| Blog and Media Roundup - Monday, January 29, 2018; News Roundup | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Jan 29 2018, 04:58 AM (90 Views) | |
| abb | Jan 29 2018, 04:58 AM Post #1 |
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https://pjmedia.com/trending/dukes-mens-project-seeks-destabilize-masculine-privilege/ Duke's 'Men's Project' Seeks to 'Destabilize Masculine Privilege' By Tom Knighton January 26, 2018 Every time I hear about a college doing anything regarding masculinity, I cringe. I can't help it. You see, none of them are really interested in actual masculinity. They're trying to attack a strawman version of masculinity, where men supposedly feel driven to attack women rather than protect them. Take, for example, Duke University's "Men's Project." PJ Media contributor Toni Airaksinen notes at Campus Reform: "In a recent call for applications to join the nine-week program, the Duke Men’s Project touted itself as a 'great way for men and masculine-of-center people on campus to engage with issues of gender equity on campus and beyond.'" She added, "Now in its third year, the project has hosted numerous events dedicated to helping men 'begin the work of unlearning violence.' Last semester alone, the project hosted six public events on campus, including one arguing that 'all men' promote rape culture." The group also seeks to "destabilize masculine privilege," and to combat so-called "toxic masculinity." Of course, as someone who has spent a fair bit of time studying masculinity, and even wrote a book on the topic, I'm trying to figure out just what "privilege" they believe men actually have. The privilege to be the gender required to sign up for a draft? Being 3.5 times more likely to kill ourselves than women? Being 11 times more likely to die at work than women? Are those the privileges they're talking about? How about the privilege of knowing that you can be accused of rape or sexual harassment by a female colleague and have your career ruined even though you never did anything? This mythological "privilege" doesn't really exist anywhere in this country beyond the minds of Leftists who think every disparity that has ever existed was an intentional act of bias. Unless the disparity benefits women in some way, in which case it's ignored. Sponsored Feminists never complain about the gender disparity in garbage collection or coal mining. They never complain about too few men in teaching or nursing, either -- where a good argument could be made that male candidates are discriminated against. The Duke Men's Project is nothing more than radical feminism -- a push for gender superiority, not equality. They make their case by pretending that masculinity is something that it's not. Maybe someday, a school will start a men's program that points out the truth about masculinity, not the so-called "toxic" masculinity these sexist feminists ascribe to anyone with a Y chromosome. |
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| abb | Jan 29 2018, 05:02 AM Post #2 |
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https://www.si.com/college-football/2018/01/28/mark-emmert-ncaa-michigan-state-investigation-larry-nassar NCAA's history in Michigan State scandal could thwart punishment Michael McCann 1/28/18 In law, courts occasionally decline to find a defendant at fault not because the defendant “didn’t do it” but rather because the plaintiff—the person who is accusing the defendant of wronging—has “unclean hands.” Sometimes the accuser shares some of the blame for the defendant’s wrongdoing. Other times the accuser has engaged in unethical or unlawful conduct related to the defendant’s wrongdoing. A judge might reason that it would be an injustice to reward this particular accuser. This is true even if the defendant really deserves to be punished. Unclean hands may become an important dynamic in the NCAA’s investigation into Michigan State. The school may have violated NCAA rules in connection to Larry Nassar’s sexual assaults. Should the NCAA seek to punish Michigan State, the school could argue that the NCAA is in no position to evaluate wrongdoing or to assign blame. The NCAA, Michigan State could insist, has unclean hands: it is implicated in the same scandal and thus has an inherent conflict of interest. In fact, the NCAA may possess legal and financial incentives to see that blame is directed away from itself and toward other institutions—such as Michigan State. Arguably, then, the NCAA can’t objectively evaluate allegations against Michigan State. Perhaps the NCAA should even cede its enforcement authority in this particular controversy. Are the hands of Emmert and the NCAA irreversibly stained by events in 2010? The degree to which the NCAA ought to be blamed for the Nassar scandal has become a more prominent topic in the wake of a story published on Friday by The Athletic. Nicole Auerbach authored the story, which detailed a letter sent by Kathy Redmond, the founder of the National Coalition Against Violent Athletes, to NCAA president Mark Emmert in 2010. Among other important points, the letter highlighted that in the previous two years, there had been 37 reports of Michigan State athletes accused of sexual assault. The letter further charged that the school had not taken meaningful disciplinary action against any of these athletes. She was particularly critical of how Michigan State addressed—or failed to address—sexual assault accusations against two