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UVA Rape Story Collapses; Duke Lacrosse Redux
Topic Started: Dec 5 2014, 01:45 PM (60,462 Views)
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http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jan/07/uva-jackie-rolling-stone-sexual-assault

Virginia considering mandatory reporting in wake of Rolling Stone rape article

Virginia state legislature mulling three new bills that would force universities to report allegations of sexual assault to police

Ed Pilkington in New York

Wednesday 7 January 2015 07.00 EST


As 20,000 students return to school at the University of Virginia this week, they will find the turmoil stirred up by Rolling Stone’s investigation into the institution’s handling of alleged sexual assaults has not completely settled – in fact, its impact has now reached the chambers of the Virginia general assembly.

The magazine’s article, published on 19 November, depicted in graphic detail the alleged gang rape of a student known only as “Jackie” at a fraternity house on campus. The reaction to the 9,000-word feature was quick and forceful – demonstrations erupted across the campus, an inquiry was ordered by university president Teresa Sullivan, all fraternities were suspended until 9 January, and a debate was launched into the best way to respond to sexual violence that involved not only students and faculty, but also law enforcers and politicians.

However, the initial Rolling Stone account soon came under intense scrutiny after key elements in the story began to unravel. In the fall-out to the fall-out, Rolling Stone put out an apology for its story, then changed its apology, before deciding to re-report the entire article – a process that is still on-going.

It’s been almost two months since the initial story was published, and UVA is only now starting to return to ground. As the nervous mood on campus settles, it’s becoming clear that one aspect of the furore is likely to endure – the debate about the best way to deal with sexual assault allegations that is now echoing around the Virginia general assembly.

The state legislature already has three bills before it that would radically change the way the reporting of such allegations are processed. A fourth bill is pending in the state’s House of Delegates.

The common theme between the various pieces of proposed legislation is mandatory reporting of all allegations to police. Senate Bill 734, for instance, which has been sponsored by the Democratic leader of the state Senate, Richard Saslaw, would require “any administrator or professor employed by a public institution of higher education who through the course of his employment obtains information alleging that a criminal sexual assault has occurred to report within 24 hours such information to law enforcement.” Any campus employee who fails to do so would be guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor.
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A bill pending in the state House would similarly impose mandatory reporting on all college personnel who would be obliged to inform police of any violent felony alleged by a student. The Republican sponsor of that bill, Rob Bell, who is himself an alumnus of UVA, as well as a former prosecutor, told the Guardian that he was trying to address a basic question.

“If a public employee is told about a sexual assault, what should their obligations be in terms of reporting it? There’s a consensus developing that, at least for violent felonies, it is best handled by the professionals of the law enforcement community who do this as their day job,” he said.

As the bills roll onto the floor of the general assembly in the wake of the Rolling Stone article, the idea that the law needs to be changed to force campuses to report allegations of sexual assault to law enforcement is gaining strong traction. But that in turn is causing concern for groups who work with survivors of sexual violence. Some of these organisations fear that knee-jerk responses might end up doing more harm than good.

Kate McCord, of the Virginia Sexual and Domestic Violence Action Alliance, said that the new bills were well-intentioned in that they rightly sought to hold perpetrators of rapes and other sexual assaults accountable for their crimes. But she also says that there’s an “underlying assumption that reporting to law enforcement will result in justice”, and that, historically, has not been the case for sexual assault survivors.

“Even though these bills are meant to help and protect students, they could have the unintended effect of reducing reporting because it will dissuade survivors from coming forward,” McCord said.

Her point about the weakness of the current criminal justice system’s response to sexual assault is underlined by UVA itself, which is one of 86 colleges around the country that have had so-called Title IX investigations into their handling of sexual violence complaints imposed on them. The Obama administration has been using the Title IX civil rights law that outlaws sex discrimination in federally-funded education programs to hold schools accountable for their response to sexual violence.

One of the facts contained in the Rolling Stone article that has not been disputed is that since 1998, UVA has expelled 183 people for breaking the honor code by cheating on exams and so on, while no one has ever been thrown off campus for sexual assault. Nationally, studies have suggested that the percentage of all rapes that are ever prosecuted may be as low as 5%.

UVA students and groups working with women who are victims of sexual assaults on campus are also worried about that the way the debate is turning to mandatory reporting in the wake of the Rolling Stone article. Sara Surface, a chair of the Sexual Violence Prevention Coalition at UVA who is in her junior year at the university, said she feared that if any of the bills were passed into law they could discourage women from seeking help.

