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Blog and Media Roundup - Thursday, January 14, 2016; News Roundup
Topic Started: Jan 14 2016, 05:26 AM (177 Views)
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http://www.thecollegefix.com/post/25854/

CLAIM: Student accused of rape told not to seek counseling because his accuser had priority
Matt Lamb - University of Nebraska-Omaha •January 14, 2016

Partner of accused: ‘This case has taught me that gender discrimination does exist’

A self-proclaimed feminist student at Michigan State University is blasting the administration for expelling her romantic partner after a 14-month discriminatory sexual-assault investigation.

In an open letter to Denise Maybank, vice president of student affairs and services, published in The State News, the unnamed author said her partner’s accuser was the one who sexually assaulted him and that he was denied school resources simply because he’s male.

“I write to you because this case has taught me that gender discrimination does exist,” the letter says.

The author’s claims mirror those in a lawsuit against Amherst College by a male student who was expelled for rape despite evidence that his accuser had performed sex acts on him while he was “blacked out.”

Michigan State was under federal investigation for four years, with the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights finding its grievance procedures “noncompliant” and saying it took too long to respond to sexual assault and harassment allegations, WKAR reported last week.

‘Simply horrifying’ her partner was blamed for being male

The university used “an antiquated notion of what it means to have sex” to judge her partner, “wherein a man receives sex from a woman” in a “transaction” where the woman loses something, the letter said.

“In this case, my partner engaged in mutually consensual and sober intercourse with the claimant [accuser] and was assaulted by the claimant, but responsibility lies with my partner because of their gender,” the author continued. “That is simply horrifying.”

According to the letter, Michigan State admitted “procedural errors,” denied the accused student a hearing and ignored “the fact” that he did not give his consent to some of the accuser’s sexual acts on him.

The university should not “expel innocent students on nothing more than the words of another student without being given the chance to speak in person to defend themselves,” the letter continued.

Get your counseling somewhere else

The author said her partner has lost all his “source of income” from jobs at the university. When he “expressed suicidal thoughts” to Rick Shafer, associate director of student life, Shafer allegedly told him to avoid the campus counseling center because his accuser “was also using those resources” – advice that was “horribly damaging” to her partner, the author wrote.

According to the letter, the author “nearly collapsed on the sidewalk” and had a panic attack when she saw her partner’s accuser on campus: “I now avoid the area in which I saw them.”

The State News agreed to contact the author on behalf of The College Fix with an interview request, but the author did not respond.

Shafer did not respond to a request by The Fix to explain the procedure for handling requests for counseling by opposing parties in a sexual-assault proceeding.

Collateral damage from the single-investigator model

The expelled student was the victim of policy changes prompted by two Title IX complaints, according to K.C. Johnson, a history professor at Brooklyn College and co-author of a book on the Duke lacrosse rape case.

The university now uses “a modified version of the single-investigator model – in which one person serves as the equivalent of police, prosecutor, jury, and judge, subject only to oversight from a MSU panel,” Johnson wrote in an email to The Fix. That model also keeps the accused from confronting the accuser, questioning other witnesses and seeing evidence against the accused, he said.

The lone benefit to an accused student under that model is that “both parties are given the opportunity to review and comment on the preliminary investigation report prior to it being finalized,” Samantha Harris, director of policy research for the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, told The Fix in an email.

“This is deeply troubling from a due process standpoint,” and due-process complaints particularly in sexual-misconduct cases “are extremely common,” Harris said.
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http://dailytrojan.com/2016/01/14/usc-issues-apology-for-sexual-assault-tutorial/

USC issues apology for sexual assault tutorial

By DIANA KRUZMAN
January 14, 2016 in News

USC apologized on Tuesday for asking questions about students’ sexual history in a mandatory sexual assault training course. The University received backlash after the online publication Campus Reform released details of the questionnaire on its website, prompting the apology and removal of questions from the training.

The questions, which some people deemed invasive, asked students how many times they had sex in the past three months, as well as how many sexual partners they have had and whether or not they use a condom.

“USC apologizes for any offense or discomfort caused by optional questions included as part of a mandatory online training for students on sexual consent, misconduct and other important issues,” senior vice president for administration Todd Dickey said in a statement to the Washington Examiner.

The questions also were removed from the training course Tuesday.

Although the questionnaire, part of a larger sexual assault training course meant to teach students about safe sex and comply with Title IX regulations, is mandatory — students cannot register for spring classes until they have successfully completed the course — the questions about students’ sexual history are optional, with a “No Comment” option available. The survey is anonymous; students’ identities are not tied with their answers to the questions.

