| Blog and Media Roundup - Monday, January 11, 2016; News Roundup | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Jan 11 2016, 05:04 AM (134 Views) | |
| abb | Jan 11 2016, 05:04 AM Post #1 |
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http://www.dailytarheel.com/article/2016/01/unveried-documentary-challenges-unc-academic-athletic-scandal-narratives 'Unverified’ documentary challenges UNC academic-athletic scandal narratives Bradley Saacks | Published 6 hours ago Next to a theater showing the latest James Bond movie, Varsity Theatre’s Friday night headliner was unusual — a documentary on the UNC academic-athletic scandal. Bradley Bethel, the former UNC learning specialist turned cinematographer, debuted his film, “Unverified: The Untold Story Behind the UNC Scandal,” to a select audience Friday. Attendees included many people who have been affected by the scandal, such as now-fired athletic tutor Jaimie Lee, former men’s basketball assistant coach Joe Holladay and several former UNC student-athletes. The film was advertised as the story of the “other side” of the UNC academic-athletic scandal, revolving around personal interviews with Bethel’s close friends, Lee and former athletic tutor Beth Bridger. Related Content Interactive graphic: What you missed during winter break Kelsey Weekman 5 hours ago UNC men's basketball topples Orange in Jim Boeheim's return Brendan Marks 01/10/16 12:18am New GPSF president hopes to define organization's role Maria Prokopowicz 5 hours ago North Carolina fights underage drinking Danielle Chemtob 6 hours ago Contextualized grading pilot program coming fall 2016 Amy Nelson 5 hours ago Bridger and Lee were fired after investigator Kenneth Wainstein’s report revealed their involvement in the paper classes within the former Department of African and Afro-American Studies. Bethel said he specifically hoped to correct what he called the media’s sensationalism of the scandal. “‘If you don’t read the newspaper, you’re uninformed. If you read the newspaper, you’re misinformed,’ Mark Twain,” the first scene of the movie read. The most revealing interview was with former UNC Chancellor James Moeser, who was at the helm of the University when the number of paper classes peaked. “AFAM was given a kind of pass because no one wanted to be seen as dealing harshly with the African, the African-American studies department — candidly,” Moeser said when asked why deans that had knowledge of irregular classes did not act. “It was a corruption of our higher values. These were people who were trying to help other people — people who were mostly poor, mostly black, coming from very poor households — and trying to give them a leg up.” Bridger, Lee and Deunta Williams, a former UNC football player, defended the rigor of the paper classes. “Some of the topics these kids had to write about, they got more out of that than sitting in a math class or sitting in a history class,” Bridger said in the film. Wainstein’s report found that the classes, which began in 1993 and ended in 2011, helped boost athletes’ and non-athletes’ GPAs and were favorably graded by former office administrator Deborah Crowder, a non-faculty member. Bethel challenged the Wainstein report — and UNC administration’s response — throughout the film. “University leaders seemed content to let those associated with athletics take the blame, and the news media quickly propagated this narrative,” one Bethel voice-over said. Bethel asked why his two friends were found responsible of academic fraud by Wainstein but not the deans above them. The film said Chancellor Carol Folt declined to be interviewed and former UNC-system President Tom Ross did not respond to a request for an interview. UNC spokesperson Jim Gregory said the chancellor does not comment on personnel issues but provided Bethel with materials on personnel decisions stemming from the Wainstein report. Many journalists who have reported on the UNC scandal either declined to be interviewed or were not allowed to do an interview by their news agencies, according to the film, including The (Raleigh) News & Observer’s Dan Kane, CNN’s Sara Ganim and HBO Real Sports’ Bernard Goldberg. Wainstein also declined to be interviewed for the film. Bethel quit his job at the University last year to work on the project, which was crowdfunded and raised $50,000 in its first day. The film eventually raised more than $140,000. “Unverified” will be showing at Varsity Theatre today and Tuesday. @SaacksAttack university@dailytarheel.com Read more: http://www.dailytarheel.com/article/2016/01/unveried-documentary-challenges-unc-academic-athletic-scandal-narratives Quoted from The Daily Tar Heel |
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| abb | Jan 11 2016, 05:12 AM Post #2 |
