Just when you thought things could not get worse, the government…instructs universities to criminalize bad jokes, clumsy flirtation, and unpopular social science. – An anonymous Harvard professor
I often reflect that I got my undergraduate degree just in time, because soon after I graduated in 1987 American universities began a sharp decline in academic freedom and personal rights (all in the name of “feminism”) which continues to this day and shows no signs of stopping. To be sure, there were loudmouthed neofeminists at UNO while I was there, but they were A) a small minority, and B) had no political power. They were no more able to impose their bizarre beliefs on the university than the Marxists, the religious fundamentalists or any other pro-oppression fringe group, and faculty and students alike were free to express any opinion, however “offensive” to the dewicate widdle feewings of some sheltered nitwit, without fear of censure or worse. Nobody thought it was weird if an undergrad dated a grad student, or had a sudden attack of the vapors if an English professor talked about Lady Macbeth’s tits, or reported a rather opinionated young lady to the Thought Police for expressing (in no uncertain terms) her highly unorthodox views on Kate Chopin’s writing ability. And though there was an awful lot of sex going on, I can’t recall ever hearing in my four years there of a single student being raped by another student.
Unfortunately, the neofeminists were already hard at work to change all this in order to promote the politically-useful myth of “rape culture”. A bogus study by Mary Koss of Kent State (which declared many women “rape victims” even when they reported otherwise) was published in Ms. magazine in 1985, and politicians were quick to jump on the bandwagon to divert millions in funds for “rape prevention” to campuses whose average sexual assault rate was 1/30 the rate in poor urban neighborhoods. By the early ‘90s repressive speech and “sexual harassment” codes were being imposed on every American university, and by the turn of the century a stifling blanket of political correctness, woven from fear of lawsuits and increasingly-expansive interpretations of “Title IX”, had descended upon American academia. But that still wasn’t enough for the neofeminists; despite a generation of brainwashing, most young women were still unwilling to make the number of rape accusations they needed to satisfy their bloodlust. So in 2007 the Department of Justice conducted a new survey, and like Koss multiplied the results by four via the simple expedient of ignoring what the supposed “victims” thought about their experiences. Using this as “evidence” of “a terrible, alarming trend of campus sexual violence”, in 2011 the Department of Education imposed a terrible, alarming new policy:
…even [if a man has] no way of telling…[how much a woman has been drinking it is] his responsibility to determine if she [is] “incapacitated” [because]…if she [is], any fondling they [do], no matter how great her zeal, [is] sexual assault. She doesn’t even have to lodge a complaint; the college has to investigate if…[a witness] sees her…and suspects she’s drunk…and then there’s the new…requirement that has raised the most alarm among civil libertarians: the lowering of the evidentiary standard to that used in civil-rights litigation…a “preponderance of the evidence” is now all that’s required…not the more familiar “beyond a reasonable doubt” of criminal cases or the intermediary “clear and convincing evidence” standard many schools used to employ…
In other words legal adults are defined as incompetent children if they happen to be female, and guilty until proven innocent if they’re male. The result of this has been, as any fool could have predicted, a witch-hunt against heterosexual male students. Of course, they could avoid that danger by simply refusing to date anyone at the same university, so obviously the list of potential “crimes” had to be expanded:
…both the Department of Education and the Department of Justice have mandated the effective abolition of free speech on college campuses, as well as the almost certain conviction of large numbers of students…The ED/DOJ’s disturbing and unconstitutional May 9th letter, mandating changes in sexual assault and harassment procedures and standards, arose out of a joint…investigation…at the University of Montana, Missoula…but…described [the letter] as “a blueprint for colleges and universities throughout the country to protect students from sexual harassment and assault.” In other words, any college or university receiving federal funding (which includes nearly all of them) risks losing that funding, if it does not comply…Henceforth, “sexual harassment,” for which a student must be investigated according to federal regulations, will be defined on campuses throughout the nation as engaging in “any unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature”…including “verbal conduct” (more commonly known as “speech”), from the vantage point of the “victim.” It doesn’t matter if the victim happens to be exceptionally brittle, or subjectively feels “sexually harassed” in situations that other students would deem nothing more than the normal interactions of daily life in a college community.