“If survivors know that if they report to a professor or dean the staff in turn will be forced to tell the cops, that is totally going to dissuade people from making the approach,” she said.

Surface said that the abysmally low level of convictions for rape and other sexual assault complaints were well known to students. So too was the way that police officers, prosecutors and the courts dealt with such cases in ways that could re-traumatize survivors.

“Why would you go through all the agony of dealing with the criminal justice system – cops delving into your sexual relationships, asking you whether you were drunk – only for nothing to come of it? If you are going down the mandatory reporting road, you have to make sure that the system is better equipped to deal with survivors of sexual assault in the first place,” Surface said.

McCord agreed that tougher reporting rules could backfire. “Even though these bills are meant to help and protect, they could have the unintended effect of discouraging women from coming forward – that’s the fear that we have.”

Despite such qualms, mandatory reporting is attracting powerful supporters. John Jones, executive director of the Virginia Sheriffs’ Association, has given it his unqualified blessing. He has sounded out the opinions of his sheriff members around the state and said that the overwhelming consensus was that reporting from campus to law enforcement should be made compulsory. “When a rape is reported to the academic authorities, it can’t stop there. It must go to law enforcers or to a prosecutor.”

Jones said that campus staff could not be assumed to be impartial investigators as they had an incentive to spare the institution embarrassment or opprobrium. He said he had heard of incidents involving colleges (not UVA) where campus police had been instructed by senior administrators to drop inquiries into alleged sexual assault.

“Law enforcement needs to be public and with all serious crimes there needs to be accountability – otherwise women are at risk of not getting their rights fulfilled,” Jones said.

A compromise position has been proposed by a Democratic delegate, Eileen Filler-Corn. She has been pressing for legal changes to the way complaints are dealt with on campus since long before Rolling Stone kicked up its storm, having first sponsored a bill in this area in 2011.

In her latest effort, House Bill 1343, Filler-Corn places no obligation on university staff to report complaints to law enforcement. Instead, it would oblige campus or local police, once they had received a complaint, to pass on the information to a prosecutor within 48 hours.

Filler-Corn said she hoped this would “expedite the investigation and ensure that legal filings were completed.” She added: “I’m a mom of college-age students, so I am very concerned for their safety and security on campus.”

The delegate said that despite the criticism that had been leveled at Rolling Stone for its journalistic errors, the article had brought the issue to the top of the political agenda. “I’ve been dismayed that we haven’t dealt with this problem year after year. But now it’s being discussed, people have been outraged by what they’ve heard, and we all want to move forward.”

But such a nuanced approach may struggle to be heard amid all the noise.

“There are so many players now in this game, everyone is piling in,” Surface said. “I worry that the voices of survivors are getting drowned out.”
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MikeZPU

Quote:
 

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jan/07/uva-jackie-rolling-stone-sexual-assault

Virginia considering mandatory reporting in wake of Rolling Stone rape article

Virginia state legislature mulling three new bills that would force universities to report allegations of sexual assault to police


The thing is: if there is a rape, the victim herself should report it to the police!!!!

Why the hell would someone who was raped go to a university official?

There should be no university tribunals or anything of the sort!!!

Law enforcement and the legal process should handle it!!!

The university should only have a policy as to what to do if and when
charges are brought against a student.

But, otherwise, the university should stay the hell out of it.



Edited by MikeZPU, Jan 7 2015, 04:29 PM.
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http://jezebel.com/uva-students-caught-in-shitstorm-of-what-other-people-t-1677983483

Written by Jia Tolentino
Yesterday 12:30pm

UVA Students Caught in Shitstorm of What Other People Think Will Help

Students at the University of Virginia, whose spring semester starts next week, will come back to an environment that is still under intense scrutiny and manipulation.

Fraternities have been reinstated early under a set of new and super-good-on-paper regulations (these were developed internally, and other new sets of regulations will apply to sororities and multicultural Greek organizations as well); there will be more Title IX investigators, sexual assault counselors, lighted crosswalks, Grounds patrol, and video surveillance from local stores and bars; an umbrella of organizations will continue to try to come up with ways to actualize the type of "zero-tolerance sexual assault policy" passed in theory by the Board of Visitors at the end of last year; finally, and worryingly, the Virginia state legislature is dealing with four separate mandatory-reporting bills that would make it a criminal offense for UVA personnel to fail to report any sexual assault or violent felony alleged by a student.