basketball players (Keith Appling and Adreian Payne). Redmond wrote the letter after having an in-person meeting with Emmert and Wendy Murphy. Murphy, who collaborated with Redmond on writing the letter to Emmert, is a law professor and attorney who has represented victims of sexual violence. During the meeting, Redmond articulated concerns about student athletes engaging in sexual violence and the lack of institutional controls to prevent such acts. Within those comments, Redmond says, she relayed to Emmert specific concerns about Michigan State President Lou Anna Simon’s ability to handle sexual assault accusations. Murphy also played a crucial role in the meeting, particularly in presenting on data and related analysis. In addition, Murphy would later write a follow up letter to Emmert in which she proposed a gender violence policy. According to Redmond, Emmert assured her that he would make preventing sexual assault a top priority at the NCAA. Redmond had reason to believe Emmert’s assurances were genuine, or at least she had no particular reason to doubt them. Emmert had recently become the NCAA’s president after a successful tenure as president of the University of Washington. He had a clean slate from which to work. It’s unknown whether Emmert agrees with Redmond’s characterization of their meeting eight years ago. Auerbach writes that, as of Friday afternoon, Emmert was “unavailable” for comment. It’s also unknown if Emmert, or an assistant, took notes from that meeting or if the discussion was otherwise memorialized, such as through an email summary. If the NCAA becomes a party to Nassar-related litigation, you can be sure that victims’ attorneys will demand that any notes or other reflections of this meeting be turned over. According to subsequent reporting by the Associated Press’s Ralph Russo, Emmert was at least nominally responsive to Redmond’s concerns. Emmert wrote a letter to Redmond and Murphy about a month after they had met in person. In the letter, which the Associated Press obtained, Emmert enunciated a firm commitment on the part of the NCAA to develop programs that would address sexual violence. The letter, however, did not explicitly mention Michigan State or its officials. Russo has also obtained an email sent by Emmert on Saturday to the NCAA Board of Governors. In it he stresses that Redmond was not in possession of any new information back in 2010. As Emmert depicts it, Redmond merely stressed allegations that were already in the public domain. In other words, Emmert’s characterization attempts to downplay the significance of his meeting with Redmond and implies the meeting was hardly revealing (though the meeting was memorable enough for Emmert to describe it in an email to the NCAA board more than seven years after the meeting occurred). It should be noted that there is no record of Redmond mentioning Nassar in her conversations with Emmert. Her comments instead focused on structural problems in preventing on-campus sexual assault, including at Michigan State. It’s not surprising that Nassar’s misconduct wouldn’t have come up in a 2010 discussion. Although victims of Nassar say they complained to Michigan State trainers and coaches about Nassar as far back as 1998—only a year after Nassar had joined the school’s faculty—it would not be until 2014 until Nassar became a focal point of university investigation. Relationship between Nassar, his victims and the Emmert’s response to Katherine Redmond While Emmert might not have learned about Nassar until years after his meeting with Redmond and Murphy, it’s possible that more rigorous NCAA scrutiny of the Michigan State athletic department in 2010 would have stopped Nassar much earlier than in our timeline and thus spared some of his victims. The university’s lack of oversight of Nassar was a critical problem: it supplied Nassar with the conditions in which he could grotesquely assault scores of young women, including student athletes at Michigan State. If in 2010 or 2011 the Michigan State athletic department had been pressured to develop new guidelines for investigating sexual assault, along with more deterring corrective actions and tougher sanctions, Nassar’s misconduct might have been detected a lot sooner. If so, Michigan State would have fired him long before 2016. In that alternative history, many young women would have avoided interacting with Nassar and they would have never been molested. State differently, the NCAA didn’t need to know about Nassar in 2010 to have made a difference in how Nassar acted: if the NCAA had responded more aggressively to sexual assault allegations against Michigan State athletes back in 2010, the consequences of that response could have made it more likely that Nassar got caught or at least made it harder for him to inflict his abuse. But Michigan State faced no external pressure to reform its practices. In fact, the NCAA did not formally launch an investigation into Michigan State until Jan. 23, 2018—more than seven years after Emmert met with Redmond. Impact of the Redmond letter on the NCAA investigation’s into Michigan State The NCAA’s investigation into Michigan State’s handling of Nassar will take months, if not longer, to play out. The NCAA has already warned Michigan State of its contractual obligations under article 2.2 of the NCAA constitution and bylaw 20.9.1.6. Both of those rules concern an athletic department’s duty to protect student-athletes. In its