Campus Clarity, which produces the training for USC, clarified that the material was used in Title IX training programs at more than 500 colleges and universities across the country. The training is required for all university freshmen under the Campus Save Act, which came into effect last year.
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http://dailytrojan.com/2016/01/13/sexual-assault-prevention-backlash-is-unfounded/

Sexual assault prevention backlash is unfounded

By SONALI SETH AND LILY VAUGHAN
January 13, 2016 in Opinion

Nothing speaks more toward the desperation of the right wing to slow the progress of sexual assault reform than a complaint against sexual assault prevention training. But when the University was forced to issue an apology to students in response to a complaint that the training “was just full of super personal questions,” it was a troubling indication of pushback against sexual assault prevention education at a time when it is especially crucial, given the pervasiveness and gravity of sexual assault on college campuses — including ours.

So when online publications were littered with headlines like the Daily Caller’s “USC Forces Students to Disclose Sexual History to Sign Up for Classes,” such complaints alluded to a misperception that the University’s anonymous survey requesting information on undergraduate sexual behavior — including questions on frequency and safety measures taken — is proof of a liberal plot to engage in Big Brother style personal surveillance.

It is true that the survey mentioned in the complaint was explicitly voluntary. It is true that the questions were non-explicit in nature and sought to gain statistical information to improve student sexual safety. It is true that the complaint came months after the module was assigned and completed. Yet, news stations and tabloids like Campus Reform, Fox News and the Daily Wire have sought to profit off of the creation of scandal by taking the miniscule amount of information and sad explanation offered in order to smear USC’s attempt, and the attempts of multiple other public and private universities, to curb sexual predation on its campus.

The single student complaint claimed that the module, administered by Campus Clarity, included prying sexual questions and a scenario in which a male was unfairly blamed for sexual assault. However, such a claim strongly distorts the purpose behind each of these stages of the module — and this misrepresentation was perpetuated by tabloids that published the student complaint.

The survey questions the complaint refers to are designed to gather broad information on the sexual activities of undergraduate students in order to improve sexual assault prevention and sexual safety training. Through an understanding of the most pervasive habits of college students, the module publisher as well as participating universities can most effectively target time and funding. Despite the necessity of this data, the module accounts for some students’ unwillingness or discomfort with sharing such information — and thus explicitly states that each and every question is wholly optional, in addition to placing the questions at the end of the training — after the student has received a notification that they have received credit for completion of the module.

The scenario cited by the student portrayed a female student who attended a party and became blackout drunk. A male student, depicted as having consumed two or three alcoholic beverages, approached the young woman and propositioned her. She began to lose consciousness as the two engaged in sexual behavior. He did not cease his advances despite his awareness of her state. The following morning, the male student talks to a friend about the encounter, and his friend cautions him that the situation may have constituted sexual assault. In no way does the situation suggest that both parties are equally inebriated, nor does the module suggest that the male partner is always responsible for a sexual situation involving alcohol. Conversely, the situation is meant to portray an archetype of a male student taking advantage of a female student’s alcohol consumption.

Not only are the complaints against the University’s sexual assault prevention course completely unfounded, they also underscore a seemingly inevitable — but also dangerous — backlash against assault prevention education. Just as some have started to shift their attention away from the plight of victims in legal sexual assault battles on college campuses and to the “rights of the accused,” the University’s apology in response to complaints is troubling. And to sexual assault resource advocates who have fought for years to institute assault prevention education, it’s tragic to see opposition form so quickly and over a matter so insignificant when compared to the overall importance of preventing college students from getting raped.

It’s assault victims, instead of the students perturbed by an optional questionnaire, that demonstrate why now — more than ever — sexual assault training must be wholeheartedly supported. And yes, there is a tinge of discomfort that comes with taking the mental effort to think about what consent means. But it is a small part of a much larger, much more necessary conversation — to dismantle the conceptions that create and perpetuate a culture in which sexual predation still pervades college campuses.
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http://statenews.com/article/2015/12/an-open-letter-to-denise-maybank


Letter: Student Services wrongfully expelled my partner
By Anonymous

December 8, 2015 10:00 am

Dear Dr. Denise Maybank,

Several days ago, you chose to dismiss my partner from MSU based on a false allegation of sexual misconduct. The investigation leading up to this decision took over a year – 429 days, and for months my partner and I were fraught with anxiety over your decision.

Now that your decision has been made, I am devastated and my life has been turned upside-down. MSU has committed a great injustice by continuing to pursue an allegation despite no credible evidence, despite months and months of insistence of innocence, despite our proving time and time again that the university has mistreated my partner, despite your own admittance that procedural errors had occurred, despite the fact my partner was never given a chance at a hearing, and despite the fact that the claimant themselves performed sexual acts on my partner without my partner’s consent.

