TheLeviathan
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Everything posted by TheLeviathan
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All of the examples you mentioned run through a court, a judge, or some other authorized official under our judicial system before someone is stripped of them or action is enforced against them. Not just some panel of individuals with various qualifications. I think you're very mistaken viewing this as only a risk to the accused. It's certainly that and, as you said, I seriously question it will have enough positive effect to even warrant that risk. But it's the larger risk I'm worried about. It's how comfortable we are re-routing how we deal with crime to small, non-judicial tribunals. That threatens the very nature of justice and threatens to erode the important principles we built our system on. It suggests we've given up getting that system right and now we're taking matters into our own hands. I'm not comfortable with that at all. And I think, given some of the rhetoric you and others are using here, that that's precisely what we're doing. You might think the ends justify the means, I think that's rarely the case. Especially with something as important as our notion of justice.
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I understand the appeal of that, given the deficits of the criminal justice system. But what you are compromising in the process is too foundational and important to me.
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Your first paragraph makes the colleges sound like Batman. And that's sort of my point. (Even as a total nerd for Batman)
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Then we should address the "unprosecuted" part, not setup some quasi court.
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All of that is true. It doesn't change my stance though. I think any suspected assault should be handled through the police and courts as a crime. An accounting firm doesn't hold their own trial for embezzlement, they bring in law enforcement when there is a crime.
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For a criminal matter, the accuser should go through criminal court for justice. That's precisely my point. We've created some sort of quasi-court because the real one doesn't work the way we want it to. So, again to remain analogous, the family of my murder victim declines to press charges but instead goes to my employer and asks them to hold a tribunal so I get fired. A group of managers gets together, holds investigations, declares me a murderer, and fires me. This is apparently what you want. If you have a problem with the way criminal court handles sexual assault (strictly the issue I'm not comfortable with) - you should either be reforming the criminal court or encouraging civil lawsuits. Getting justice through a college tribunal is an absolutely terrible idea for a whole host of reasons I've already laid out. (And many more that I haven't, like for example, how disproportionately screwed over black males will be by this)
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No, they're making a decision about a criminal act through a non-criminal proceeding. And so far you've said they need to do that because the criminal proceeding isn't pursued or failed. That's like you being charged with murder, you are declared innocent in a court of law, and then a group of bureacrats in your office hold a two month investigation, declare you a murderer, and fire you. Tell me that doesn't sound preposterous.
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Or maybe colleges have become such a useless institution on every level that we should just shut them down. I'm kind of partial to that. Start over.
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No, because you deemed the system unable to handle the problem even after that. Look, my employer doesn't need a policy about murder because the criminal justice system handles it. Colleges shouldn't need a "sexual assault" policy because they let the criminal justice system handle it. If, as you contended, the criminal justice system can't - then that is the source of the problem. That's what should be addressed. Individual institutions should not be enforcing criminal law through tribunals. They should address policy matters like harassment or poor conduct and turn criminal matters over to that system. That's why we have it.
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Appears to be not enough then if it's still a problem.
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I would argue the problem then is the "difficulties for authorities" and not a need for a second murder policy at your work. You're addressing hte wrong problem.
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My employer makes policies about sexual harassment but not murder. Are you suggesting they should?
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I don't disagree, I suggested some sort of combat against drinking might help, but I largely think the drinking and assaults would just move locales and not so much stop the behavior. Again I think more of a cultural/messaging tact is in order. I really like the "yes means yes" as a vehicle for education and messaging. Not so much as a vehicle for deciding sexual assault on a campus tribunal.
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You don't think there is a difference between sexual assault and having a dry policy? Perhaps we've arrived at the crux of the disagreement.
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Crimes are supposed to be difficult to prove. It's what our system is based on and I find that absolutely essential. The "how" part is where we can do some good though, I agree there. We can do more about how prosecutors, police officers, and judges treat the process. On this issue - If the school had punished them for lewd behavior and sexual harassment - I'm 100% on board. Leveling it up to sexual assault is where you lose me. This isn't the process to make that determination.
