I think you should examine your assumptions. Verrit is for the 65.8 million, it says so right on the box. Who do you think those are?
Verrit’s purpose is to become their trusted source of political information and analysis; to provide them (and anyone like-minded) sanctuary in a chaotic media environment; to center their shared principles; and to do so with an unwavering commitment to truth and facts.
I used to think they wanted to be snopes v2.0. But now I’m beginning to think that they want to be Fox News v2.0.
Speaking of examples of Liberal Stupidity, Hillary Clinton. You thought she was ready to take the classy exit, unify the Democratic party and accept some responsibility for her loss, right? NOPE.
This is my first time actually going to the site, but i remember hearing about it and thinking it was just verified facts that could be used and include an automatic citation of sources. This sounded really cool and something that the Internet sorely needed. Instead when i go to the site 2/3 of the cards are (in my opinion) useless political sound bites and not proven facts. Some of them don’t even have sources, much less actual studies backing them.
I swear if I see that Trump “quote from People” about Republicans being stupid one more time I’m gonna stab a bitch.
Then when I point out it’s fake… silence, even from the guy who posted it and is usually better than that.
Everyone is wigging out about DeVos on Title IX, but… she’s probably in the right here.
Accusation does not equal guilt. Innocent until proven guilty is a cornerstone of what we are. It’s not guilty once accused.
IANAL, and my lack of expertise is likely hurting my appreciation for the position of DeVos’ and others, so I’ll address my primary point of consternation; schools aren’t courts. While they make decisions which can dramatically impact the lives of those they serve, so do many other institutions which don’t have any due process requirements (eg - my place of employment may decide to terminate me for no reason and not provide any references for future jobs, for instance). I get that state schools agree to certain conditions in order to receive all the government funding, but even governmental agencies outside of the DOJ don’t have a due process requirement that I’m aware of.
In short? It’s basically a dictate from the government to ignore due process.
And it is a dictate unless you’re running a school that doesn’t get any money from the feds. Of which there aren’t many, most money universities get is from the federal government. Private colleges don’t have a lot of prestige and most people can’t get into them anyway.
There is a link in there (2nd link) that is basically a link to a ton of other articles about it.
As Dan_Theman just pointed out, universities are not required to follow the same due process guidelines as our criminal justice system. Just like your employer, they can conduct investigations as they choose and punish people as they choose. And when they kick students out for cheating or drinking, nobody bats an eye.
At some schools, consensual sex is cause for getting kicked out. Or even dancing. Even if it occurs off school property, where the school has no supervision at all. Where is your due process there?
Not really. Here is the thing: schools can sanction pretty much whatever they want, and do it pretty much however they want, just like other organizations. A few years ago, there was increasing concern about student sexual assault, and the Obama administration suggested that Title IX could be used against schools that did not take this problem seriously enough. Now DeVos is backing away from that suggestion.
But the cat is out of the bag. Since then, schools have mostly all committed to a zero tolerance policy when it comes to sexual assault. Backing away from that commitment is infeasible, because no school wants to become known as Rape U. So regardless of whether Title IX is used as a stick, the current policies are here to stay.
Not even really right. It’s more like a pendulum - Title IX was in response to an “epidemic” of campus rapes. While this is debatable there have been many respectable sources showing that rapes on campus go woefully underreported, and schools have all sorts of incentives not to report them. Now the pedulum swung the other way and there were some kids that were unjustly accused under stringent Title IX enforcement - but not near as many unreported rapes. Now DeVos, instead of moving them pendulum a little bit back the other way to a happy medium, just cut the chord and reset the clock.
Whether it’s “fair or accurate” or not, a lot of women are going to see this as recreating a hostile environment that discourages them to report sexual assault.
When a company fires an employee without even providing a reason, is that orwellian?
When a customer is kicked out of an establishment because another customer complained, is there any due process?
In America, we have chosen to trust the private sector. When there is a disagreement and people go their separate ways, we shrug and assume that everyone will be better off in the end.
Well, guess what: universities are corporations, and students are their customers. The invisible hand will provide for all.
Yes, that’s true. And those institutions do have due process. But “due process” means different things at different levels of government. For example, if your business is denied a liquor license or a zoning permit, you can expect due process. But you should not expect the same protections afforded to criminal defendants, such as a presumption of innocence (or its equivalent).
And even though the charges may be serious, a student who is facing expulsion is not a criminal defendant and should not expect due process to resemble a criminal trial. Due process for students has much more in common with a zoning permit.
When my daughter transferred to Fresno State I went to the orientation with her. There was more than an hour devoted to the “sex as rape” scenario. And I don’t mean to belittle it by calling it that, but don’t think the receivers of the message took it nearly as serious as the senders. At the start of her next year every student, every student, was required to take a one hour on-line course on the subject.
I think you can make everyone more aware of the potential problems, you can make everyone feel better (or I imagine for those caught by surprise, worse) by letting them know as a school you care. You can put call boxes all over campus. But I think there is a limit to what you can and should do.
The one thing that i’ve “learned” (and i use quotes because it’s a bit stereotyping and not necessarily accurate) from social media and other venues is that women, and especially young women, really really really need ultra-supportive communities, authority figures, and official and unofficial social structures; over-the-top supportive to the point where guys would feel basically uncomfortable. Women themselves would probably contest the “gendered” nature of this need in mixed company because it sounds sort of like tin-eared belittling of womens’ issues or problems to them, or because they don’t really have an intellectual framework to address gendered issues in general, but… it seems to be true.
This is not just true in matters of sexual assault but… basically in everything. That’s where the computer science department in that one university discovered with >50% female enrollment, when they changed the curriculum to be more team oriented, less competitive, and de-emphasising bro-complishment as the standard.
In many ways a lot of the security theatre in campuses right now is not just to succesfully change behavior but give women the confidence that the environment, culture and authority figures of the campus they are in is supportive and will be supportive, without which they just won’t speak up.
