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Crying Rape
Townhall.com ^ | May 30, 2011 | Mike Adams

Posted on 05/29/2011 9:07:47 PM PDT by Kaslin

People often assume that self-described liberals are more supportive of due process than self-described conservatives. That certainly isn’t the case when we talk about the illiberal bureaucrats who run the United States Department of Education.

The notion that an adult charged with a felony should be put on trial using the same standard of evidence used for someone who has been issued a parking ticket is absurd. In fact, it is more than absurd. It is offensive to well-established principles of due process and fundamental fairness.

Recently, however, the Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has announced new guidelines that will force due process to take a back seat to political correctness. These guidelines will apply to sexual harassment and felony sexual assault cases.

The OCR has decided to teach universities something they already know; namely, that sexual assault and sexual harassment are serious offenses. In the process, however, they are putting innocent students at risk of being wrongly convicted of offenses that could potentially destroy their careers and reputations.

According to the new OCR guidelines, any college that accepts federal funding or federal student loans (close to 100% of our nation’s colleges) must now employ a "preponderance of the evidence" standard of proof in sexual harassment and sexual assault cases. This lowered standard replaces the traditionally accepted standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt, which, according to most triers of fact, is close to 100% confidence of guilt. In contrast, “preponderance of evidence” means the campus judiciary only needs to be 50.01% confident that a person is guilty of a given offense – even if that offense is rape, which, regardless of degree, is always a series felony.

This mandate from the federal government will have profound real-life costs for real students. If we learned anything from the infamous Duke Lacrosse case it is this: Academia is quick to blame people for creating a “rape culture” on campus and slow to take responsibility for false accusations.

Unfortunately, Duke was not an isolated case. At Stanford, student jurors in sexual misconduct cases are actually given "training materials" that say things like, "Everyone should be very, very cautious in accepting a man's claim that he has been wrongly accused of abuse or violence” and “An abuser almost never 'seems like the type.'"

In other words, even highly respected universities like Stanford try to create unfair and partial juries prior to rape adjudications – in clear violation of the spirit of the 6th Amendment (Do you remember when liberals cared about the “spirit of the law”?). Adding a mere “preponderance” standard to such a toxic environment would be a recipe for disaster – disaster in the form of wrongful felony convictions.

The OCR mandates are not merely confined to actions. They apply to students' speech, too. Columbia University already lists "love letters" as a form of sexual harassment. The University of California, Santa Cruz, classifies using "terms of endearment" as sexual harassment. (Who could have ever imagined that one could be endeared and harassed at the same time?). At Yale, "unspoken sexual innuendo such as voice inflection" is considered sexual harassment. The absurdities are seemingly endless in 21st Century “hire” education.

Shortly after the evidence revealed that the accuser in the infamous Duke Lacrosse case was lying, I wrote a letter to Duke Professor K. Holloway. She was the ringleader of the “Duke 88” – a bunch of professors who publicly accused the Duke Lacrosse players of both rape and racism before they had their day in court. In my letter, I urged her to take responsibility for damaging the reputations of innocent students at her own university. Her response is printed below in its entirety:

“Mr. [sic] Adams: You have made the error of anticipating that I have some interest in what you have to say. I do not. K. Holloway.”

Professor Holloway may not be a rapist. But she is clearly a racist. Nonetheless, she has inspired me to write to the OCR with a modest proposal for handling sexual assault cases on college campuses.

Under my plan, any time a collegiate man is charged with rape his accuser is automatically charged with criminal libel. Is she fails to prove her case then she is automatically convicted and expelled.

I plan to write to Professor Holloway because I anticipate that she has some interest in what I have to say. My anticipation might be in error. But, unlike sanctimonious feminists, I’m prepared to face the consequences if I’m wrong.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: duke; dukelax
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1 posted on 05/29/2011 9:07:49 PM PDT by Kaslin
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To: Apple Pan Dowdy; bayouranger; bboop; BenKenobi; Biggirl; Blue Collar Christian; BufordP; ...

Mike Adams Column


Please Freepmail me if you want to be added, or removed from the ping list

2 posted on 05/29/2011 9:10:06 PM PDT by Kaslin (Acronym for OBAMA: One Big Ass Mistake America)
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To: Kaslin
No problem, we can just assist the Moos in installing Shariah law at these universities, and make money selling tickets to the stoning.

If the gals don't like stoning, they can opt for lashing, that's ok too.