If any of this legislation makes it through, the mandate to report will almost certainly contribute to further victim silence on campus: the Guardian spoke to Sara Surface, a UVA junior involved in the Sexual Violence Prevention Coalition, who said that "the abysmally low level of convictions for rape and other sexual assault complaints were well known to students. So too was the way that police officers, prosecutors and the courts dealt with such cases in ways that could re-traumatize survivors." Surface added:

"Why would you go through all the agony of dealing with the criminal justice system – cops delving into your sexual relationships, asking you whether you were drunk – only for nothing to come of it? If you are going down the mandatory reporting road, you have to make sure that the system is better equipped to deal with survivors of sexual assault in the first place."

The system at UVA—even in its best outcomes—is troubled with the same things that make sexual assault reporting and prosecution and reparation so difficult and complicated everywhere. The criminal justice system outside of UVA, of course, is much worse. And no system (particularly, let's say, the Greek system) is "equipped" to immediately and faithfully and genuinely adhere to massive changes imposed in response to circumstances that remain confusing, doubted, discredited and under attack. The existing frat rules weren't followed very well or regulated honestly when I was a student in Charlottesville, and the actual likelihood of three sober brothers and bottled water and food and no pre-mixed drinks at every party remains—sorority rush, fraternity rush, and the academic semester haven't even started yet—to be seen.

Some of these changes will doubtlessly help students who would otherwise have found themselves in a bad spot. But I worry about the need to demonstrate swift action, which has been imposed on the University of Virginia by a mess that is half theirs and half isn't. I worry that the demonstration will take place over the result, which will play out much more slowly and in much more complicated ways than can be explained in numbers, guidelines, committees. I worry about the fatigue and frustration that students must feel in an environment where external narrative is constantly being imposed on a situation that they know better than anyone else. And I hope that these new rules and additions and implementations feel as helpful to students as they look to the people who they will never affect.
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http://reason.com/blog/2015/01/07/uva-imposes-ridiculous-new-safety-requir


3 Reasons Why UVA's New Safety Requirements for Fraternities Are Ridiculous

Robby Soave|Jan. 7, 2015 1:50 pm

UVAWikimedia CommonsThe University of Virginia will allow its Greek community to resume social activities on campus—provided that fraternities and sororities accept the terms of a new "safety agreement" that limits their ability to serve alcohol and requires hall monitors to guard the stairs to the bedrooms during parties.

The terms can be found here. Among the most significant requirements is a new policy demanding that a certain number of fraternity brothers remain sober and on guard at alcohol distribution points and bedroom entrances:

A minimum of 3 brothers must be sober and lucid at each fraternity function.

i. “Sober and lucid” is defined as a brother acting without influence of any substance.

ii. At least one each of the above sober brothers must be present at each point of alcohol distribution and another at the stairs leading to residential rooms.

iii. In addition to the required monitors outlined above, fraternities must provide an additional sober brother monitor for every 30 members of the chapter, as derived by adding the number of active brothers and new members.

iv. At least three of the sober monitors must be non-first year brothers.

v. All monitors must wear a designated identifier, which will remain consistent across all IFC chapters.

The agreement also places limits on what types of alcohol may be served: beer must be served in cans, wine must be poured by a sober brother, and pre-mixed punches are banned outright. If fraternities want to serve mixed drinks, they have to hire a bartender.

These impositions are unwise, for three reasons.

First, lest anyone forget, the UVA Greek community has been forced to accept new limits on its activities because of the fallout from a magazine story —a largely discredited magazine story. UVA President Teresa Sullivan made the decision to suspended fraternities and sororities only after activists perceived her as insufficiently outraged by Rolling Stone's groundbreaking report on a horrific gang rape at a UVA's Phi Psi chapter. We now know that the shocking incident described in the story never took place, and while it's still remotely possible something similar happened to the woman known as "Jackie" under different circumstances, all evidence supporting that contention has collapsed.

Incidentally, those in the media who have essentially said what difference does it make if Jackie's story is true? should feel embarrassed. The story has clearly made a difference in the lives of everyone at UVA, particularly members of the Greek community who must now accept significant sanctions, even though the explicit reason for those sanctions never actually applied. I'm sure some will contend that UVA's Greek community is dangerous and in need of reform anyway, but the administration took these steps for a specific reason: a (now debunked) magazine story.