The inevitable result…is that all students would arguably be guilty of harassment several times a day…playing uncensored rap music…posting something controversial on Facebook, or defending former U.S. Representative Todd Akin in class could now constitute “harassment”…in a hypothetical 500-person lecture…the one person who takes offense to slide five has the power to silence the professor, and to keep the 499 other students from hearing the speech in question.
The Supreme Court some time ago referred to this tactic as “burning the house to roast the pig,” and has consistently ruled it unconstitutional…But by the time a challenge makes its way up to the Supreme Court…the bureaucrats will have already succeeded in establishing a permanent cultural change such that students won’t even be tempted to say something of a sexual or even, very likely, a gender-related nature, nor engage in dating activity, that might possibly disturb an overly sensitive fellow student…
Technically, a male student could just as easily use this awful policy against a female one as vice-versa, but I think we all recognize that this is both relatively unlikely and liable to face a much higher – perhaps even normal – burden of proof. Unless something is done to overturn this (and I have little faith that it will be), the neofeminists now have a tool with which they can drive out as many of the remaining minority of male university students as they wish, and dumb down what passes for discourse until it challenges, stimulates and educates exactly nobody.
Well, that whole “higher education” thing was nice while it lasted.
Maggie, what would your view on this be: http://www.salon.com/2013/05/20/worst_horrifying_new_trend_posting_rapes_to_facebook/?
My question is … they say this is a horrifying new “trend” to post “rapes” to facebook. My definition of a “trend” is something that happens more than once – yet they only cite one example that involved FaceBook. How could posting the evidence of your crime ever become a “trend” for anyone but stupid-assed people?
It’s a crappily written story by a journalist who’s a product of America’s institutions of “higher learning”.
By the way – I don’t have any college degrees – but I still make more money than any of these liberal arts guys after they paid all that money and wasted all that time on campus. This is proof that – in the REAL world – real skills still trump imaginary ones.
Have you not been reading the news? Did you not click on the links?
I read the news everyday – it’s a bit like sorting through the trash though.
I clicked on the link you provided and that story cited ONE INSTANCE of a rape that was posted to FaceBook.
Let’s put it this way – No, I do not find it a disturbing trend for idiots to self-incriminate themselves by posting evidence of their crimes on FaceBook. Bottom line is – these rapes happen anyway – I’m extremely happy when the perps confess to them – with video evidence on FaceBook.
Why is this a shocking story to you Susan? These folks are saving us money by giving us information to prosecute them with. I hightly doubt rapes are committed JUST SO they can be posted on FaceBook.
By the way – the best prevention against rape is a big, mean Daddy. But you’ll have to raise Alpha Males again and stop demonizing masculinity. Until that day – the testosterone will be on the side of the guys who want to rape your daughter.
You’ll also have to stop demonizing the family in order to get men to want to participate again.
I’ve never had a single problem with boys involved with my two daughters.
Rape may be a big thing to you Susan. Let me assure you – you can go through my posts on this blog and find plenty of evidence that it is also a big thing to me. All violence against women is abhorrent to me. However, our approaches to curb rape are 180 degrees different I believe. You see, I favor the death penalty for anyone convicted of provable, violent rape.
To solve a problem – you have to get serious about it.
Actually, the best defense against rape (at least the kind common on a college campus) is to not be dumb enough to put yourself in a situation where you are at risk.
I expect your girls are happily rape free not because of your macho muscles, but because you raised them to be smart enough not to do something stupid.
I’m not saying its right, or implying they deserve it or something ridiculous like that, but seriously, if you’re really concerned about having sex forced on you, don’t put yourself in a room full of horny drunk guys and then proceed to get yourself plastered. That’s like driving down a high way at 80 miles and hour with no seat belt in a blizzard.
But I do agree on with you that its being handles SO wrong. The goal is not to punish people for being drunk and stupid, its to get people to not be stupid.
I totally agree with most of what you say. My wife took care of sex education for the girls and I told her I would take care of training them on personal security. Both my girls got a copy of this book – when they were 12 years old and I required to stop all other activities in their lives until they read it …
http://www.amazon.com/Strong-Defense-Sanford/dp/0671535110
It’s brutally honest … Sanford Strong walks you through your options on not getting attacked and how to survive. For instance – a key bit of advice … NEVER get into a car with thug because he will simply drive you to the scene where he will perpetrate the crime on you. You’re always better off resisting in public in plain view.
But realize … that Sanford Strong is a Big Mean Daddy.