3 posted on 05/29/2011 9:37:05 PM PDT by Navy Patriot (Sarah and the Conservatives will rock your world.)
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To: Kaslin

love him or hate him, Professor Adams is one of the most courageous conservatives i know.

...talk about being behind enemy lines and surrounded !!!


4 posted on 05/29/2011 9:51:09 PM PDT by Elendur (the hope and change i need: Sarah / Colonel West in 2012)
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To: Kaslin
Under my plan, any time a collegiate man is charged with rape his accuser is automatically charged with criminal libel. Is she fails to prove her case then she is automatically convicted and expelled.

While I generally agree with your sentiment, it is not every case in which an actual rape ends in the conviction of the rapist. Under your plan, those women who have met injustice first by being raped, and second by not seeing their rapist convicted, would face two more injustices by being convicted of criminal libel and then expelled.

That said I happen to believe that someone who frames or falsely charges someone else with a crime should face, upon conviction, the same sentence as the other person would face if they had actually been convicted of that crime.

5 posted on 05/29/2011 9:57:31 PM PDT by coloradan (The US has become a banana republic, except without the bananas - or the republic.)
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To: Navy Patriot

great point. the same institutions that are so worried about sexual harassment by white males, when FBI DNA tests prove that false accusations are rampant, and an order of magnitude higher than most people believe...

totally ignore the institutional sexism in Islam. the Quran actually states that women are less intelligent.
...remember the howls when Larry Summers even hinted at that?

in Islam, women are literally property. yet N.O.W. defends it, or at least ignores it?!?
“hypocrisy” is simply not an adequate word...


6 posted on 05/29/2011 10:17:40 PM PDT by Elendur (the hope and change i need: Sarah / Colonel West in 2012)
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To: Elendur
Well, you certainly saw me coming, and I was so pleased with myself.

I'll not be tryin' to bluff you at poker.

7 posted on 05/29/2011 10:34:24 PM PDT by Navy Patriot (Sarah and the Conservatives will rock your world.)
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To: Navy Patriot

actually, i liked your post much better. you are more witty, and i admit, much more concise.

(it’s just that the evil of Islam against women, and the hypocrisy of NOW and Universities, gets me frustrated...)

and, i’m terrible at Poker. (but not bad at Tetris...)


8 posted on 05/29/2011 10:56:00 PM PDT by Elendur (the hope and change i need: Sarah / Colonel West in 2012)
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To: coloradan

The suggestion is sardonic of course. But it vividly points out how much sense the mere “preponderance of evidence” standard makes. If the seesaw does not swing one way then it swings the other, except in the rare case of an exact balance.


9 posted on 05/30/2011 2:24:49 AM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (Hawk)
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To: Kaslin
From the article, emphasis added:

In contrast, “preponderance of evidence” means the campus judiciary only needs to be 50.01% confident that a person is guilty of a given offense – even if that offense is rape, which, regardless of degree, is always a series felony.

What in the world is "the campus judiciary"? Is this something outside of the legal/judicial system? If so, by what authority do they act?

10 posted on 05/30/2011 3:25:11 AM PDT by foxfield (Sarah Palin, America's "girl next door".)
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To: Elendur

He is indeed


11 posted on 05/30/2011 4:58:23 AM PDT by Kaslin (Acronym for OBAMA: One Big Ass Mistake America)
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To: Kaslin
“Mr. [sic] Adams: You have made the error of anticipating that I have some interest in what you have to say. I do not. K. Holloway.”

Ah, yes, the vaunted liberal open-mindedness again.

I guess when the prosecution determines what is admissible as evidence, there's no limit to what you can do, eh, ?

I guess the irony of of a black woman holding such a view -- after the publication of To Kill A Mockingbird -- is lost on her.

Actually, she knows full well. It's just now that she's one of Holder's people, she thinks she can get revenge.

Sample synopsis of one of her articles:

This essay offers a literary history relevant to contemporary methods of surveillance attached to genetic identities. It reads Mark Twain's Puddn'head Wilson into emergent juridical and scientific panics regarding identity and indicates how our nation's obsessive regard of race has provoked science-based public policies that are designed to protect and maintain an identifiable whiteness. The construction of DNA databanks at the historically black Howard University, the isolate prison populations in Guantanamo, and those immigrant and native populations subject to nouveau biologic forms of state scrutiny reify the historic interests of US culture in the discernment and targeting of the racialized other in the midst of the US populace. Science and the law have historically cooperated in these identitarian projects, and the fact of our national fiction, like Twain's novella, is evidence of this preoccupation.