I should not, however, be surprised. The investigation by the OCR found a number of issues in MSU’s process that have contributed to a false finding of guilt in the case of my partner. Most alarming to me was the claim MSU made to OCR that they “have not yet had a case where the administrator or hearing board believed that the respondent met his or her burden of proof” within the context of an appeal, which either indicates that every single respondent at MSU has indeed been guilty of the allegations against them, or that this university simply does not provide fair procedures to allow for respondents to actually prove they are innocent. Given my experiences with the process, it is almost certainly the latter option.

My partner does not deserve to be barred from attending my graduation in 2017 or their sibling’s graduation a few years down the road for a false allegation of sexual misconduct. Given the backlash your office has received for allowing an actually guilty individual back onto campus for these reasons, I do not believe my partner’s chances of being permitted to attend these events are good. That has absolutely shattered me.

This investigation has had a tremendous impact on their education and life outside of school, and has resulted in them losing all of their part-time employment and source of income from their various jobs at MSU. When my partner expressed suicidal thoughts, Rick Shafer recommended that they should not seek counseling through MSU’s counseling center because the claimant was also using those resources.

This was extremely dangerous advice, and I fear for what may have happened if I were not around to support my partner and help them deal with the emotions this investigation has caused them to experience. Given the cost associated with outside counseling services, as well as my partner’s equal right as a student to take advantage of university resources, I continue to find Mr. Shafer’s advice to be horribly damaging.

My own life continues to be severely impacted by the investigation and the decision you made, as anything I participate in on campus now feels worthless if my partner cannot experience it with me. I worry about seeing the claimant on campus. I have so far only seen them once, but I nearly collapsed onto the sidewalk as I was struck by a panic attack that left my legs weak and my head dizzy. It took me several hours to recover from the incident and I now avoid the area in which I saw them.

After all, if their words could condemn my partner, what if they chose to attack me as well? I intended to pursue graduate studies at MSU, but I no longer feel comfortable doing so, given the claimant’s presence here and how unfairly my partner has been treated by the university. I have also considered dropping one of my majors in order to allow me to graduate earlier, but believe my education is important and do not wish for my fear of the claimant to impact my future.

As a feminist, I am often critical of men who suggest the possibility of “reverse sexism” and I do still believe that it does not actually exist. However, gender discrimination in this context is a very real issue. Too often I hear stories about alleged assaults where both parties were heavily intoxicated, but one party (typically female) reports the incident as an assault, though it could very reasonably be argued that she had been the assailant because of the state of intoxication of both parties.

This bias stems from an antiquated notion of what it means to have sex, wherein a man receives sex from a woman. We still believe sex is a transaction, with one party gaining something and the other party losing. In this case, my partner engaged in mutually consensual and sober intercourse with the claimant and was assaulted by the claimant, but responsibility lies with my partner because of their gender. That is simply horrifying.

I write to you because I am disgusted by the way this university treats its students who are pleading for a chance to speak. I write to you because I am no longer comfortable with being silent in the face of injustice. I write to you because this system that is supposedly designed to be fair and “fact-finding” picks and chooses which facts to consider in order to find innocent people guilty. I write to you because this case has taught me that gender discrimination does exist. I write to you because I still do not believe this university should expel innocent students on nothing more than the words of another student without being given the chance to speak in person to defend themselves.

Sincerely,
An Outraged Student
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Jan 14 2016, 05:30 AM
http://dailytrojan.com/2016/01/14/usc-issues-apology-for-sexual-assault-tutorial/

USC issues apology for sexual assault tutorial

By DIANA KRUZMAN
January 14, 2016 in News

USC apologized on Tuesday for asking questions about students’ sexual history in a mandatory sexual assault training course. The University received backlash after the online publication Campus Reform released details of the questionnaire on its website, prompting the apology and removal of questions from the training.

The questions, which some people deemed invasive, asked students how many times they had sex in the past three months, as well as how many sexual partners they have had and whether or not they use a condom.

“USC apologizes for any offense or discomfort caused by optional questions included as part of a mandatory online training for students on sexual consent, misconduct and other important issues,” senior vice president for administration Todd Dickey said in a statement to the Washington Examiner.

The questions also were removed from the training course Tuesday.

Although the questionnaire, part of a larger sexual assault training course meant to teach students about safe sex and comply with Title IX regulations, is mandatory — students cannot register for spring classes until they have successfully completed the course — the questions about students’ sexual history are optional, with a “No Comment” option available. The survey is anonymous; students’ identities are not tied with their answers to the questions.