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http://chronicle.com/article/As-Federal-Sex-Assault/234858 As Federal Sex-Assault Investigations Multiply, Resolutions Remain Elusive By Katherine Mangan January 10, 2016 Over the past year and a half, the number of colleges finding themselves in the cross hairs of the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights over their handling of sexual-assault cases has nearly tripled, to 161. Being put on the list is just the start of a painstakingly detailed back-and-forth that takes, on average, more than a year to resolve. How colleges end up on the list, how long they will remain there, and on what points they will be found in or out of compliance with the federal gender-equity law known as Title IX remain a mystery to most college officials. To help shed light on the process, The Chronicle is introducing an online investigation tracker with which readers can browse comprehensive information about federal inquiries and sign up to receive alerts about important developments in those investigations. A quick look at the database reveals some surprising statistics about the most recent wave of enforcement, which began in April 2011, when the department issued a pivotal "Dear Colleague" letter that spelled out colleges’ responsibilities under the law. In 2014, 13 cases were resolved, and 70 were opened. Last year, only seven cases were resolved, and 106 were opened. The rapidly growing number of federal inquiries has created a significant backlog for investigators. The completed cases, which involved a number of institutions that were found to have violated Title IX, including Michigan State University and the University of Virginia, reveal the department’s toughening demands and more-prescriptive approach toward compliance. Sexual Assault Under Investigation The Chronicle's online investigation tracker collects comprehensive information about each of the more than 200 federal inquiries into colleges' handling of sexual assault. Browse the tool now and sign up to receive alerts about important developments. Read more about sexual assault on campus: Colleges Under Investigation Wonder What Getting It Right Looks Like As Federal Investigations Get Tougher, Some Ask if That's Progress The Real Conversation About Campus Assault Has Hardly Begun Should Colleges Be Judging Rape? Why Colleges Are On the Hook for Sexual Assault Meanwhile, new cases are piling up. From May 2014, the first time the department publicized a list of colleges facing investigation, to December 2015, the number of colleges under investigation jumped from 55 to 161. With some colleges facing multiple inquiries, the number of cases that remain open has climbed to 197. An additional 46 cases have been resolved, bringing the total number investigated since 2011 to 243. They were almost evenly split between public and private colleges, with 121 cases at 89 public colleges and 122 at 97 private colleges. The fact that only 19 percent of the cases tracked in The Chronicle’s database have been resolved shows the challenges facing investigators. The Obama administration wants to hire 200 more full-time employees for the civil-rights office, and the office itself says it could use 500 more. In the Pipeline Investigations are triggered either by a civil-rights complaint or as the result of a proactive compliance review. St. Mary’s College of Maryland, a four-year, public liberal-arts college, has the dubious distinction of having the most investigations, with five, one of which has been resolved. A college spokesman said that privacy rules prevented officials from discussing the cases, but that the institution was cooperating fully with the federal government. The civil-rights office has also kept the State University of New York system busy, with 10 investigations, three of which have been resolved. The university that’s been on the hook the longest — for four and a half years — and is still waiting for a resolution is the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Among other cases inching their way through the pipeline: A complaint that followed a racially charged rape accusation at Sarah Lawrence College has been under investigation for more than two years. At Columbia University, a student, Emma Sulkowicz, carried a mattress around the campus to protest the university’s handling of her alleged rape. The accused student, whom a university panel found not responsible, has sued Columbia and the art instructor who oversaw Ms. Sulkowicz’s mattress project, saying they allowed her to defame him. At James Madison University, the subject of another complaint, questions have been raised about how the university punished three fraternity members found responsible for sexually assaulting a female undergraduate during a spring-break trip. One of the first cases resolved during the recent wave of federal enforcement was at the University of Notre Dame, where a 19-year-old freshman killed herself after reporting that a member of the football team had assaulted her. As part of a resolution agreement in 2011 with the federal government, Notre Dame agreed to provide alternative arrangements for complainants who do not want to be in the