The Question of Race in Campus Sexual-Assault Cases

[redgreenandblue]

https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2017/09/the-question-of-race-in-campus-sexual-assault-cases/539361/

Is the system biased against men of color?

The archetypal image of the campus rapist is a rich, white fraternity athlete. The case of Brock Turner—the freshman swimmer at Stanford University convicted last year of sexually assaulting an unconscious woman after meeting her at a party, but sentenced to only six months in jail—reinforced this. Petula Dvorak, a Washington Post columnist, wrote, “The brilliant smile of a Stanford swimmer with Olympic dreams, the happy privileged face of a white college kid named Brock Turner … This is what a campus sexual predator looks like.”

Amy Ziering, the producer of The Hunting Ground, a 2015 campus-sexual-assault documentary, has said much the same thing. In a radio interview, she asserted that her movie exposed “privileged” well-off white men and challenged “dominant white male power.” But a close viewing of her film reveals a different reality. Her movie tells at length the stories of four allegations. In at least three of the cases, the accused is black.

...

In several recent civil lawsuits against their schools, male students found responsible in campus tribunals for sexual misconduct have made the racial aspects of their experience explicit. These include cases involving Amherst College, in Massachusetts (which recently settled for undisclosed terms); Butler University, in Indiana; Drexel University ,in Pennsylvania; Indiana University of Pennsylvania; Swarthmore College, in Pennsylvania; the University of Findlay, in Ohio; the University of Pennsylvania; and William Paterson University, in New Jersey. Each suit says a student or students were subject to specious charges and in some cases abrupt expulsions because they were minorities.

Interesting article. Given the history of false rape accusations against black men in the US, it is worth thinking about IMO.

[mythology]

1. It's a complex situation, even more so than most other rapes

College with all the parties, with people living in such close space, with unclear process, with the role of athletics, it's really hard to prove beyond a reasonable doubt. If two people are drunk, or a situation where you aren't clear if the other party is consenting, much less meaningfully consenting, I think it's possible to have a situation where a woman was raped, but the guy wasn't in a position to understand that's what he was doing because of finding a way to justify it to himself.

Obviously that isn't an excuse, but we need to start well before college in terms of teaching people (mostly men) what real consent is, that it's better to walk away if you aren't 100% sure the other person is consenting.

We need to address the culture that judges men based on having sex is what matters most. It puts guys in a position that helps let too many of us justify seeing a woman who is passed out, or too intimidated to say no, or doesn't feel empowered to say no, as "fuckable" and instead understand that what you're doing is rape. Most rapists say they consider rape wrong, but they don't associate their acts as rape.

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/columns/the-sexist/blog/13118502/rapists-who-dont-think-theyre-rapists

Obviously even though they don't want to admit it, they are in fact rapists, but the fact that they can justify it, tells me they can learn to not.

I don't think you can boil the college situation down just to race. The standard for expelling a student is more probable than not. It's a relatively low barrier and comes with a high cost. But at the same time with how hard it is to prove rape, it seems cruel to force victims who can't prove beyond a reasonable doubt to live in such close quarters with their rapist.

That's a big part of why I think the best course is to put people (again mostly men) in the position of understanding consent matters, not just not hearing a firm no, but instead getting a firm yes.