Source.

Or, the opening few paragraphs, and a section from the conclusion, of one of her papers, in the American Journal of Bioethics

:

“Keeping us and the American people sick benefits the pharmaceutical industry.”

Minister Louis Farrakhan

Tavis Smiley Presents—“The State of the Black Union 2005” C-Span 2/26/05

25 Minister of Islam Louis Farrakhan was a 2005 panelist on Tavis Smiley’s now annual conference on the “State of the Black Union.”1 In his remarks on the topic of African American health, Mr. Farrakhan advanced the judgment about the pharmaceutical 30 industry that I have quoted in the epigraph above. To the surprise of some, perhaps, his indictment elicited standing cheers from the predominantly black audience of over 500. The acclamation earned by this particular assessment is noteworthy.

<snip>

Early in 2005, Larry Green, a young African American man, was hit by a car and left lying 810 on the roadside of rural Franklin County in North Carolina. When paramedics arrived at the scene, they found Green lying in a pool of blood. What happened next placed this event into the histories of stories told about black bodies and emergency 815 medicine.

The first paramedic to arrive, Randy Kearney, reportedly took only three minutes to check Mr. Green’s vital signs and make his determination that he was dead. When his colleagues arrived, Kearney 820 reported to them that Green was dead. They did not connect him to the available electrocardiogram. The county medical examiner, J.B. Perdue, who was also called to the scene, accepted the determination of the paramedics even though firefighters on the 825 scene overheard the paramedics noting the movement of Green’s chest and asking the medical examiner if he was certain of death. The examiner confirmed the judgment without further examination, and directed that his body be transported to the 830 morgue. Mr. Green remained in a refrigerated unit for almost two hours before Perdue removed him to begin an examination for the cause of death. At that point, the examiner noticed signs of breathing, and realized the ghastly error that had been made. 835 He immediately called 911, summoning the same paramedics who had earlier pronounced him dead, and called for them to transport him immediately to Duke University’s Medical Center (Brevorka 2005). 840

Although appropriate medical and professional authorities are investigating this catastrophic error, there is a discomfiting cultural space for this event that makes it feel all too familiar in African America. It is a narrative that anticipates black 845 bodies are not as valued as white ones, that the medical attention shown to black Americans is less intense, less interested, and less professional than that shown to other citizens, and one where mistake, carelessness, and disregard are not infrequent. 850 What happened to Mr. Green was surely a grievous error—but the fact that his story has a readily available narrative space to occupy is an additional tragedy.

Cheers!

12 posted on 05/30/2011 5:20:30 AM PDT by grey_whiskers (The opinions are solely those of the author and are subject to change without notice.)
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To: grey_whiskers

I wonder what K. Holloway thinks of Margaret Sanger, who called blacks, ‘weeds’. I bet she’s all for abortion on demand.


13 posted on 05/30/2011 5:52:08 AM PDT by hershey
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To: HiTech RedNeck

It leads to the other extreme: The seriousness of the charges themselves demands action, regardless of the evidence. Now where have we heard that before? A “high tech lynching” of a Supreme Court Justice who happens to lurk here occassionally.


14 posted on 05/30/2011 8:09:57 AM PDT by Fred Hayek (FUBO, the No Talent Pop Star pResident.)
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To: Kaslin

The OCR mandates are not merely confined to actions. They apply to students’ speech, too. Columbia University already lists “love letters” as a form of sexual harassment. The University of California, Santa Cruz, classifies using “terms of endearment” as sexual harassment. (Who could have ever imagined that one could be endeared and harassed at the same time?). At Yale, “unspoken sexual innuendo such as voice inflection” is considered sexual harassment. The absurdities are seemingly endless in 21st Century “hire” education.

It goes beyond that. A male cheering on or encouraging a female athlete is also considered “sexual harassment”. Which is why in my sport, cycling, I ignore the women’s races. I do not talk to the women who race, even to say good morning. And avoid physical contact at all costs. All to avoid the claim of harassment or rape.


15 posted on 05/30/2011 8:20:36 AM PDT by Fred Hayek (FUBO, the No Talent Pop Star pResident.)
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To: coloradan

“That said I happen to believe that someone who frames or falsely charges someone else with a crime should face, upon conviction, the same sentence as the other person would face if they had actually been convicted of that crime.”
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

At the same time that some people were saying they did not believe O.J. Simpson was guilty but was in fact framed for murder there were new reports that the penalty in California for framing someone for murder was death! I don’t know how anyone could believe that Simpson was actually framed.