same room as the accused during disciplinary hearings and to give both complainants and the accused the right to appeal the outcome of a hearing. Given the volume of information the civil-rights office asks of colleges, including details about policies, training materials, and investigation notes, it’s hardly surprising that investigations can drag on for years. The University of Tennessee at Knoxville, for instance, was given a list of 20 requests, one of which was for an Excel spreadsheet of every formal or informal student complaint or anonymous tip. The spreadsheet, the university was told, should include 16 categories of information for each complaint. Institutional responses have typically involved colleges’ strengthening their sexual-assault policies and affirming their commitment to assault victims. Many colleges have hired Title IX investigators and conducted campus-climate surveys. Some have started programs to emphasize prevention techniques like bystander intervention. Lawmakers in some states have weighed in by enacting affirmative-consent, or "yes means yes," policies. Such changes have in some cases sparked a backlash by due-process advocates and men who say there’s been a rush to judgment. But others say that for all of the bureaucratic wrangling, the intense federal scrutiny has made campuses safer. Katherine Mangan writes about community colleges, completion efforts, and job training, as well as other topics in daily news. Follow her on Twitter @KatherineMangan, or email her at katherine.mangan@chronicle.com. |
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| abb | Jan 11 2016, 04:26 PM Post #3 |
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http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/the-lefts-different-standards-for-sexual-assault-perpetrators/article/2580125 The Left's different standards for sexual assault perpetrators By Ashe Schow (@AsheSchow) • 1/11/16 2:05 PM In today's New York Post, I argue that officials in Europe are "enabling a rape culture" by rushing to crack down on speech critical of asylum seekers, and by telling women how to act to avoid future sexual assaults rather than immediately addressing the issue that led to the assaults. When scores of women (police reports have topped 500 at this point) reported being groped, robbed and even raped by men of Arab or North African descent in a flash-mob action, Germany (where such attacks happened in at least three cities on New Year's Eve) initially tried to downplay the immigration connection. The mayor of Cologne — where the initial reports came from — suggested women follow a "code of conduct" to avoid future attacks. The "code" included the suggestion that women walk with an arm's length between themselves and strangers. German government officials announced they would crack down on "hate speech" directed toward asylum seekers, who were initially believed to be responsible for the assaults. It turns out those fears may have been justified, as more than half of alleged suspects have so far been identified as migrants. It took a week for German Chancellor Angela Merkel to propose changes to the country's immigration policies. But Merkel (who was Time magazine's 2015 person of the year) isn't protecting German citizens by making it more difficult for dangerous people to get into the country. No, the proposed changes to the country's immigration policies are to make it easier to deport migrants after they have committed crimes. The main issue here is how the reported sexual assaults were handled. As David Frum noted on Twitter, "If the Cologne attackers had belonged to a fraternity, their coordinated sexual assaults would be the biggest story on earth right now." That's not to say the attacks that took place in Cologne and other European cities aren't big news — they certainly are — but Frum is right that if the alleged perpetrators had been anyone other than asylum seekers, the response would have been devastating and swift. But that's how it works in the Left's "pyramid of grievances." Women alleging sexual assault and rape take a back seat to asylum seekers from certain parts of the world. They also take a back seat if the man they accuse is a popular Democrat, like Bill Clinton. I really hope sexual assault victims see this for what it is: Politics. Victims (and accusers) are only useful when their attack fits a preconceived narrative. Accuse a white fraternity brother or an athlete, whether it's a lacrosse or football player, and it's front-page news, no questions asked, no evidence necessary. But accuse a Democrat or someone from the Middle East or North Africa? Sit down and stop getting yourself raped. And yet somehow, those who expect to see evidence with such charges are accused of being "pro-rape," but not those who are willing to overlook all the evidence so long as the alleged perpetrator comes from a preferred background or demographic group. |
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9:27 AM Jul 11