Campus Clarity, which produces the training for USC, clarified that the material was used in Title IX training programs at more than 500 colleges and universities across the country. The training is required for all university freshmen under the Campus Save Act, which came into effect last year.
How can the survey be anonymous if one is required to complete it in order to be able to register for classes?

if there is one thing I have learned, no survey conducted by an academic institution for its purposes is ever anonymous.
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http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/rubio-should-follow-sanders-lead-on-campus-sexual-assault/article/2580472

Rubio should follow Sanders' lead on campus sexual assault
By Ashe Schow (@AsheSchow) • 1/14/16 1:00 AM

I've never considered myself a single-issue voter. In fact, I've always despised the idea that someone would choose a candidate based on a single issue – especially if it was a wedge issue unlikely to be a major concern for a politician.

That said, it was difficult when I realized that on the issue I write most about, campus sexual assault, Socialist (excuse me, Independent) Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders was more in line with my views than Republican Sen. Marco Rubio.

On Monday, Sanders told an audience at the Black and Brown Presidential Forum in Iowa that rape accusations on college campuses should be handled by law enforcement and not administrative bureaucracies, a sentiment I share. "Rape and assault is rape or assault whether it takes place on a campus or a dark street," Sanders said. "If a student rapes another student it has got to be understood as a very serious crime, it has to get outside of the school and have a police investigation and that has to take place."

I agree. Rape and sexual assault are serious crimes, and letting untrained or poorly trained administrators adjudicate them as mere disciplinary matters is dangerous for society. That's because the worst a school can do to a rapist is expel him, leaving him free to prey on anyone off-campus – including the original victim, should he or she leave the grounds.

At the same time, schools provide no meaningful due process for accused students, allowing their names to be dragged through the mud without evidence and without a chance to defend themselves. This has led to more than 70 lawsuits by accused students who were not allowed to present evidence in their defense or be represented by a lawyer, and now have their lives on hold by an accusation they say is false.

In short, colleges and universities have set up kangaroo court systems that encourage and reward false accusations, because the schools are afraid of losing federal funding due to the threat of a Title IX investigation. In 2011, Title IX, which bans discrimination on the basis of sex, was reinterpreted by the Education Department (without going through the proper process) to claim that sexual assault, unlike any other crime, is a civil rights issue and that colleges must set up pseudo-courts to punish students.

The thinking from activists is that sexual assault between students hampers the victim's ability to learn and that schools have a duty to ensure this doesn't happen. Nothing in the language of Title IX says anything of the sort, but that is the way it is currently being interpreted. And schools that do not comply risk an investigation – which has always resulted in a violation finding – and a loss of funding.

And through all of this, sexual assault is treated as no worse than cheating or plagiarism. Activists say the pseudo-court system is needed because police have been unwilling or unable to investigate accusations in the past, and so instead of reforming the legal system, a whole new system must be created, one that denies the accused their constitutional rights to due process.

Due process, in their eyes, is an impediment to justice, at least when the accusation is sexual assault.

Sanders' statement that police need to be put back in charge of what are actually felonies is welcome. And his statement is more in line with my work and my beliefs than those of Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio.

Rubio is the only GOP candidate that has seemingly taken a stance on this issue – and it is a bad one. He has co-sponsored a bill that codifies into law the overreach of the Education Department and ensures that accused students will not have a fair hearing. After the Campus Accountability and Safety Act was introduced in 2014, I sent questions to the sponsors of the bill asking about due process protections for accused students.

Rubio's office was one of the few that responded. His spokesman told me: "This bill does not address this issue" when asked about due process.

Activists like to claim that false accusations are rare. We don't know how rare they are. Reporting to the police is different than reporting to a university official who won't do anything to punish a lie and is being pressured to find in favor of the accuser rather than seek the truth. And studies that show false reports are low are only referring to reports that are proven false. An equally small number could be considered proven true by way of a conviction. Even then, the number one crime where DNA evidence finds a convicted person was innocent is in cases of rape.
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http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/letter-claims-student-denied-suicide-counseling-because-he-was-accused-of-sexual-assault/article/2580519
Letter claims student denied suicide counseling because he was accused of sexual assault
By Ashe Schow (@AsheSchow) • 1/14/16 3:55 PM

A Michigan State University student has written a letter to a campus newspaper, alleging that her partner was wrongly expelled for sexual assault.

The letter, written by an anonymous student who appears to be female, details the process that found her partner responsible, even though school administrators admitted there were procedural errors that led to the outcome.

Even more shocking, the author alleges her partner (apparently male) was denied counseling services when he was suicidal because his accuser "was also using those resources."