Second, it's not crystal clear to me that UVA has the right—either legally or ethically—to punish all Greek organizations for the sins of some. Hans Bader and Glenn Harlan Reynolds have argued that these actions "smacked of collective punishment." Now, it's true that fraternities are often governed by national organizations that require them to submit to university dictates, so the members' general First Amendment rights might not apply—the groups essentially have internal rules requiring them to comply with university rules in some cases. And UVA could go after them for serving alcohol to minors—to the extent that they do—since that's a violation of the law. But I'm not sure UVA has presented a credible argument for requiring that all student clubs of a certain type accept limits on their activities. And in fact, UVA guarantees its students the rights of free expression, assembly, and due process under its code of conduct.

Third, there is good reason to doubt that the alcohol-related requirements will work. Students already routinely flout a much more serious alcohol-related requirement: the drinking age of 21. Breaking the law carries more serious risk than breaking some university dictate, but that hardly seems to deter teenagers. Perhaps instead of jettisoning the bowl of mystery punch, fraternity brothers will instead move the bowl to some dark basement corner and only allow first-year female students access to it.

A better solution would be to let the state of Virginia, or the university itself, experiment with different alcohol laws. It would not surprise me if UVA found that the best way to keep vulnerable 18-year-olds away from frat parties was to let them drink at bars. But that would require Congress to repeal the National Mandatory Drinking Age Act.

UVA administrators should work to reduce campus rape wherever possible. But they should do that with respect to students' rights, with an eye toward alcohol realism, and in light of facts, not debunked magazine stories.
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MikeZPU
Jan 7 2015, 04:28 PM
Quote:
 

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jan/07/uva-jackie-rolling-stone-sexual-assault

Virginia considering mandatory reporting in wake of Rolling Stone rape article

Virginia state legislature mulling three new bills that would force universities to report allegations of sexual assault to police


The thing is: if there is a rape, the victim herself should report it to the police!!!!

Why the hell would someone who was raped go to a university official?

There should be no university tribunals or anything of the sort!!!

Law enforcement and the legal process should handle it!!!

The university should only have a policy as to what to do if and when
charges are brought against a student.

But, otherwise, the university should stay the hell out of it.



Absolutely! That has always been my view.
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Bill Anderson
Jan 7 2015, 11:13 AM
So, the outcome of the fake rape story is exactly the same outcome that would have occurred had the story been true. What truly bothers me is that higher education has become so Politically Correct that even massive wrongdoing by university presidents goes unpunished and even unnoticed -- as long as the wrongdoing was done in the name of PC.

Don't think that this kind of injustice is going to be contained to the university campus. Indeed, it will become the bedrock of criminal law in the future. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

:bill:
The reactions to "shouldn't have got out of his vehicle", "hands up don't shoot" and "I can't breathe" has made it clear where the executive branch wants to push criminal law.
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Teresa Sullivan has not even a rudimentary sense of humor? Sober Brother Monitors?

And of course no self-objectivity. I suspect Brodhead at least knows now how he should have acted though if it happens again he may not have the character to act the way he should.

Is it so hard? Someone assaults you, you call the police.
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Who in their right mind would want their son to be one of the "sober brother monitors"? That is a lawsuit waiting to happen if for some reason there is an alleged incident and the sober brother was not fully attentive to all that was happening.

When my youngest son informed me that his fraternity had elected him to the position where he monitored the activities of the pledges and initiation I told him that he was to decline the job tout suite - his father and I did not need the threat of a lawsuit (if there were any problems) hanging over our heads. He did not, he said that he would be super attentive (he was) but I will tell you this, the happiest day of his college life for me was when his time of service was over.
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http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/u.va.-fraternities-accept-punishment-based-on-false-accusation/article/2558371

U.Va. fraternities accept punishment based on false accusation
By Ashe Schow | January 8, 2015 | 1:12 pm

Even though Rolling Stone's sensational story about a brutal gang rape at a University of Virginia fraternity has fallen apart, the Inter-Fraternity Council has accepted new terms in order to resume social activities on campus.

Members of Phi Kappa Psi were accused of gang raping a freshman girl named Jackie, whose story fell apart when her friends told the Washington Post and CNN that she told them a different story and made up a story about having a date the night of the alleged incident.

Despite that, U.Va. President Teresa Sullivan banned social activities for fraternities until Jan. 9 (fraternities had previously agreed to suspend activities for the weekend after the Rolling Stone story was published). Sullivan kept that ban in place even after the story fell apart.

And now, in order to resume social activities, fraternities (and sororities, although their new rules are far less strict) will have to sign agreements pledging to change their partying ways.

