrooms emblazoned with the slogan : "You hold the power to stop rape in your hands ." Almost imperceptibly, in the last ten years the feminist establishment has seized upon the issue of "date rape" on campuses, makin g significant inroads in their quest toward the politicization of sex...
...The Decline of American Universities Herbert I. London College campuses used to be bastions of academic freedom, but now that birthright is reserved for the politically correct...
...When the Wall Street Journal first publicly aired the matter this fall, Columbia's vice president of public affairs, Alan Stone, shot back a letter in response...
...Columbia's policy also states: "Lack of consent may be inferred from the use of force, coercion, physical intimidation, or advanClearly, the care-free days of college education are over...
...CAMPUS JUST Like every other college this fall, Columbia University has thousands of returnin g students running to and fro, frolicking and gamboling and skipping and capering and romping and cavorting and generally feeling their respective oats, sometimes even in group oat-feeling sessions on weekends . Unfortunately, when it comes to matters of the heart (and other organs) contemporary college students are wont to do what they want to . These questionable sexual mores are in part the manifestation of youthful irresponsibility, but students are often aided and abetted by the very universities charged with shaping their development . Per- A RY HE MARK HEMINGWAY, a frequent contributor to TAS Online, is a freelance writer living in Washington, D .C...
...Outside of the courtroom, they are under a gag order not to discuss the case...
...What this effectivedents may think they are free of the oppressive morality of their parents, but they'll soon find out Big Brother has taken over as chaperone...
...Nor may they have an attorney present...
...Recently, a student group at Columbia, Students Active For Ending Rape (SAFER), pushed through a radical new Sexual Misconduct Policy that could teach the Red Chinese a thing or two about summary justice...
...American Outlook is realistic and optimistic, believing that any problems human beings can create, people can solve...
...SAFER is also talking about founding a national organization to help other colleges and universities implement "the most responsible sexual misconduct code policies possible...
...tributing flyers that read "Fess Up, George Rupp, how many rapes have you covered up...
...Plus, Alan Reynolds on American immigration policy, Paul Gottfried on boredom and decadence and much more...
...ICE GOES APE missive attitudes regarding drug and alcohol use have been institutionalized for almost 4o years, as well as a "free love" ethos that still lingers from the sixties . (Though "free love" is a bit of a misnomer-the cost fluctuates, depending on the going rate for penicillin .) Of course, the free love ideal remains only partially intact, as the academic establishment has been forced to rethink the cultural experiments of the sixties . In the age of AIDS and Lorena Bobbitt, encouraging irresponsible sexual behavior has become unworkable, even on college campuses...
...Bear in mind that the "ineffective" policies she's referthe time you made the decision to drive...
Vol. 33 • December 2000 • No. 10