And don’t underestimate the deterrent power of going to pick up your sweetheart and being greeted at the door of her house by her dad – a GORILLA.
I’ll give you the big mean daddy, but raise you a vengeful mama bear.
So… I think we just agreed that good parents are also scary?
Are your daughters going to live with you forever? Are you immortal? If the answer to either of those questions is “No,” then eventually men who come to pick up their sweethearts are not going to be greeted by the gorilla.
Does every man your daughters meet know that she has a BMD? Is your image tattooed on their bodies or something?
If a man is short and skinny, should he have a vasectomy, or perhaps convince his wife to abort any female fetuses, because while he might be Mean, and would definitely be a Daddy, he’s never going to manage Big?
It’s a fine thing to be big, to be strong, and to know how to fight. Being such or having a loved one who is is certainly an advantage. But it isn’t the solution to every problem, and it’s an advantage that isn’t available to some.
I asked for Maggie’s opinion, not yours. You make assumptions about my views that are unproductive and erroneous. You don’t know what my approach is. Your tone is aggressive, arrogant and disrespectful. I don’t wish to converse with you further.
Nitwit criminals used to brag about the crimes they got away with in bars – until someone was sober enough to remember the conversation and to ID them. Now sometimes it’s Facebook. That avoids the “remember” part and makes the ID much easier.
I find it revolting, but unsurprising; some of these young people are so conditioned to alert social media every time they take a dump or stub their toes, it isn’t at all surprising that the least-evolved among them even confess to crimes and provide documentary evidence. Though, as Krulac pointed out, a few examples are hardly a “trend” in a world of six billion; to pretend that they are is to buy into the “lock up your daughters until they’re 18” narrative, which is the road that leads inevitably to purdah.
Thanks for sharing your view and answering my question, Maggie. I thought we were long past the “lock up your daughters until they’re 18” narrative, but I could be mistaken. I do believe there is a desire on behalf of many women, including myself, to enjoy the right to feel safe and to not have to be constantly vigilant because we live in such a violent world, most of the violent behaviour of which is sadly, perpetrated by men against women and men against other men. Yes, there are women perpetrators but they are far fewer in number. As far at a trend in a world of 6 billion, I think it may be more useful to speak of North America where this type of behaviour seems to be emerging with the technology that enables it. Violence against women in other parts of the world such as India for example which counts for a billion, is expressed differently. No doubt you have heard of the recent protests by women which followed highly publicized gang rapes. I don’t think the rapists share their videos to publicize their crimes, I think they do it as warped demonstration of their power and masculinity. Part of the point is that they DON’T SEE THEIR BEHAVIOUR AS CRIMINAL. Therein lies the crux of the problem….
Not just colleges – it’s up the military’s ass too. The U.S. Air Force now has … “Teal Ropers” …
http://www.keesler.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123321644
My question is this … if this program does nothing to bring more sexual harassment to light – will the Air Force be able to pronounce it a failure? Of course not – they will simply go on witch hunts to make it appear “effective”.
So much money and effort is put into finding and punishing sexual harassment against women that I wonder if women are even a good return on investment in today’s military.
Sooo … just as all this silliness subtracts from an actual education in colleges … it also subtracts from military readiness (but to Marxists – this is a feature not a bug).
But … back to colleges …
They’re a racket.
I mean – what kind of a Karl Marx wet dream is it to be able to force Marxism down student throats while forcing them to pay for the privilege?
It’s ironic that Progressives rail against “Big Oil” and “Big Pharma” and “Big Banks” for being sinister money-making dreadnaughts all the while supporting colleges. Colleges and Universities are some of the biggest robber barons in history. At least “BIG OIL” produces a product that fuels the world. Colleges turn out shit and rake in big bucks for it! In what universe is it appropriate to charge the same amount for a liberal arts degree as it is an Engineering degree? This is the just the pinnacle of hilarity to me. I don’t know how many kids I saw … ENLIST … in the Navy after having obtained garbage liberal arts degrees from academic institutions of “higher learning”. They got a shit degree – and, on average – about $35,000 worth of student loan debt. They joined the military to get the American taxpayer to pay it off for them. Sooo … while Progressives will cry about having the taxpayer bail out the financial institutions – they have no problem with taxpayers bailing out the colleges on these bad debts.
