“FIRE is sticking up for penises everywhere.”
If you are a male college student and attend an American university that receives federal funding, which you probably do, your due process rights took a significant hit this summer.
Why?
Because a recent "Dear Colleague" letter from the Office of Civil Rights within the Department of Education has mandated that all universities adopt the "preponderance of evidence" standard when adjudicating sexual assault cases on campus -the lowest standard of proof.
If a university decides not to use this standard, it risks losing all its federal funding.
The dangers of lowering the evidentiary standard are obvious: lowering the evidentiary standard will result in more false convictions. As I point out in a recent op-ed for my school newspaper:
By forgoing the “clear and convincing” evidentiary standard that most top colleges usually applied to allegations of sexual assault, the OCR has also forgone fundamental fairness and committed its own acts of metaphorical violence against student rights, against due process and against the founding principles of our nation.
Feminist groups and the government contend that the new standard is fine because university judicial bodies are not criminal courts, and nobody is being threatened with jail. However, as we have seen already, many have had their lives and educational careers ruined or put on hold as a result of false convictions stemming from this new standard. Not to mention that universities are ill equipped to prosecute such sensitive cases in the first place.
Philadelphia Magazine published a great article last month about the new evidentiary standard. It highlighted many of the individuals responsible for pushing for the new standard. According to these individuals, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, the organization leading the fight against the new standard, is merely "sticking up for penises everywhere.”
I happen to agree with that assessment, but in addition might add that FIRE is also sticking up for due process, the law, and fundamental fairness.
As I again stated in my op-ed, "Trading one set of victims for another does service to no one, especially when one of those victims is the Constitution of the United States."
UPDATE:
If you haven't seen it already, Peter Berkowitz with the WSJ took on the new OCR standard in an Aug. 20 opinion piece for the paper. He asks:
Where are the professors of history, political science and law who will insist clearly and in public that due process is a fundamental component of American political institutions and culture, a cornerstone of our legal system, and indispensable in a free society to the fair administration of justice?
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Jun '10
Re: “FIRE is sticking up for penises everywhere.”
StickerShock: Advice to young college men: Behave like a gentleman & keep your pants zippered. Then the argument about evidentiary standards and due process remains a theoretical one you can engage in during class, rather than a life-altering nightmare.
And don't forget to call your mother at least onece a week, shower daily, and launder your sheets. · Sep 9 at 10:56am
Re: “FIRE is sticking up for penises everywhere.”
I'd just like to add that I like this, a lot. It may be very well true that the standards for sexual assault might greatly hurt men, but ultimately, men will not get in trouble if their behavior is never questionable. In this sort of situation nobody wins, so while I sympathize with the sentiment of this post, I'd also echo StickerShock's call to prudence and gentlemanly-ness.
Sep '11
Re: “FIRE is sticking up for penises everywhere.”
Rape is a criminal charge; any allegations of rape on campus should be turned over to the local police, and handled by the district attorney and the court system-not by some kangaroo court set up by college administrators.
Re: “FIRE is sticking up for penises everywhere.”
What Judithann said is important. Rape is a crime and should be handled by the police. But more than that, rape is a horrendous crime and one that is often very hard to prosecute because too often it is a case of "he said, she said." If the criminal justice system has a hard time administering proper justice in rape cases -and let's not forget our system is the best in the world- how can we expect an untrained panel of professors and college bureaucrats to do it?
Nov '10
Re: “FIRE is sticking up for penises everywhere.”
Advice to young men on Ricochet: Oftentimes your message is sound, but the headline is a bit offensive.
Aug '11
Re: “FIRE is sticking up for penises everywhere.”
Agreed. And one would have hoped that the folks at FIRE would have realized that serious issues about liberty deserve serious rhetoric, not adolescent humor.
Re: “FIRE is sticking up for penises everywhere.”
"Where are the professors of history, political science and law who will insist clearly and in public that due process is a fundamental component of American political institutions and culture, a cornerstone of our legal system, and indispensable in a free society to the fair administration of justice?"
Last I heard, they were in Madison, WI, protesting the effrontery of limitations on union dominance and the eye-popping audacity of fiscal sanity. Maybe they're out these days taking out some S.O.B.s for Jimmy Hoffa.
Oct '10
Re: “FIRE is sticking up for penises everywhere.”
Berkowitz would be an excellent Uncommon Knowledge or podcast guest to talk about this situation. Echo sentiments above, be a gentleman and scholar and hopefully, you can avoid testing the new standards.
Nov '10
Re: “FIRE is sticking up for penises everywhere.”
StickerShock: Advice to young college men: Behave like a gentleman & keep your pants zippered. Then the argument about evidentiary standards and due process remains a theoretical one you can engage in during class, rather than a life-altering nightmare.
And don't forget to call your mother at least onece a week, shower daily, and launder your sheets. · Sep 9 at 10:56am
Perhaps I misunderstand, but I think the problem with the new, lower evidentiary standards is that one may behave as a perfect gentleman (and scholar) and still be falsely accused of a vicious crime. With the lower standards of proof, how does the “gentleman” prove a negative?