investigation, the NCAA will want to know what steps and procedures Michigan State had put in place related to Nassar’s interaction with student athletes. The investigation will likely be aided by federal and state lawsuits brought by Nassar’s victims against Michigan State and USA Gymnastics. These lawsuits (which I describe more fully here) could compel Michigan State to turn over sensitive records and force its current and former officials to testify under oath. Eventually, the NCAA could find Michigan State to have violated NCAA rules. In that scenario, the NCAA could punish the school, perhaps by imposing an eight-figure fine (the NCAA fined Penn State $60 million for its handling of Jerry Sandusky) and by implementing a forfeiture of athletic scholarships. Some have called for the NCAA to impose the so-called “death penalty”—shutting down the Michigan State gymnastics program or even the entire Michigan State athletic department for a year or two. But the Redmond letter could complicate the NCAA’s investigatory efforts. For starters, Nassar’s victims who are already suing Michigan State and USA Gymnastics might seek to add the NCAA as a co-defendant. The victims could cite article 2.2 of the NCAA’s constitution—the same article that the NCAA has warned Michigan State about. The article makes clear that “intercollegiate athletics programs shall be conducted in a manner designed to protect and enhance the physical and educational well-being of student-athletes.” It would seem this language ought to bind the NCAA as much as it binds the schools the NCAA oversees. It certainly wouldn’t be a stretch for lawyers representing the victims to raise this type of argument. If the NCAA becomes a co-defendant, it would be awkward, at a minimum, for the NCAA to investigate a fellow co-defendant, whose interests are not all aligned with the NCAA. Michigan State and the NCAA could seek to blame the other, along with USA Gymnastics, for any institutional liability for Nassar’s crimes. Under these circumstances, it’s hard to imagine how the NCAA could credibly conduct an investigation into Michigan State. A court might be asked to review such a topic. Even if the NCAA is not formally brought into the Nassar victim litigation as a party, the litigation could reveal records that involve correspondences between Michigan State and NCAA officials. Those records could suggest that Michigan State was not adequately deterred by the NCAA in its handling of Nassar and other on-campus sexual assault cases. NCAA officials might also be subpoenaed in the litigation and forced to testify. In other words, the NCAA can’t really separate itself—or its fiduciary and legal interests—from the Nassar controversy. Further, if the NCAA punishes Michigan State in a way that the university contends is unfair, the school could explore the viability of suing the NCAA. Michigan State might assert that the NCAA, given its controversial response to concerns about sexual assault cases at Michigan State, was too conflicted to fairly review the school. To be sure, it is very difficult for a member (here Michigan State) of a voluntary association (NCAA) to sue the association over how it administers internal rules. Normally the plaintiff in such a case must show the association acted in an arbitrary and capricious manner. It would be a very tall but perhaps not impossible task for Michigan State. In addition to Michigan State, persons who are sympathetic to the school and who arguably have legal standing could sue the NCAA. Following the NCAA’s punishment of Penn State, Penn. Governor Tom Corbett, Penn. State Sen. Jake Corman and Penn. Treasurer Rob McCord filed lawsuits against the NCAA (and in one of those lawsuits, Penn State, which signed a consent decree with the NCAA, was also a defendant). Given this potentially tangled web, the NCAA might defer to other institutions to do the bulk of the Michigan State investigation. Michigan State has asked the Michigan State Attorney General’s Office to conduct a thorough investigation. Perhaps the NCAA will rely on that investigation more so than its own. It might be wise to do so. Michael McCann is SI’s legal analyst. He is also an attorney and the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the University of New Hampshire School of Law, and co-author with Ed O'Bannon of the forthcoming book Court Justice: The Inside Story of My Battle Against the NCAA. |
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| abb | Jan 29 2018, 05:03 AM Post #3 |
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https://www.chronicle.com/article/At-Michigan-State-a-Shaken/242368 At Michigan State, a Shaken Campus Struggles Through Its Shame By Sarah Brown 1/28/18 On Thursday, copies of Michigan State University’s campus newspaper sat in a stack atop the desk of Lorenzo Santavicca, the student-body president. He grabbed one and held it up. A teal banner under the nameplate read, in all caps: “Can you hear them now?” Printed underneath the banner were 156 names — all women and girls who had bravely read statements over the previous week about the horrific sexual abuse they endured at the hands of Larry Nassar. Their stories shook the world. Even more profoundly, their stories shook the campus. For many students, professors, and administrators here, the events of the past two weeks have unleashed a flood of emotion. There’s anger that Nassar, formerly an associate professor of osteopathic medicine, renowned