St. Louis Post-Dispatch drops George Will from rotation

Is it? There are many groups saying that even if explicit consent is given, it should not count in the hearings if the person is judged to have been too drunk to consent.

 

Scott Bentley nods his head.

 

Right. I meant in the absence of "explicit consent" that the person had the capacity to give.

The "would a reasonable person think/do/know something" standard is pretty common in law. Not sure why it would be such a problem here.

 

When I was in school, I sat in on one of those little dorm seminars on sex assault. We were told that if a woman was drunk, even a little, she was considered not being able to give consent because she wasn't capable of understanding her actions. The joke was that the man should carry around a breathalyzer.

That turned into a fun discussion because several men pointed out that if that were the case, and the man was drunk too, couldn't the man claim he was being sexually assaulted by the woman since he was drunk and not capable of understanding his actions. It also was pointed out that, under what they were saying about women, then drunk drivers should not be held responsible for their actions since alcohol was impairing their judgement.

Like I said, it was a fun discussion.

 

The "reasonable person" standard in law is accompanied by the "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard of a trial.

Again, in a politically charged pseudo-judicial atmosphere, a "reasonable person" looking at a situation months later -- with no evidence -- and making a 51-49 decision is a dangerous, dangerous system.

 

Yeah, a disciplinary committee made up of students, faculty members and university administrators, all of whom with powerful incentives to err on the side of the accuser ... no chance that whole "would a reasonable person ...?" bit might get tossed aside.

 

One more time: I agree that adjudication of these incidents should not lie with a college administration.

I only take issue with just about everything else posted on this thread.

 

I can buy that in a narrow case. The question of slightly drunk consent is always tricky (plus how drunk the partner is). I think if the guy is stone sober and the girls is mildly wobbly and he preys on that, he's straddling the line of not OK without the clear go.

But I'd also view this as a narrow case. In the sense that this specific sort of case and very similar things need to be addressed, but it shouldn't serve as an anchor point to be over-broadened.

 

There's a huge case at Stanford right now that has spawned the #StandWithLeah campaign. A woman says she was sexually assaulted, and she reported it six days later. (Not an uncommon delay, but one that certainly hinders the case from an evidence standpoint.) Police in her hometown have not filed charges. However, a university panel investigated -- I guess by just taking statements from each -- and found the man guilty. The punishment was suspension for a year, but it was delayed until he could graduate.

She is appealing because the punishment was too lenient. He is appealing because the investigation trampled his rights to due process and he shouldn't be punished in the first place. The university is considering all sorts of upgrades to its policy, including a bylaw that expulsion be the default punishment in all cases that are judged to be sexual assaults -- based on preponderance of evidence and the opinions of the panelists involved.

If I had to guess at it, did a sexual assault occur? Yes. Do we really want to be kicking people out of school because of such guesses? I don't think so.

 

Well, if we do it one way, many fewer women will be sexually assaulted.

If we do it the other way, once in a while, an innocent person may be expelled.

I'm not saying any of those is desirable, but I know which one should be far less desirable to right-thinking people.

 

I'd rather that than patting the victim on the back and telling her, "Maybe you shouldn't drink so much next time."

 

I guess I'm just never going to understand the presumption of guilt in any venue. Sure, we can talk and have opinions about it (e.g. the Winston case), but I cannot even comprehend the idea of punishing someone with no factual basis.