Fraternities, of course, take the brunt of the punishment. U.Va. fraternities will now have to designate a minimum of three brothers to remain “sober and lucid at each fraternity function,” meaning they cannot be under the influence of “any substance.”

One of these brothers will have to block the stairs to residential rooms who must also have a key to all the bedrooms, and at least one will have to be present “at each point of alcohol distribution.” Additionally, fraternities will be required to “provide an additional sober brother monitor for every 30 members of the chapter.” At least three of these monitors must be non-first year brothers.

Oh, and the monitors will have to wear some kind of identifier.

Further, fraternities now have strange new rules regarding alcohol. They can serve beer, but it has to be in its original can and wine can be served by a sober brother. Pre-mixed drinks, such as punches, are now prohibited and bottled water must be “readily available at every beverage distribution location and food at a minimum of one distribution location.”

Also, certain types of fraternity parties will now also need a bouncer.

Sororities, which weren’t at all included in the Rolling Stone accusation, will also have to change their ways. The Inter-Sorority Council, along with the Multicultural Greek Council and National Pan-Hellenic Council, will have to review their safety recommendations “at least once a year, at the beginning of [each] leadership term.”

They will also have to include “bystander intervention training, alcohol education and safe party practices” into their new member education services.

Not so bad, comparatively.

Robby Soave over at Reason wrote that the alcohol restrictions placed on fraternities will do little if anything to solve the problem, since students already “flout” the law prohibiting underage drinking.

“Breaking the law carries more serious risk than breaking some university dictate, but that hardly seems to deter teenagers,” Soave wrote.

He also pointed out that U.Va. might not have the legal or ethical right to “punish all Greek organizations for the sins of some.” Those “sins” being a discredited accusation and anti-Greek bias similar to the anti-athlete bias seen at Duke in 2006.

I see another problem with these new requirements. If fraternities were the go-to source for alcohol-fueled ragers, and they now have limits placed on them, won’t the parties just shift to the sorority houses since they don’t face these prohibitions?

http://vpsa.virginia.edu/sites/vpsa.virginia.edu/files/Inter-Fraternity_Council_FOA_Addendum.pdf
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OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
Link

Alcohol and Tobacco

Alcohol
What is an alcoholic beverage?
The term “alcoholic beverages” is defined in Code of Virginia § 4.1-100 as including “alcohol, spirits, wine, and beer, and any one or more of such varieties containing one-half of one percent or more of alcohol by volume, including mixed alcoholic beverages, and every liquid or solid, patented or not, containing alcohol, spirits, wine, or beer and capable of being consumed by a human being.”

At what age am I allowed to drink alcohol?
Age 21. It is illegal for any person under the age of 21 to purchase, possess, or attempt to purchase or possess any alcoholic beverage. (Code of Virginia § 4.1-305)

Note: "In Virginia, the courts have ruled that using alcohol implies possession of alcohol. Therefore, even though your daughter did not have any containers containing alcohol, she still possessed alcohol it if she has alcohol in her body." Source

At what age am I allowed to buy alcohol?
Age 21. It is illegal for any person under the age of 21 to purchase, possess, or attempt to purchase or possess any alcoholic beverage. (Code of Virginia § 4.1-305)

What is the penalty for someone under 21 possessing or purchasing alcohol?
According to Code of Virginia §§§ 4.1-305 (c), 16.1-278.9 and 16.1-278.8:

It is illegal for anyone under 21 to possess any alcoholic beverage. Violators are guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor and, upon conviction, face a fine of up to $2,500 and/or a year in jail and/or 50 hours of community service, and can lose their driver’s license for up to a year. The court may also order substance abuse counseling and treatment.

What if a law enforcement officer finds alcohol in my possession?
He or she may confiscate the alcohol and charge you with being in violation of §4.1-305 of the Code of Virginia, which makes it illegal for any person under the age of 21 to purchase, possess, or attempt to purchase or possess any alcoholic beverage.

Can I drink at home as long as it’s okay with my parents?
Virginia’s Alcohol Beverage Control law allows a person to keep and possess lawfully acquired alcoholic beverages in his residence for his personal use or that of his family. It is illegal for your parents to serve alcohol to guests in their home unless the guests are 21 years of age or older or are accompanied by a parent, guardian, or spouse who is 21 years of age or older. (Code of Virginia § 4.1-200 (7))

Note the restrictions for anyone under 21 years:

a. in the residence and

b. accompanied by a parent.