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Just to be clear, I'm not opposed to the U punishing these guys. I'm opposed to the process and that the process is being applied to something as serious as sexual assault. And part of my issues is that I would argue that they are "addressing the gray areas". A college tribunal is simply not the place to do that. I'm ok with sexual harassment being determined in this way, but not sexual assault. To me that's a criminal matter and should only be determined through the courts where the process protects all involved. (Though, I'd grant, there is definitely room for our judicial system to offer more to victims/accusers than is currently there)
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We'd "solve" a lot of societal issues by banning booze. It just also comes with a host of issues which makes it a bad recommendation. However, a dry campus and dry frat/sorority houses might go a long, long way. I think this is a good watch, even if I disagree with elements of it, it's a good debate.
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Then shouldn't we fix the criminal justice system? Shouldn't that be the focus instead of setting up some side-tribunal system? I mean, I encounter child abuse as a crime most of all in my work. I think those people are monsters. But if we suddenly decided a tribunal of teachers were allowed to determine their guilt and punish them in some way, I'd fight that tooth and nail. Not because I support child abusers, but because I support our fundamental concept of justice. And supporting those foundations is important for all people, even those we despise.
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No, I did not. In the thread about school massacres I argued the same thing: most of the proposed legislation would have little or no effect. Pass it if you want, but it will do nothing. Go look up the thread. I said there that the real battle is a cultural one. I suggested I'd like to see a limit on the number of firearms someone owns, but I have no delusions about being able to accomplish that. I was making a philosophical argument, not a practical one. Practically speaking, we can do almost nothing with the law on guns because of the lobby. The cultural battle, as I argued in the school shooting thread (like cigarretes) is the way to go.
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C'mon Mike. I don't argue against any action, I argue against bad action. We've had two people defending this - one by saying we need to sacrifice justice for safety and another saying we need to form an alternate, non-criminal way to punish people. Both are TERRIBLE justifications and exactly my opposition to this. Arguing "not this!" is not the same as "nothing!" My answers are always the harder ones, not the easy ones. Not the quick ones. But they're meant to actually work - not just screw one group of people over for another so we can feel like "Yeah! We did something! And it was quick!" The idea that a problem like this could have a quick easy fix is part of the mistake. It's going to take time, effort, and some fundamental changes. Here are a couple links I endorse.
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I would suggest any time you are decided to have sexual assaulted another person to be a serious penalty. Abandoning the justice system in favor of "punishing" crime through some other means is a horrible idea. Didn't take long for that slippery slope to go off the rails here.
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Is it the DUI laws or other measures being taken? Or improved safety of cars? Or awareness campaigns? Or, perhaps, your point may not be valid at all? You looked at a correlation and deduced causation and it appears to be far from that simple. In fact, it looks a lot like gun data - a complete scattershot with little in the way of a pattern. This section should be of particular note to you:
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In THIS situation - the accused. In the larger context of sexual assault - the victims. This need not be an either/or. The notion we have to remove due process and basic principles of justice to help victims of abuse absolutely scares me. As if it's this or say "whelp, nothing we can do for you victims, sorry!" is so ridiculous. And that we'd use that false dilemma as leverage to do whatever we deem a good solution scares me even more. Some things should not be on the table to help solve this issue. Our basic sense of justice and law should be among them.
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Sacrificing justice for safety is the first step to having neither.
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We can all talk about how wrong it is without creating a system that has, many times now, basically resulted in: if you're accused, you're gone. And, again, this isn't the kind of accusation that just goes away. There are few crimes as serious to be found guilty of. So while you may not be talking directly about injustice for the accused, you are supporting a method of intervention on this issue that is working out that way in practice. Frankly, I care a lot more about how it works in practice than what you want it to work like. If in practice it's no longer a fair process, that's all I care about. It should be a fair process for both parties. And I wasn't suggesting a conspiracy, I was suggesting that money has a way of making things less about what is right and just and more about what is most lucrative. All we've done is shift the focus for schools to be about over-punishing the accused rather than covering things up. That isn't justice. Turning their investigative outcomes into a financial incentive pretty much guarantees the process is rigged. Just as it was rigged before.