The author, who identifies as a feminist, described how it was not only her partner's life that has been devastated, but her own.

"My own life continues to be severely impacted by the investigation and the decision you made, as anything I participate in on campus now feels worthless if my partner cannot experience it with me," she wrote. "I worry about seeing the claimant on campus. I have so far only seen them once, but I nearly collapsed onto the sidewalk as I was struck by a panic attack that left my legs weak and my head dizzy. It took me several hours to recover from the incident and I now avoid the area in which I saw them."

Just to be clear: Her letter is not chiefly about her own pain, but that part illustrates the rippling effect that false accusations can have.

"We still believe sex is a transaction, with one party gaining something and the other party losing," she wrote. "In this case, my partner engaged in mutually consensual and sober intercourse with the claimant and was assaulted by the claimant, but responsibility lies with my partner because of their gender. That is simply horrifying."

In the comments section below the article, people questioned the validity of her claims. The student paper's editor in chief, Olivia Dimmer, addressed these issue by writing she had confirmed the student status of the author, and had viewed official letters from campus officials proving the case described was real.

Dimmer also confirmed that campus administrators admitted "certain applicable procedures stated in University policies may not have been followed" in the case described.

This didn't stop some commenters from claiming that by coming forward with a tale of a false accusation, the author was somehow "silencing the survivor."

Another commenter argued that describing an experience with a false accusation does not negate an experience with sexual assault. Another suggested that there was no "survivor" in this case if it was indeed a false accusation. The author herself responded to many commenters, saying she initially believed the accuser but when she saw the "evidence" she realized that it was a false accusation and that the same evidence could have been used to suggest her accused partner was sexually assaulted by the accuser.

MSU has been especially under heavy pressure to find students responsible (regardless of the evidence), as it was recently found in violation of the anti-discrimination law known as Title IX for exercising what federal bureaucrats considered to be too much discretion. For example, MSU had dropped one investigation after the accuser refused to file a formal complaint. The Education Department faulted university staff even though they had provided the accuser options to seek counseling and helped her obtain a protective order against the accused student.

Sadly, the only way schools like MSU can keep the government off their backs is by finding more students guilty. At schools all over the nation, this has led to more cases like those of the letter writer's partner.

When people aren't informed of what's really going on at campuses across the country, false accusations are able to flourish. A double standard exists by which accusers are not forced to provide evidence of an attack, but rather accused students must provide incontrovertible proof of their innocence.

Perhaps the attention this student's letter receives will force the school to reopen the case. It likely will not, as the Education Department doesn't appear to want to investigate a school twice on Title IX grounds. MSU remains free to ruin the life of an innocent student to appease activists.

Ashe Schow is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
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http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/01/14/no-cosby-treatment-for-temple-football-star-once-accused-campus-rape.html

No Cosby treatment for Temple football star once accused of campus rape

By Perry Chiaramonte

Published January 14, 2016
FoxNews.com

They both played football for Temple University and got accused of raping women they met on campus, but that’s where the similarities between Praise Martin-Oguike and Bill Cosby end.

Martin-Oguike, a Nigerian-born son of a New Jersey minister, was kicked off the team and out of school in 2012 after a woman accused him of assaulting her in a dorm room. Evidence the encounter was anything but consensual was so lacking that a prosecutor later dropped charges, but Martin-Oguike found that counted for little at the Philadelphia school.

“I was just trying to prove my innocence,” Martin-Oguike, who missed the 2012 and 2013 seasons as be fought to clear his name, told FoxNews.com. “There were times where people were negative, trying to give me different scenarios and how I could be sent to jail for a long time. And being black, the odds were against me."

Martin-Oguike, a 6-foot, 2-inch, 255-pound defensive lineman, rejoined his Owls teammates for the 2014 season, and just completed a 10-3 season that culminated in a bowl game. Some believe Martin-Oguike even has a shot at the NFL, a dream that if realized, would be testament to his tenacity.

“I was just trying to prove my innocence...”

- Praise Martin-Oguike

Temple's handling of Martin-Oguike was in sharp contrast to the way the school has treated Cosby, who ran track and lettered in football in 1961 as a fullback.

Cosby has been charged with sexually assaulting former Temple employee Andrea Constand nearly 12 years ago -- one of about 50 cases in which women from around the nation have accused the 77-year-old comedian of drugging and assauting them.

More than 20 universities -- including The University of Pennsylvania and Yale University -- have rescinded honorary degrees peviously bestowed upon Cosby, but Temple has not. In addition, Cosby remains enshrined in the school's Athletic Hall of Fame.