Anyone, including your parents, who purchases for, or otherwise gives, provides, or assists in the provision of alcoholic beverages to another person knowing that the person is less than 21 years of age is guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor. If convicted, the court may order jail time for up to 12 months and/or a fine of up to $2,500. (Code of Virginia § 4.1-306 (A1))

What if someone else gives me alcohol or buys it for me?
It is illegal for any person to purchase for, or otherwise give, provide, or assist in providing alcoholic beverages for another person whom they know to be less than 21 years of age. This is a Class 1 misdemeanor and, if convicted, the court may order jail time for up to 12 months and/or a fine of up to $2,500. (Code of Virginia § 4.1-306.(A1))

What if I use a fake ID to buy alcohol?
Using a fake ID to establish a false identity or false age to purchase alcoholic beverages is a Class 1 misdemeanor and, upon conviction, you can face a fine of up to $2,500 and/or one year in jail and a minimum $500 fine or 50 hours of community service, and can lose your driver’s license for up to one year. (Code of Virginia § 4.1-305)

Can I get in trouble for having a fake ID?
Yes. It is illegal to possess, manufacture, use, or sell an altered/false driver’s license or military or university identification. It is also illegal to loan your driver’s license or identification card to another person. Persons who possess, use, or distribute fake IDs are charged with a Class 1 misdemeanor (Code of Virginia § 18.2-204.1)

What if I drink and drive?
As part of a “Zero Tolerance” policy, Virginia has enacted some of the toughest laws in the United States for minors caught driving under the influence of alcohol. Under Code of Virginia § 18.2-266.1, it is illegal for anyone under the age of 21 to operate a motor vehicle after illegally consuming alcohol. A violation is a Class 1 misdemeanor. Punishment includes loss of your driver’s license for one year from the date of conviction and a mandatory minimum fine of $500 or having to perform a minimum of 50 hours of community service.

What if I take alcohol to school?
The school is required by law to notify the local law enforcement agency when any student has committed certain offenses, including any conduct involving alcohol. (Code of Virginia § 22.1- 279.3:1 (D))

You will be subject to both school disciplinary action and criminal action. This means you may be suspended from school and be required to go to court to face criminal charges. Anyone (whether an adult or a minor) possessing or consuming alcohol on public school property can face a fine of up to $1,000 and six months of jail time. (Code of Virginia § 4.1-309)

What happens if a store sells beer to someone under age 21?
Under Virginia law, the clerk (seller/server) and the establishment with the license to sell alcohol (licensee) are penalized. The seller/server can receive up to $2,500 fine and/or up to 12 months in jail. For a first time offense, a licensee can be penalized up to $2,000 and/or have their ABC license revoked. (Code of Virginia § 4.1-325.2)

If someone sells alcohol to a person under the age of 21 and does not require that individual to provide bona fide evidence of legal age, the seller will be guilty of a Class 3 misdemeanor. (Code of Virginia § 4.1-304 (B))

Why are there laws prohibiting use of alcohol? It’s legal for adults. Why not teens?
Underage drinking is recognized as a major health and safety threat to youth. According to the U.S. Surgeon General:

underage drinking is a major cause of death from injuries among young people -- from vehicle crashes, homicides and suicide, to falls, burns, and drowning.

Underage drinking increases the risk of committing or being the victim of a physical assault or sexual assault.

Underage drinking plays a role in risky sexual activity.

But isn’t drinking something teens do as a “rite of passage” and part of having a good time?
Many people are unaware of the health and safety risks and think that underage drinking is a “rite of passage.” Tragically, many young people don’t survive this rite.

According to the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation (PIRE), underage drinking is involved in:

24 percent of fatal motor vehicle crashes;

8 percent of non-fatal motor vehicle crashes;

30 percent of fatal drownings;

30 percent of fatal burns;

41 percent of homicides;

43 percent of sexual assaults;

37 percent of other assaults;

9 percent of suicides;

20 percent of risky sex behavior; and

24 percent of property crimes.

What are some strategies for staying "safe and sober?"

Teens have an important role to play in preventing and reducing underage drinking. Some suggestions:

1. You and your parents can sign what is called a “Contract for Life.” In such a contract, you agree to:

do everything you can to avoid making decisions that jeopardize your health (such as drinking and driving or riding with someone who has been drinking); and
call your parents if you are ever in a situation that threatens your safety.
Your parents agree to:

provide safe, sober transportation home;

defer discussions about the situation until it can be discussed in a calm and caring manner; and

to not drink and drive themselves.
Samples of such pledges are on the Students Against Destructive Decisions (SADD) website.