I agree with the comment that rape is a felony that should be prosecuted by the state not left to a University board to adjudicate. I have really dropped the ball on this issue since my youngest just graduated in May, and I had no idea a rape charge wouldn’t go right to the local POLICE department. I’m pretty much stunned here.
Re: “FIRE is sticking up for penises everywhere.”
Any argument in which your opponent gets to say "you want more rapists to get away with their crimes" and have people take them seriously is one that I suspect you can't win. It's kind of like how you can't vote against funding for anything that affects one child anywhere because then you're automatically against "our future."
May '10
Re: “FIRE is sticking up for penises everywhere.”
Toni Alimi
I'd just like to add that I like this, a lot. It may be very well true that the standards for sexual assault might greatly hurt men, but ultimately, men will not get in trouble if their behavior is never questionable.
Dream on.
This standard won't be applied only to accusations of rape. These days, "sexual assault" also includes such mild actions as pinching a girl or simply making a suggestive remark.
I'm not suggesting actions like that are acceptable behavior. My point is that liberals bend laws and rules every chance they get. It's a lot easier to accuse someone of offensive innuendo or inappropriate touches. And there's no shortage of petty individuals who are willing to make false accusations either for attention or to hurt those who upset them.
Liberals have no sense of proportion, and they rarely aim their ire at real criminals.
Jul '10
Re: “FIRE is sticking up for penises everywhere.”
Aaron Miller
Dream on.
This standard won't be applied only to accusations of rape. These days, "sexual assault" also includes such mild actions as pinching a girl or simply making a suggestive remark.
· Sep 9 at 4:44pm
Right on, Aaron.
Toni Alimi. · Sep 9 at 10:56am
..but ultimately, men will not get in trouble if their behavior is never questionable. · Sep 9 at 12:00pm
But ultimately, Ladies will not get in trouble if Their behavior is never questionable.
Jul '10
Re: “FIRE is sticking up for penises everywhere.”
And since StickerShock is giving advice to Men, I'll give some to the Ladies:
Behave like Ladies and dress appropriately, keep Yer legs closed, and the conversation innocent; and perhaps a chaperone if needed.
Re: “FIRE is sticking up for penises everywhere.”
I most certainly agree. Berkowitz would be great for Uncommon Knowledge. Afterall, he is a fellow at the Hoover Institution, so it shouldn't be that hard to get him on.
Edited on September 10, 2011 at 2:48amMar '11
Re: “FIRE is sticking up for penises everywhere.”
I see eleven comments so far and no one has mentioned 'Duke La Crosse'. If the justice system can be abused and too many people are ready to assume the accused are guilty, a lower standard of proof would be incredibly dangerous.
There are too many liberals who are ever vigilant for a opportunity to take offence.
I imagine a young gentleman who keeps his pants zipped, calls his mother every week, and expresses pro-life views could almost count on being accused of sexual harassing someone.
Victory would go to the groups most comfortable with, and experienced in, conspiracy and lying.
Sep '11
Re: “FIRE is sticking up for penises everywhere.”
The main problem here is Title IX. Shouldn't Republicans be trying to repeal it? Doing so would cause feminists to become enraged with conservatives, but feminists are already enraged with conservatives.
Aug '11
Re: “FIRE is sticking up for penises everywhere.”
Nico Perrino:
....
If a university decides not to use this standard, it risks losing all its federal funding.
...
Which is exactly how local public school systems have become federal institutions controlled by the left.
Re: “FIRE is sticking up for penises everywhere.”
I do not think that students have to resort to incendiary titles for their columns or blogs in order to get attention. In this instance the actions of the Office of Civil Rights of the Department of Education speaks all too loudly. On the one hand, virtually every academic administrator treats charges of sexual harassment as matters of the utmost seriousness as they should. In the next breath, they announce that offenses that could lead to suspension or expulsion from universities do not need special protections because they do not threaten jail sentences. That is surely true of all sorts of other university procedures, including those which involve expulsion from cheating, vandalism or academic fraud. But in those cases, we understand that the consequences of a false conviction are devastating and use in virtually all cases a standard that requires proof by clear and convincing evidence, if not proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
Re: “FIRE is sticking up for penises everywhere.”
What is so troublesome is how quickly the Office of Civil Rights forgets the importance of process when it is in the driver’s seat. It is bad enough that it displays such appalling judgment on the risks of error. It is worse still that it has so much confidence in its own deplorable judgment that it mandates that the preponderance of evidence standard be used by institutions that have a better sense of the relevant issues in this case. The risks here are legion because there is no doubt that once the bar is lowered on the ultimate bar on proof, other safeguards will disappear as well. Will there be cross-examination of accusers? Of course not, after all they could be humiliated. Will there be a right to be represented by counsel? Not when this is just an intimate search for the truth. Will there be a right to appeal? Probably, but only to the people who support these truncated processes in the first place.
Re: “FIRE is sticking up for penises everywhere.”
It is a sad irony that the greatest risk to civil liberties comes from those who are so confident in their vision of rights and wrongs that they are quite willing to trample on the rights of others. It is another reason why it is imperative to clip the wings of the federal government.