“Honorary degrees are granted by the university's Board of Trustees," a school spokesman told FoxNews.com. "It would take an action of the board to rescind a degree. As far as I'm aware, the board has not discussed this.”

The two cases are "very different," according to James Funt, the lawyer who helped Martin-Oguike clear his name. One difference is that Cosby had not been a student for more than 40 years when the alleged attack took place. Another is that the entertainer is the school's most famous alumni, a generous donor and former trustee who resigned under pressure in 2014.
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praise1 Expand / Contract

Martin-Oguike fought back to clear his name at the school, and the team is coming off a stellar season.

“He [Cosby] was the poster child for nearly 40 years, so Temple has a lot invested," Funt said. "But I’m surprised they haven’t taken any sort of stance. His case is a lot more insidious than Praise’s.”

Martin-Oguike's nightmare began in May of 2012 when he was arrested after a senior at Temple accused him of raping her inside his dorm room. Martin-Oguike, who grew up in Woodbridge, N.J., and had never been in trouble with the law, claimed the sex was consensual.

But the school moved quickly, revoking his scholarship and expelling him. He missed the 2012 season, moved back home and wondered if the clock had run out on his future. The next season, while his former teammates were laboring toward a brutal 2-10 record, Martin-Oguike was preparing to stand trial and facing prison time.

As jury selection was about to begin in October 2013, the Philadelphia district attorney's office suddenly announced it was dropping charges due to a lack of evidence.

"Upon further investigation, it was determined there wasn't enough evidence to proceed to trial," Tasha Jamerson, a spokeswoman for the district attorney, said at the time.

But the jury was still out on Martin-Oguike's future at Temple. He was forced to plead his case for reinstatement before a board comprised of students and faculty, and his accuser, who was well known on campus, remained adamant that she had been raped.
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December 30, 2015. Actor and comedian Bill Cosby (C) arrives for his arraignment on sexual assault charges at the Montgomery County Courthouse in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania. Expand / Contract

Cosby's reputation is in tatters, but he is still revered at his alma mater. (Reuters)

“The student conduct process is an internal university administrative process that is independent of the criminal process,” a spokesman for Temple University said in a written statement. “The resolution of a criminal matter does not resolve a student conduct matter.”

Martin-Oguike prevailed, and insists he harbors no ill-will toward the school.
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cosbytempleowl Expand / Contract

An undated photo of Bill Cosby when he played fullback for the Temple Owls in the early 1960s. (Temple University)

“They did not know me as a person and they had a process. They were just doing what they had to,” he said.

As he approaches his final season next year, Martin-Oguike said he has heard of potential interest from various NFL teams for the 2017 draft.

“I’d like to go to whoever pays the most,” he joked when asked where he would like to play before giving his real choice.

“I would like to play for the [New York] Jets,” he said. “They are close to home and have a lot of connections to Temple.”

Perry Chiaramonte is a reporter for FoxNews.com. Follow him on Twitter at @perrych
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http://www.thecollegefix.com/post/25867/

Congresswoman may have exposed sexual-harassment victims by outing professor as harasser
College Fix Staff •January 14, 2016

Democratic Rep. Jackie Speier of California became a viral hit this week when she inveighed against sexism in science, particularly the allegedly widespread phenomenon of colleges quietly letting faculty with sexual-harassment reputations move on to new institutions.

In a speech on the House floor, Speier referred to a University of Wyoming astronomy professor whom she implied had been passed along from the University of Arizona without any warning several years ago.

The problem, according to Inside Higher Ed, was that Timothy Slater himself told Wyoming about the Arizona investigation – and that his report was sealed to protect the confidentiality of students:

“It would have been me that brought it up,” Slater said in an interview with Inside Higher Ed after being what he described as blindsided by Speier’s remarks. Slater said he disclosed the allegations against him when he was being vetted by Wyoming in 2008 because, at the time, the 2004 Arizona investigation was known to many in his discipline. And he didn’t want there to be “any surprises” for Wyoming down the line, he said.

Chad R. Baldwin, spokesman for Wyoming, corroborated that account …

Slater said he didn’t have a copy of the report to which Speier was referring, since it was supposed to remain confidential to protect students. He said he wondered how Speier had obtained her copy and whether it was authentic, and that he was worried some of the details she disclosed even in her brief speech — such as that one accuser left his lab — could “out” the witnesses.

Speier also failed to note the context of Slater’s case, he said: a “broader investigation into the climate for women in the astronomy department” that found both wanted and unwanted “sexual innuendo and banter” and a poor job maintaining boundaries.

The congresswoman’s crusade resembles the politically correct Twitter mob that forced a Nobel laureate to resign from his university and harassed a NASA scientist for wearing a shirt with women on it (designed by his female friend as a birthday present).