16 posted on 05/30/2011 9:21:54 AM PDT by RipSawyer (Trying to reason with a liberal is like teaching algebra to a tomcat.)
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To: Clintonfatigued; fieldmarshaldj; AuH2ORepublican; rabscuttle385; BillyBoy; Perdogg; SunkenCiv; ...
According to the new OCR guidelines, any college that accepts federal funding or federal student loans (close to 100% of our nation’s colleges) must now employ a "preponderance of the evidence" standard of proof in sexual harassment and sexual assault cases. This lowered standard replaces the traditionally accepted standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt, which, according to most triers of fact, is close to 100% confidence of guilt. In contrast, “preponderance of evidence” means the campus judiciary only needs to be 50.01% confident that a person is guilty of a given offense – even if that offense is rape, which, regardless of degree, is always a series felony.

Bad idea.

17 posted on 05/30/2011 10:30:30 AM PDT by Impy (Don't call me red.)
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To: Impy; ding_dong_daddy_from_dumas; stephenjohnbanker; DoughtyOne; rabscuttle385; mkjessup; ...
RE :”The OCR mandates are not merely confined to actions. They apply to students’ speech, too. Columbia University already lists “love letters” as a form of sexual harassment. The University of California, Santa Cruz, classifies using “terms of endearment” as sexual harassment. (Who could have ever imagined that one could be endeared and harassed at the same time?). At Yale, “unspoken sexual innuendo such as voice inflection” is considered sexual harassment. The absurdities are seemingly endless in 21st Century “hire” education

Call me a constitutional purist but I never understood how the Federal government can regulate speech in the workplace nullifying the 1st Amendment there. But Republicans went along with this idea terrified of women's votes, and this is what it naturally leads to eventually.

Back to rape, There was a criminal rape case here in Maryland where the man accused of rape was given consent by the woman, but she withdrew the consent in the middle of the act. Her claim was it was rape because the man didn't immediately stop the act. The grand jury didn't buy it, and the feminists were outraged, said :”the men just dont get it” and said they wanted the law strengthened, I am surprised Pelosi didnt add it into her Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act .

18 posted on 05/30/2011 10:50:29 AM PDT by sickoflibs (If you pay zero Federal income taxes, don't say you are paying your 'fair share')
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To: Kaslin
50.01% confident that a person is guilty of a given offense – even if that offense is rape, which, regardless of degree, is always a series felony.

what is Dr Adams' FReeper handle ???

the dumbing down of criminal liability is expressed everywhere except where real crime exists...

19 posted on 05/30/2011 12:08:15 PM PDT by Gilbo_3 (Gov is not reason; not eloquent; its force.Like fire,a dangerous servant & master. George Washington)
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To: sickoflibs; stephenjohnbanker; DoughtyOne; Liz; Kaslin; Navy Patriot; grey_whiskers; ...
But Republicans went along with this idea terrified of women's votes, and this is what it naturally leads to eventually.

In fact, moonbat colleges have lost a lot of 1st amendment court cases, but they keep passing unconstitutional speech codes. Obviously, it's easier and cheaper to apologize and bow to Nazis than to try to appeal to the SCOTUS.

And the GWB Dept. of Education was better than it is under Obama:

Indeed, the problem whirled out of control so badly that in 2003 (under different leadership), OCR made it clear that its attempts to stamp out real harassment could not be used as an excuse for universities to pass speech codes that punish merely offensive speech. OCR explained that the First Amendment categorically made it impossible for OCR to require universities, whether public or private, to pass codes that punish protected speech. The 2003 letter did an excellent job of taking away from universities the ability to invoke “the government made me do it” argument when they passed their speech codes. This did not stop universities from passing speech codes, but the 2003 letter may have been in part responsible for the slight decrease in campus speech codes in the past several years.

The 1st Amendment should not disappear because of a presidential election. But Obama has has attacked American values in so many ways, it's difficult to defend against all of them. The folks are worried about jobs and gas prices. It's hard enough with GOP administrations.

Why couldn't GWB withhold funds from colleges that have unconstitutional speech codes? They would say that only the courts can decide what is constitutional. Obama's education department withholding funds from colleges that don't discipline students for allegedly looking at a woman the wrong way? That's different.

20 posted on 05/30/2011 2:17:52 PM PDT by ding_dong_daddy_from_dumas (Budget sins can be fixed. Amnesty is irreversible.)
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