Actually, once a student has been admitted, they actually do have a “right” to continuing their education. Taking it away without due process - aka actual proof, not just hot air - is considered a seizure of property by the State. (one of the due process clauses in the bill of rights covers it)
Note, this is for State universities, but for private, it’s violation of contract. Either way, in general, there is supposed to be some level of evidence presented. For example, in a recent news story, a certain student accused a fraternity of a gang rape, yet in the witness’s account, details about the construction of the frat house (“I went down the back stairs”) and about the night in question (“the frat boys were not even present that night”) were incorrect. If a committee found the accused students guilty anyway, despite these obvious factual holes in the accusation, that would be a violation of due process.
There are, I’m just not a lawyer. The part not supported by court ruling is that courts often accept obviously biased committee hearings as “due process”.
THis is an op-ed piece in the NY Times, but it has some factual information. The Times had another article in the news section about this but I can’t find it right now. Here’s an excerpt.
Violent crimes on campus need to be investigated by law enforcement professional and charges resolved in proper courts. Campus police and college tribunals do not qualify.
Since sexual assault in particular seems to be such a problem at colleges/universities, a solution would be for all of them to pay proportionately to allow the hiring of sufficient sex crimes investigators by the state. Then, instead of Joe Bob the small-town police officer or a similarly lightly-trained campus cop, you’d have professional detectives handling these cases. Given sufficient evidence, the perpetrators would be charged and tried by and before other professionals, not college committees containing students and faculty who are unqualified to hear these cases and dispense justice, and who likely have a variety of agendas favoring either the alleged perpetrator or victim based on such things as race, legacy status and the desire to not piss off the government and keep federal funds flowing.
This solution would save colleges/universities hassle and money in the long run. Otherwise they face very expensive lawsuit judgments when they screw things up.
It’s not just that law enforcement need more resources, or that they’re simply bad about prosecuting rapes (although that is sometimes true.) It’s that in very many cases-- possibly even most cases-- the sorts of acquaintance rapes colleges are dealing with are literally impossible to prove to the satisfaction of the criminal justice system. Physical evidence can’t really conclusively distinguish consensual and non-consensual sex and there obviously usually aren’t witnesses. It really is a unique situation in terms of how serious society considers the crime and yet how easy it is to get away with.
That creates a difficult conundrum for society in general, but for the universities it’s even worse because they have a duty to create a safe environment. If there’s a 51-99% chance that someone is a rapist, it would be negligent for the university not to take some sort of action. From their point of view, it’s better that the occasional innocent gets expelled than that probable rapists are routinely allowed to remain on campus. I think that’s not an unreasonable position given that the evidence suggests unprosecuted rapes are vastly, vastly more common than false accusations. I think most people would also agree that getting unjustly expelled would suck, but definitely not as much as getting raped because the university felt it would be unfair to expel someone they couldn’t quite say 100% was guilty of an earlier rape.
This is a ridiculous situation. The colleges should tell students to report crimes to the police and take no action at all until that is done. Once the crime has been reported their actions have to follow the actions of the justice system. Without a trial the only action a school should take is to separate the parties on campus without regard to anyone’s opinion of guilt or innocence. In addition they should not tolerate students arguing their cases publicly in school. College students should be treated like adults, even if they happen to be minors, they shouldn’t be at college if they can’t conduct themselves as adults would in the real world. Further, college officials who interfere with the justice system by conducting their own investigations, taking sides, or dissuading an alleged victim from reporting a crime should be prosecuted for obstruction of justice.
This issue is guaranteed to become even more of a mess. Eventually, the more Machiavellian men are going to start using false sexual assault accusations as a weapon against women. Mixed in with that will be some true accusations from men who really were sexually assaulted by women (since it does happen sometimes). It will not be possible to reliably distinguish these two cases.
GreasyJack hit the nail on the head. We have an extremely serious form of crime that, in most cases, does not leave objectively verifiable evidence. No system of “justice” will ever be able to gain people’s confidence when it comes to this form of crime.
I have always wondered this. It seems like we’re forever reading about some (alleged) on-campus sexual assault and then there’s this whole element of the school being responsible / not doing enough about it. WTF? Someone assaults me, sexually or otherwise, I’m calling the police. You want to receive justice like an adult citizen, don’t complain to the recess monitor.
The school is required to be involved because of the aforementioned Title IX requirements. It’s up to the victim to report to the police as well. I don’t think the school can bring in the police because of privacy issues. The student has to make that decision on their own.
The school at a minimum should advise the students of all avenues available to them.
It’s easy to say that when it hasn’t happened to you. But if you’ve been subjected to a deeply humiliating attack, by someone who is part of your community (and therefore might have the sympathy of your peers), and you don’t have any serious physical injuries, and you don’t have any objective proof, it will probably seem easier to just try and put it behind you and do nothing.
I just asked my ex-girlfriend which effected her more long term, as she was both raped in university and expelled. She didn’t even hesitate to say that losing her chance to get an education hurt her far more in the long term than the rape did.
While I can understand this point of view (and if I were in this same situation I might possibly do the same), I don’t understand reporting it to the college but not reporting it to the police.
And you see the articles about how the college only did a slap on the wrist–and the authors of the articles are quite indignant about this–yet the victims never bothered to report the crimes to the police.
For one, colleges provide certain services- STD and pregnancy testing, post-exposure prophylaxis, counseling, arrangements for changes in living arrangements or class schedules, etc. Reporting a rape can help you get what you need to deal with the recovery, and the university is a system that a student already knows and presumably trusts. Reporting to the police is a whole different can of worms, and the criminal justice system isn’t pleasant for anyone, even the victims. If it’s not likely to come to any benefit, why get mixed up in it?
Secondly, reporting to a university and undergoing a university investigation is something a student can do on their own. Their parents won’t need to find out. Their friends at home won’t know. A criminal trial, however, is a lot more disruptive and a lot more intrusive in your life. Chances are you won’t be able to deal with something like that quietly.
I disagree. There is one solution, and I think we may be headed that way. People already film so much of their life. Filming sexy time has caught on. Having cops film everything they do so we can trust them has caught on.
People are becoming more and more comfortable being on camera that I suspect it will be common to just record entire events. Cameras get smaller and will be wearable.
On one hand, that means revenge porn will be much easier. But, on the other, it means that there will be recorded evidence for stuff like this.
Now, maybe I’m wrong, and no one is interested in going this route. But it is an option.