Though Rep. Speier claimed the Arizona report says Slater admitted to giving someone a “vegetable-shaped vibrator,” he specifically denied ever saying this:

Rather, he said, two people affiliated with the department who lived together exchanged gifts of a pickle-shaped vibrator and chocolate handcuffs at a large holiday party he hosted at his home.

Slater has even blogged about his case:

He said he never spoke with anyone from her office about the report, but that he’d heard in recent months some astronomers were contacting graduate students and others, trying to root out harassers in the field.

“I think there’s quite literally a witch hunt going on in the astronomy community,” Slater said. “They probably see me as a target because I haven’t really been secretive about this.”

And though Speier later released a low-quality, unsearchable redacted version of the Arizona report, the astronomy chair at Arizona “said he hadn’t and couldn’t authenticate the report because it was a private, internal document, and he was only the deputy department head at the time of the investigation.”
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http://reason.com/blog/2016/01/14/law-professors-against-title-ix-faculty


Law Professors Against Title IX: Faculty Worried About Due Process on Campus
Dispatches from the American Association of Law Schools' annual meeting.

Robby Soave|Jan. 14, 2016 9:35 am

AALSRobby Soave / ReasonIt was quite the packed panel discussion: a dozen mostly left-leaning speakers, each allotted 10 minutes to give their thoughts on a controversial topic, Grappling with Campus Rape. The venue was the American Association of Law Schools’ 2016 meeting in New York City in early January. The lineup consisted primarily of actual law professors, and featured some undeniable heavy hitters on the subject of campus rape, including Michelle Anderson, dean of the City University of New York School of Law, and Mary Koss, a Regents’ professor of health at the University of Arizona and the originator of the one-in-five statistic about rape prevalence.

The setup was predictable. The answers, on the other hand, were frequently shocking.

To be fair, many of the panelists expressed at least some enthusiasm for the federal government’s recent efforts to compel universities to adjudicate rape—unsurprising, considering their liberal-leaning politics. But nearly all the speakers had something negative to say about the way anti-harassment guidance is being interpreted by government authorities, and many were openly hostile toward the idea that the prevention of rape was a campus matter. Several others were plainly disturbed by the pitiful state of due process rights on campus.

"'Rights' is a generous description of what these schools gave the accused,” said Tamara Rice Lave, an associate professor of law at the University of Miami, during her brief presentation.

Harvard vs. The Hunting Ground

With college administrators across the country clamping down on the rights of students and teachers under the imperious auspices of federal guidance, pockets of isolated resistance have formed among the faculty. But no group of educators has taken as bold a stand for justice as Harvard Law School professors, whose insistence that an accused student deserved a fair hearing has put them at odds with the activist filmmakers behind the misleading anti-rape documentary The Hunting Ground.

The Hunting Ground producers Amy Ziering and Kirby Dick’s daily verbal assaults on the Harvard law professoriate have grown even more unhinged as of late: in a recent interview with Robert Scheer, Ziering accused the film’s critics of attempting to protect "dominant white male power," even though two of the main objects of the film’s ire—including the accused young man at Harvard—are black men. Further complicating filmmakers' false narrative is the fact that the most visible and active of the incensed Harvard professors are women: Jeannie Suk, Janet Halley, and Elizabeth Bartholet.

Harvard’s stand is not yet rolling back the war on campus due process, but it’s drawing significant publicity to the cause—challenging The Hunting Ground's Oscar chances in the process (Update: Oscar nominations were released moments after this article was published. The Hunting Ground does not appear on the "Best Docuemntary" list, meaning, in a sense, that Harvard prevailed). Which raises the question: what if law professors everywhere did the same?

Of course, it could simply be the case that Harvard’s faculty is an aberration, and most law professors are perfectly willing to march in lockstep with the new understanding of Title IX, the federal regulation widely cited by President Obama’s Education Department as justification for campus-centric judicial proceedings relating to harassment and sexual assault. But that doesn’t seem to be the case, if the mood at AALS’s 2016 meeting is any evidence.

The Tangled Web of Title IX

When it was her turn to speak on the panel, Aya Gruber, a professor of law at the University of Colorado, expressed concern that the laser-focus on campus rape, as opposed to rape in general, was unwarranted by the facts. (Indeed, non-college women are in more danger of experiencing sexual violence than students, according to the data.) She also denounced the idea that encouraging more women to see themselves as victims was in and of itself a positive result of increased Title IX pressure.

"I worry that activists write off non-reporters' perspectives," she said during her presentation. "Should we be contented or concerned when victims file a suit much later after talking to a counselor?"