2. Support underage drinking prevention efforts in your school and community. These might be sponsored by organizations such as Students Against Destructive Decisions (SADD), Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), or other community prevention organizations and coalitions.

3. Learn more strategies by reading some of the publications and visiting the websites listed in the column on the right.

<snip>

How many people at the frat house are under 21? Finding three law abiding citizens should not be that difficult.

History of the Legal Drinking Age
Year Event
1934 Original ABC Act stated that the legal age for purchase, possession or consumption of any alcoholic beverage was 21 years of age.
1974 Legal Drinking Age (LDA) for beer lowered from 21 to 18. LDA for wine and liquor remained at 21 years old.
1981 LDA for beer remains at 18 for on-premises consumption and is raised to 19 for off-premises consumption.
1983 LDA is raised to 19 years old for all sales of beer.
1985 Persons born on or after July 1, 1966 will be able to purchase beer, wine and liquor on and after their 21st birthday. Persons born before July 1, 1966 will retain the privilege to purchase, possess and consume beer.
1987 LDA raised to 21 for all alcoholic beverages.
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http://www.timesrepublican.com/page/blogs.detail/display/2396/The-Rolling-Stone-debacle-and-the-future-of-feminism.html

The Rolling Stone debacle and the future of feminism
In Heintz Sight
January 9, 2015 - Andy Heintz

As someone who ardently believes in women’s rights, I’m troubled by how a recent article in the Rolling Stone magazine could undermine the disturbing problem of rape on college campuses and the tainting modern day feminism in general.

In November, the magazine published a story entitled “A Rape on Campus,” which described a gang rape of a woman named “Jackie” during a party at the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity at the University of Virginia. The brutal gang rape lasted for three hours and was part on an initiation ritual, according to the article. The story led to the fraternity getting pilloried, demonstrated against, vandalized and suspended since the article came out. Later, it was revealed that Rolling Stone had foolishly (albeit understandably) honored Jackie’s request not to contact the man who she claimed orchestrated the attack on her nor any of the men whom she said participated in the attack for fear of retaliation against her. In addition, the reporter Sabrina Erdely, didn’t talk to Jackie’s former friends who were portrayed as self-absorbed status seekers who discouraged Jackie from contacting law enforcement after the rape took place.

The dialogue between Jackie and her erstwhile allies cast them in an unflattering light. After the rape, Jackie said she called her then-three best friends (whose names were changed for the article) to come get her. Her friends allegedly debated the social consequences of Jackie going to law enforcement before deciding it wouldn’t be a good decision for self-interested reasons. For some, including Jonah Goldberg, writer for the conservative National Review magazine, this dialogue and the story in general seemed suspicious.

“Rolling Stone has published an incredible story about a rape at the University of Virginia,” Goldberg wrote, “sending shock waves around the country. But when I say the story is incredible, I mean that in the literal, largely abandoned sense of the word. It is not credible – I don’t believe it.”

For his skepticism, Goldberg was excoriated as being pro-rape or a rape apologist. As a feminist, I don’t consider this knee-jerk anger constructive. We only undermine our influence and unfairly vilify a person when we assail anyone who questions the veracity of a rape allegation. Questioning the credibility of a story does not make one pro-rape, and we do ourselves no favors when we draw these conclusions. The Washington Post probed further into the Rolling Stone story and found many discrepancies. The alleged attacker, “Drew,” belonged to a different fraternity, and no one by that name has been a member of Phi Kappa Psi. The alleged rapist said he’d never met Jackie in person and never took her out on a date.

Jackie’s former friend, “Andy” disputed that she was in a bloody dress and that he and his friends had debated the social costs of reporting Jackie’s rape. “Andy” said Jackie said she'd been forced to perform oral sex on a group of men, but he does not remember her identifying a specific house.

“He said he did not notice any injuries or blood but said the group offered to get her help,” the Post reported. “She instead wanted to return to her dorm, and he and her friends spent the night with her to comfort her at her request.”

