Years ago, the comedian Martin Mull crafted and performed a brilliant, sarcastic blues tune. Among his woes, as I recall, was an insufficiently chilled martini. I am reminded of Mull’s luxurious troubles when viewing today’s cultural and political climate.
It seems that entitled white men have had enough and just aren’t going to take it any more.
The Trump phenomenon is like a full-blown musical comedy based on Mull’s silly parody. In Trump world, white men are the beleaguered minority. In the wake of the horrifying incident in Claremont where an 8-year-old biracial boy was nearly lynched by older boys, “Black Lives Matter” signs at a peaceful protest provoked an “ALL LIVES MATTER!” response from at least one passerby. It is not an uneducated guess to propose that the responder is a likely Trump supporter. Even the racist assault on a small boy is insufficient evidence of virulent racism in our communities for some folks.
In Donald Trump world, women are sexual objects or, to echo a pre-Trump word, “feminazis.”
So in Trump world it was no surprise that Education Secretary Betsy DeVos declared that the Trump administration was going to “revise” the Obama era guidelines on how colleges and universities adjudicate accusations of sexual assault. In her estimation, and in the estimation of many who cheered the announcement, colleges and universities are denying due process to the poor lads who are accused of rape or other forms of sexual assault. What an injustice!
The most common objection to the Obama-era guidelines is that the standard of proof is simply too low. The guidelines, and college policies based on them, suggest a “preponderance of the evidence” standard to establish guilt.
New York Times conservative columnist Ross Douthat believes the reconsideration is overdue. He characterized those who object to DeVos’ rollback as issuing “spittle-flecked rants.” He described the current college adjudication processes as “kangaroo courts and star chambers.” Douthat referred at length to a recent series written in the Atlantic by Emily Yoffe. Therein Yoffe indicts the Obama era standard by emotional anecdote, pitying the occasional frat boy who was “convicted” by evidence that might not stand up in court. Douthat and Yoffe offered glancing acknowledgment that women and girls may in fact be assaulted, but invited the inference that the greater injustice is visited on the wrongfully accused men. “Woe is we” is the new male anthem.
The most prevalent objection is to the lower standard of proof suggested by the Obama era guidelines. “Beyond a reasonable doubt” is the criminal justice standard. Critics demand this standard to provide the protection men and boys on campuses deserve. Many commenters suggest that colleges have no business adjudicating these matters at all. This line of argument is a red herring and conflates two very different things.
Douthat and others intentionally conflate campus procedures with criminal justice standards. It is not either/or. It can be both/and.
Rape is a crime. Sexual assault far short of rape is a crime. Any victim on or off campus is free to report crime and allow the criminal justice system to proceed. However, the criminal justice system has standards of proof (for good reason) that can impede justice for the tens of thousands of women and girls who are the victims of entitled male aggression. Especially on campuses, where women and girls should have a particular presumption of safety, criminal justice is not necessarily justice.
College and universities step into this breach, as they should. They have the right and obligation to hold community members to a higher standard, with a lower element of proof, than does the criminal justice system. No student has the unfettered right to be enrolled. Removal from campus or other sanctions are not criminal penalties. Douthat and other critics, including DeVos, emote passionately as though colleges are depriving innocent young men of their liberty. Get back to me when colleges can deliver prison sentences.
By “preponderance of the evidence,” a college has reached a standard quite sufficient to separate the perpetrator from the community or put other sanctions in place. That is a far different consequence than a criminal conviction. Colleges have the right and the responsibility to hold members of their communities to standards and behavioral expectations that are quite apart from the legal statutes. For example, one can’t be imprisoned for cheating or plagiarism, but you can be expelled. This is also true in employment. An individual can be dismissed or sanctioned for behavior that does not violate any criminal statute but is deemed inappropriate by the employer or institution.
As head of a school, I had to “adjudicate” several such accusations. I know the imperfections and frustrations of judging matters where the alleged acts are often known only to the parties involved and the incidents are too frequently clouded by alcohol use. It is certainly possible to make a mistake. But the evidence is unambiguous. False accusations are rare and sexual assault is rampant. On which side might a thoughtful institution err? The number of young women who are devastated by assault and fear the humiliation of a public criminal procedure overwhelms the occasional mistake that might result from a “preponderance” standard.
But again, it is the men who are the “victims.” Sad.
Steve Nelson lives in Boulder, Colo., and Sharon. He can be reached at stevehutnelson@gmail.com.