The panel also included Cynthia Garrett, an attorney and board member of Families Advocating for Campus Equality, a group that offers assistance to students wrongfully accused of sexual assault. Garrett yielded most of her 10 minutes to Joseph Roberts, one such student, who described the pain of being expelled from his university, mere days before his graduation, for a crime he didn’t commit. He waited in vain for a sexual misconduct hearing that his college, Savannah State University in Georgia, never granted him.

Another panelist, University of Kansas Law Professor Corey Rayburn Yung, praised the goals of Title IX advocates but was somewhat doubtful that Title IX itself was actually the best way to achieve the ends activists want. He pointed out that gender-based discrimination and sexual assault were actually quite distinct things, even though OCR’s current interpretation of Title IX lumps them together.

The difference is meaningful. Sexual harassment usually takes place between a supervisor and an underling, whereas assault is peer to peer: i.e., between two students of equal status. Asking universities to adjudicate the latter category of conduct means asking them to play the role of an indifferent third party settling a dispute, he explained. But if universities are supposed to be indifferent third parties in sexual assault disputes, they may not ultimately be liable for the kinds of abuses that happen under their purview.

"Title IX is serving two confusing functions on campus," he said.

Yung was also concerned that the guidance issued by OCR in the form of "dear colleague" letters had no actual legal backing. "Universities are rubber stamping these dear colleague letters without knowing if they actually carry the force of law," he said.

CUNY’s Michelle Anderson struck a less pessimistic note, but only because she was satisfied that the courts "are appropriately correcting overreach by campuses." She remained adamant that it would be a grave moral crime to establish mandatory minimum sentences for students found guilty of sexual misconduct on campus—California Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed such a law last year. "Feminists don’t want [mandatory minimums]," she said.

Even the star of the panel—famed sexual violence statistician Mary Koss—spent much of her time criticizing the science and prevention strategies peddled by mainstream anti-rape activists. Koss, who Reason has interviewed previously, is skeptical of David Lisak’s serial predator theory, which holds that most campus rapists are repeat offenders who must be dealt with in punitive fashion.

"The data is not supportive of serial rape," she said.

According to Koss, the reality of campus sexual misconduct is a sliding scale of infractions ranging from verbal harassment to violent assault. Not all such infractions are best resolved by criminal or campus judiciary proceedings, she said. Koss champions "restorative justice," a process that would allow students who wronged one another to make amends and learn from the experience without necessarily compromising their positions at school. Unfortunately, OCR’s guidance doesn’t leave much room for this—or any other—strategy.

The panel’s only unapologetic defender of Title IX’s current legal landscape was Sejal Singh, a recent graduate of Columbia University who works as an organizer for Know Your IX—the entire purpose of which is to maintain Title IX as it is presently understood.

'Liberty at Stake'

It would be incorrect to say that the panelists were in agreement—their compliments and critiques of Title IX were all over the map. But that’s largely the point: this was not a united body of scholars quietly endorsing the current campus legal regime. This was a raucous group of lawyers and experts clearly passionate about combatting rape but frequently skeptical—in some cases, stridently so—that Title IX was the right tool and that students’ due process rights were being respected.

Given these opinions, and given that Harvard’s law faculty is currently fighting an admirable war against The Hunting Ground, advocates of due process should be rooting for more law professors to join the uprising.

As Lave said during her presentation on the panel, students deserve due process rights because "liberty is at stake."
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Panel admonishes innocence lawyer for ethics violation

Associated Press |

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — An attorney known for her advocacy of the wrongly imprisoned was admonished Thursday by a disciplinary panel for taking a water bottle from someone without their permission and having it tested for DNA.
The North Carolina State Bar could have disbarred Chris Mumma for the ethical violation, but instead chose to admonish her, multiple media outlets reported.

<snip>

tate law describes an admonition as "a written form of discipline imposed in cases in which an attorney has committed a minor violation of the Rules of Professional Conduct." It's the lowest form of discipline that the State Bar levies.

The panel dismissed claims that Mumma was dishonest or deceitful or acted in a prejudicial way, according to the media reports. The panel chairman, Fred Morelock, said the phrase repeated in their deliberations was "crossing the line."

<snip>

Defense attorney Jim Cooney said Thursday that prosecutors were more concerned about public perception than actually freeing Sledge. Authorities spent more time investigating Mumma and the water bottle than investigating Sledge's innocence, he said.

"Ms. Mumma did what we expect an honorable attorney to do," Cooney said in closing arguments. "When she had the evidence that convinced her an injustice had taken place, she took all necessary steps to correct it."


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