Rolling Stone subsequently admitted they should have talked to the fraternity before publishing the story and even some of Jackie’s close friends, who are advocates for sexual assault awareness at UVA, have come to doubt her account. Personally, I sympathize with Jackie and feel something horrible did happen to her, although it’s impossible to know exactly what happened at this point. But this story is disturbing for two reasons: 1) It propagates the myth that women often lie about being raped – false accusations of rapes happen in about two to eight percent of cases and, 2) It’s led conservative commentators to blame the combination of a “liberated hook-up culture” liberals and feminists have allegedly created on campus along with alleged feminist attacks on the idea that women are the gentler or fairer sex for a campus rape epidemic they claim doesn't exist.

“This requires declaring war on chivalric standards for male conduct,” Goldberg wrote in another column for the National Review, “which were once a great bulwark against caddish and rapacious behavior. Take away the notion that men should be protective of women and they will — surprise! — be less protective of women.”

Goldberg contradicts himself later in his column when he notes that, according to the FBI forcible rapes are at a 40-year low. You would think even those skeptical of feminism would give partial credit to feminists for helping pass anti-stalking laws, the pro-women Violence Against Women Act, laws forbidding sexual harassment in the workforce, mandatory training to help doctors and policemen handle rape cases, the National Domestic Violence hotline (a part of VAWA that receives 22,000 calls a month) and laws – not pushed until the 1970s – that made it a crime for a husband to rape his spouse.

Furthermore, the idea that most rape is caused by well-meaning guys who had too much to drink is contradicted by evidence. David Lisak, an expert on sexual crimes who has spent years studying rapists’ behavior, reports that most college assaults are committed by a small number of men who rape multiple women. According to Think Progress, Lisak found that rape doesn’t occur because alcohol clouds students’ judgment, rather rapists use alcohol as one of the many tools at their disposal.

Feminists shouldn’t close their minds to the idea that sometimes women make false rape accusations, nor should they immediately castigate individuals who question rape allegations. But feminism’s detractors shouldn’t underestimate the positive effects feminists have made in their often courageous quest to ensure women are treated equally on campus and by law enforcement.
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chatham
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Has anyone seen the memo send out by Brodhead to ALL media outlets asking them to not compare the false Duke rape case to any other university false rape case becasue the duke case was accurate BEFORE THE FACTS CHANGED and even though the AG declared them INNOCENT does not mean that something did not happen in a room in that house we destroyed. The only valid comparisons would be under a prosecutors duress during an election while that DA is prosecuting the case with no evidence and whose facts keep changing. In other words, there is a great deal of difference between me, this male at Duke and her, that woman at UVa that precludes any valid comparisons.

:Pot:
Edited by chatham, Jan 10 2015, 08:26 AM.
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Quasimodo

chatham
Jan 10 2015, 08:24 AM
Has anyone seen the memo send out by Brodhead to ALL media outlets asking them to not compare the false Duke rape case to any other university false rape case becasue the duke case was accurate BEFORE THE FACTS CHANGED and even though the AG declared them INNOCENT does not mean that something did not happen in a room in that house we destroyed. The only valid comparisons would be under a prosecutors duress during an election while that DA is prosecuting the case with no evidence and whose facts keep changing. In other words, there is a great deal of difference between me, this male at Duke and her, that woman at UVa that precludes any valid comparisons.



:toast: :toast: :toast:
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Payback
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chatham
Jan 10 2015, 08:24 AM
Has anyone seen the memo send out by Brodhead to ALL media outlets asking them to not compare the false Duke rape case to any other university false rape case becasue the duke case was accurate BEFORE THE FACTS CHANGED and even though the AG declared them INNOCENT does not mean that something did not happen in a room in that house we destroyed. The only valid comparisons would be under a prosecutors duress during an election while that DA is prosecuting the case with no evidence and whose facts keep changing. In other words, there is a great deal of difference between me, this male at Duke and her, that woman at UVa that precludes any valid comparisons.

:Pot:
YOU MADE THAT UP, CHATHAM!!!!! Accurate before the facts changed??? Brodhead could not have said that. He is the man who said only a blithering idiot would use the phrase "THE FACTS KEPT CHANGING" in front of Ed Bradley. Oh, Chatham, you outdid yourself here! :SarC:
Edited by Payback, Jan 10 2015, 06:26 PM.
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Baldo
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I know I am spitting into the wind, but I think a better approach might be to teach morals to these young college students.

Maybe a little more info about the real statistics on alcohol abuse & drug addiction on college campuses?

Maybe a little bit of info about the long term emotional considerations in regards sexual promiscuity and what happens to women?

Naw, encourage to screw like bunnies, drink, get loaded, but just don't be racist!
Edited by Baldo, Jan 10 2015, 02:11 PM.
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