My apologies if it seemed I was being overly confrontational; I wasn’t trying to pick on you.
I was trying to point out that you have the timeline wrong and thus have affixed blame for who “started it” incorrectly. As that seemed to be the entire premise that your assignation of fault rested on, I felt it necessary to point out that you had the details jumbled up, including that Mr. Mixon has maintained all along that Miss Molitor was rude and confrontational outside, taunting him and his friends and blowing smoke in his face.
I confess I was curious to see if that would cause you to re-assess your opinion of the matter.
If someone slaps you, punching them is a proportional response. Controlling how hard you punch in a moment when your adrenaline is pumping is not something most people can do. If that’s your issue, then it’s a bad one.
If your issue is to say that you have a duty to flee rather than fight, then I can get behind you. But this holds no matter how big this guy is.
If your issue is that men should never hit women, then I will simply point out that this attitude is why female-on-male domestic abuse is a problem.
Mixon should not be the only one in trouble here. Molitor definitely started the fight and should be found culpable and fined. However the response was extreme and not appropriate to the threat by any definition.
At the very least, he should have been expelled… and would have if he were not a 5 star recruit.
If Mixon had shoved her REALLY hard so as to also knock her down and then also walked away as he did in the video, would he be in ANY trouble, would this be an issue at all?
Given that Molitor did in fact (from video) appear to start the fight, shove and slap first, I believe a hard shove… even one that put her on her ass and dazed her would be boderline appropriate and she would have no recourse (IMO).
My problem with expulsion is that the incident occurred off campus and I don’t really think that the university should be involved in disciplining off-campus behavior. If 2 frat boys get into it in a bar, that sounds like an issue for the local police and no one else IMHO.
Please accept that I’m not disagreeing with either of you, but Student Codes of Conduct have been around for a long time and AFAIK, they have long been applied to behaviour and actions that occurred off campus and possibly had nothing at all to do with the school. Perhaps the most famous case was Morse v. Frederick, popularly known as ‘Bong Hits 4 Jesus’.
The way I see it, it’s like when a woman gets sexually assaulted.
I guess, from a purely tactical standpoint, it’s okay to tell her she shouldn’t dress like that, or drink so much, because it could increase the odds that a damned criminal will attack her – but it should be stressed that she has every right to dress that way and drink that much: that it in no way justifies what her assailant did; that the scum should be punished regardless of what his victim wore or drank.
That she’s under no obligation to “keep the moral high ground”, or to keep foremost in her thoughts how much she has to lose, or to stay out of the sewer – because it’s the assailant, the criminal, who’s the one at fault; and the attacker’s blame shouldn’t be reduced one iota because of his victim’s legal behavior of choice.
I’m still trying to get over the “It was OK for her to shove and slap him” argument. FTR and forgetting about Mixon’s punishment, is there anyone in this thread that does NOT believe that Molitor should have been charged with assault?
DKW wrote that the guy who got assaulted “was under no obligation to dive into the sewer”. That the guy who got assaulted “cannot allow himself to be goaded”. “He needs to have a thicker skin than that,” you see, sure as there were a number of things he could’ve done that “would’ve allowed him to keep the moral high ground.”
I believe, in general, that when someone gets assaulted, we should routinely pair any advice to the victim with a quick reminder that the scum who actually committed assault should of course face criminal charges, adding that the victim had every right to engage in legal behavior and the assailant should be punished accordingly.
I’d say that if a man sexually assaulted a woman and somebody lectured the victim on her behavior. I’m saying it now because a woman assaulted a man and somebody lectured the victim on his behavior.
I think if you had left it at this it would have read better. Basically if a person is committing a crime, the victim should not be judged on their morality - especially by people with an agenda. Mixon may or may not have committed a crime and was charged. Molitor DID commit a crime and wasn’t charged. That is the debate not should Mixon had turned the other cheek (and probably had it slapped again).
Sorry, but if women are to be equal in this society, they are going to have to give up the notion that a woman may slap or otherwise beat on a man with impunity. If you hit anyone, man or woman, expect to be hit back.
I was in a relationship once that was abusive, where I was the one being constantly attacked by a woman. Being raised that you “don’t hit women” I didn’t retaliate. I did restrain her repeatedly, or otherwise try to de-escalate the situation each time. But these were pretty rough, I mean she threw a shoe in my face from a foot away, pushed me backwards over a couch and hurt my back so bad I couldn’t walk right for at least a day, and in the worst case threw a big phone book and hit my neck (I was lucky that one wasn’t serious). At other times she would just hit and/or claw at me. To this day I have a scar on my nose from her. She had no self-control.
Eventually one day she came at me from behind and I snapped and popped her once, and gave her a black eye. It was a defensive reflex and I regretted it immediately and have every day since. Clearly the result wasn’t as damaging as in this case but it could have been.
So I can relate with this guy. I was about the same age as him too (actually one year older). It’s not okay and I still can’t justify what I did but at the same time it doesn’t make me a monster. Instead I learned not to tolerate any violence in a relationship, period. I was in two relationships after where I was struck by something out of anger and each time I told that person that if it happened again just once we were through, and each time that was enough.
Young people do dumb things in the heat of the moment and if they are wise they learn. Hopefully this kid will too. If he does well and goes pro the NFL won’t put up with something like this either, and depending on the circumstances neither will the law. Especially with this incident already on his record.
It wasn’t necessary, seeing someone I loved hurt by my hand really bothered me and stuck with me, and it also damaged my friendship with mutual friends.
Also I was trained in martial arts and should have been better than that. That’s probably part of the reason for the reflex too.
All that said, my then-girlfriend was far from blameless. I won’t say she “deserved it”. But I guarantee I wouldn’t have done it if I wasn’t on edge around her all the time.
What I should have done was left the relationship much earlier once things got violent, but I had no self-esteem and hadn’t learned not to put up with it yet. I shouldn’t have let it go on so long.
Logically I know that defending myself was reasonable but emotionally it’s still not something I can get over.
I’m betting that Mixon hadn’t meant to hurt her as bad as he did, because really it wasn’t his blow that did the damage but how she fell after being hit. And it happened after he once tried to leave and she hit him, and he did leave immediately after hitting her (which to me looked like he just wanted the conflict to be over). I’m sure he felt awful about that even if he doesn’t have remorse about defending himself.
I don’t think that men should never hit women under any circumstance, that’s sexist BS any way you look at it. But let’s take gender out of the equation in my situation; let’s say this was a close male friend who sometimes got argumentative and violent despite being weaker than me, and one day I punched him when he came at me from behind during an argument and I gave him a black eye. Would I feel awful for that? I’m sure I would still. It’s about reflexively doing harm when it’s not your nature to do that.