sports doctor, and team physician, got away with abusing girls and young women for so long. There’s sadness that so many people, some of them Michigan State students, were violated by someone they trusted. There’s shame that the university, by failing to stop the abuse earlier, may have had something to do with it. “It borders on betrayal, when the feeling is that deep. We loved you, we lifted you up. You let us down.” At one point last week, there was triumph: the moment when Nassar was sentenced to between 40 and 175 years in prison for his crimes. Students and others across the campus were huddled around televisions in residence halls and academic buildings. When the announcement came, they cheered. Hours later, Lou Anna K. Simon stepped down as the university's president, in the face of sharp criticism of her public response to the scandal. But Simon's resignation may be only the tip of the iceberg. In the days since, damaging headlines have persisted. An investigative report by ESPN suggested that the problem of not taking sexual assault seriously runs deeper than Nassar, into the university’s football and basketball programs. Ask people here what needs to happen next, and you’ll hear similar themes: Transparency throughout the forthcoming investigations, by the National Collegiate Athletic Association, the Michigan attorney general’s office, and the federal government. More education to prevent sexual assault. A concerted effort to make it right with Nassar’s victims — and to listen to them. A president, appointed from the outside, who will take ownership of what happened. Even with widespread changes, the university may still suffer stiff penalties, and the scandal threatens to leave a long-term stain. Though many were adamant that new leadership was needed, they acknowledge that Simon’s departure won’t eliminate that dishonor. The burden of dealing with the aftermath, and of enacting the cultural change that many say is necessary, will fall to those who remain on campus. The weight of that burden has already complicated another emotion: Spartan pride, the loyalty people here in East Lansing feel to Michigan State. As one professor put it, “It borders on betrayal, when the feeling is that deep. We loved you, we lifted you up. You let us down.” ‘There Are Just No Words’ It saddened Sue Carter to take a public stand against Simon. Carter, a professor of journalism, has known Simon for decades. “I've invested a lot of my life in in this institution. To see its reputation sullied was heartbreaking.” Carter has also been faculty athletic representative and chair of the Athletic Council, an advisory body to Michigan State’s athletic director and president, for nearly four years. Last Monday, she issued a statement on behalf of herself and several other members of the council, saying that the institutional response to Nassar’s victims throughout the hearing hadn’t been compassionate enough. Then Carter got an email from the president’s office. Simon wanted to talk with her. During that conversation, “her position continued to be a very legalistic one — one defending what the university had done, the choices she had made,” Carter said. “I lost all hope that she understood, in a full and compassionate way, that this university was complicit in rendering such harm.” She resigned as faculty athletic representative on Wednesday. “I’ve invested a lot of my life in in this institution,” she said. “To see its reputation sullied was heartbreaking — when it didn’t need to happen.” Jason Cody, a spokesman for Michigan State, declined to make Simon or senior administrators available for interviews. Deborah Moriarty, a professor of piano and vice chair of the Faculty Senate, didn’t think it made sense for Simon to step aside at this point. She also thought it unwise to make decisions on an emotional basis. “It seemed to me it would be much more logical to keep the same group of people and find out what happened, and then deal with it,” she said. Many on campus felt that the university couldn’t start moving forward from the Nassar case until Simon was gone. But since she’s stepped down, Moriarty said, “I haven’t honestly seen that. I’ve seen: The president resigned, and we have a lot of uncertainty and chaos.” Others have wanted Simon to leave for weeks, if not months. Anna Pegler-Gordon, an associate professor of social relations and policy, said many of her colleagues reached a breaking point a week and a half ago, the same day that the university’s trustees affirmed their support for Simon after a five-hour, closed-door meeting. In what turned out to be a coincidence, she and many of her colleagues were going through sexual-assault-prevention training that day. The training, run by the Office of Institutional Equity, was focused largely on how to report sexual violence and harassment. But how, some professors asked, can we change the culture to stop these assaults from happening? The frustration among the faculty was palpable, Pegler-Gordon said. They wanted to take a stand. So she and a colleague, Andaluna Borcila, called for a no-confidence vote in the president. Simon resigned before a vote was taken. Faculty leaders had heard the student government speak out about the Nassar case — and they wanted to say something. They sat down and tried to draft a statement. It proved impossible. “You say, ‘I’m sorry.’ But how can you begin to know what the survivors feel? It’s all so trite,” said Laura R. McCabe, chair of the Faculty Senate and a professor of physiology and radiology. Her voice broke. “There are just no words.” “‘Sorry’ just doesn’t cut it,” Moriarty said. Santavicca, the student-body president, was among those who had mixed feelings about calling for a change in leadership. He’s spent close to two years in his role. “I’m going to miss working with her,” he said of Simon. “She cared, and I think she still does.” “Unfortunately,” he said, “that just didn’t come across.” He and other student leaders ultimately decided that Simon had lost their trust. Many on campus have also lost trust in the Board of Trustees, most of whom stood behind Simon until Wednesday. Its vice chair, Joel I. Ferguson, provoked outrage when he dismissed the scandal as “just this Nassar thing” during a radio interview on Tuesday. Each trustee made a personal statement apologizing to Nassar’s victims. Several were overcome with emotion. But that hasn’t stemmed the flow of calls for the trustees, especially Ferguson, to follow Simon out the door. 'This Overshadows Everything' For some here on campus, the constant replaying of the victims’ testimony has felt especially personal. Ewurama Appiagyei-Dankah, a senior, said that she was sexually assaulted when she was studying abroad in Spain a couple of years ago — and that the past two weeks have felt painful at times for her. But she’s quick to stress that her experience pales in comparison to that of Nassar’s victims: “Thinking about the fact that there are women who were abused by him who are in our student body right now — I can’t even wrap my brain around what they’ve been going through.” The university is a sprawling, decentralized campus, and it can be tough to bring the community together. Carter, the journalism professor, said her colleagues in the College of Communication Arts and Sciences are considering how they might “establish a forum for talking” and “giving the voiceless an opportunity to speak.” That will be an important part of charting a path forward for the institution. So will openly acknowledging what has happened, said Borcila, an associate professor, and doing some self-reflection. Then Michigan State will have to turn to the reputational damage the Nassar case has caused. “I was talking to my students, and they said, ‘Now we’re known for this shameful reality. This is who we’ve become — this is the main representation of who we are,’” Borcila said. “How do we deal with that?” “I think this tragedy and this ineffectiveness and this shameful way our institution responded to it has to make us reconsider how we define ourselves,” she added. “This tragedy and this ineffectiveness and this shameful way our institution responded to it has to make us reconsider how we define ourselves.” It remains to be seen what the Nassar storm will mean for enrollment, for fund raising, for recruitment of star scholars. Student leaders say they worry that prospective students might not think the campus is safe for them. On Friday, one female student said this while speaking to her mother on the phone: “No, Mom, I’m not transferring.” There’s also the question of how Simon, one of the longest-tenured public-university presidents in recent memory, will be remembered. She’s often been compared to John A. Hannah, a Michigan State icon who served as president from 1941 to 1969. Some have even called her the best president the university has ever had. Ferguson, the trustee, said so on Tuesday. Hannah’s legacy is tangible. The four-story administration building in the heart of the campus is named for him. Just outside the entrance, there’s a towering statue of him in stride. In terms of the Simon era, you can’t miss the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum, for which the ex-president secured donations. It’s an eye-catching stainless steel and glass building on the northern edge of campus, across the street from the main strip of college bars and restaurants. Simon’s advocacy also helped win a major scientific research facility — the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams, known around campus as “FRIB” — a decade ago. Few doubt that Simon’s prowess has put Michigan State on the map. That doesn’t matter to Pegler-Gordon: “This overshadows everything.” Some hope people will eventually remember what Simon has done for the university. Those who know her well say they’re sad to see her go like this. “She was, I think, in some ways cheated of a farewell that she deserved in terms of what she built up here at Michigan State,” Santavicca said. At the same time, he said, “we didn’t have a leader when we needed it.” For many students, there’s no question of what Simon’s legacy will be. On Friday, hundreds of them marched through the campus and to the administration building as part of a rally for sexual-assault victims at Michigan State. They chanted, “Time’s up, MSU!” in reference to the campaign for change that has grown out of the #MeToo movement against sexual harassment. They called out Simon and Ferguson by name. Their signs made plain their disgust: “Nassar enablers: We’re coming for you.” “Administrative silence is violence.” “They didn’t care until we knew.” Sarah Brown writes about a range of higher-education topics, including sexual assault, race on campus, and Greek life. Follow her on Twitter @Brown_e_Points, or email her at sarah.brown@chronicle.com. |
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9:14 AM Jul 11