I could go on and on about this. Higher Education? What the fuck? Let me tell you – I only attended college for … like 5 days (okay maybe a few more than that) … but even I am too smart to pay an English Professor the same amount of money I’d pay an Engineering Professor. Where the fuck else is an English Professor going to work? I have him by the balls. The Engineering guy – he has a skill that people pay for in the outside world – and I’ll have to pay him more if I want him on my podium.
It’s crazy hilarious – this “college racket”.
What rock have you been living under?
The student-Loan debt crisis was part of Obama’s platform back in 2008. And what kind of libertarian thinks Big Banks aren’t real and very, very sinister? One who doesn’t understand the concept of crony capitalism?
So, Maggie, you don’t see the metaphorical pendulum ever swinging in the opposite direction on this topic? As it is (ever so slowly) beginning to move on prostitution away from the prohibitionists?
I’ll admit it can be hard to see, especially since I can see where Krulac is coming from. There was a time when “Higher Education” actually did mean more engineering, with the English thrown in as more of a bonus so that’s not all the engineering student is able to talk about. But now it seems to have turned into the reverse. I think the problem is the world has gotten to the point where a college degree is (or is assumed to be) the only ticket to a stable life in America, because there either aren’t any blue-collar jobs to be had or a blue-collar job is considered ‘beneath’ oneself. And even that assumption is under assault (how many graduates last year couldn’t find a job?).
So colleges can do whatever they want because it’s a captive audience. You HAVE to follow their curriculum, otherwise you don’t get that all-important piece of paper to hang on your wall.
Maggie, I also wonder what your view is on this: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/miranda-petersen/washington-times-military-sexual-assault_b_3274506.html
Great piece today, Maggie. A lot of these things are becoming ever more radical/jumping the shark. I wonder how long until people start to see it.
Hmm – or this tactic could be used against the football team of a rival university.
I think that football players get a pass on this behavior. I think it was pws or csp schofield that made that observation. lacrosse players, however…
Colleges are sort of the Heart of Darkness for neofeminism, with Mr. Kurtz-type neofeminists doing their warrior poet thing and occasionally dropping an insolent male’s head on the ground as an example to the others.
Most of the time, when I see neofeminism operating in society, it is simply a gloss for older prudish agendas that were based in religion or social taboos. In other words, the primary tenet of neofeminism, “All sex is rape,” is not accepted by society at large, but they still want to ban girls going topless and wearing T-backs at the beach. (Which to me is insane, but I don’t run america I only live here.)
Not in academia though, which gives financial backing and, within the confines of the college campus, real political power to these kooks. My opinion is that because neofeminism is politically useful as propaganda to expand and cement State interference in peoples’ private lives, they are given the colleges as their playgrounds to have fun in.
I’m not so sure that it would be so difficult to prosecute a coed under the new rules. Granted, it’s not going to happen very often, or very soon, but these sorts of laws have a way of biting the hands that created them.
@Paul. I have a feeling that the minute these laws interfere with a major cash stream for universities is when the university administrations will suddenly discover how awful and terrible they are, how much they interfere with the rights of students, and file the cases that will reach the SCOTUS.
Well, certainly, they will be limited in their appeal within colleges that have decent football teams. There are some things that even colleges won’t mess with.
But that’s the problem; under these regulations, one outraged coed can derail an entire fottball program. Universities, when this happens, will act swiftly to challenge the laws. A college administration cannot allow a single student to be able to interfere with a major source of revenue. It’s more than the money; it’s the implicit challenge to the authority of the university.
This is where that ancient demon, Selective Enforcement, comes in.
That demon has another name; legal sanctions. Although the government sometimes tries to selectively enforce certain laws, the chances of them succeeding against a group of people with resources (even if the students lack them, parents do) is slim. Since proving such actions is a good way for an attorney to clear their client…
I’m pretty sure that the innocent owner exception in some versions of the asset forfeiture laws were only put their to protect those laws from being done away with, not to protect innocent owners.
Most probably. But there’s a difference between creating an exemption so that the government can continue to seize money, and letting ‘little people’ have the power to interfere with revenue collection. One is protecting the government/authority’s interest; the other gives people power to damage government interests.
I suspect these laws will cause a lot of damage until the unintended consequences to colleges causes them to reject those rules, though, which is enough reason to come out against such nonsense.
I wonder what might happen if a coed protested hearing the new regulations from a (male) university official, on the grounds that the language used in the regulations was offensive and threatening? I remember one small town having trouble when the anti-pornography statute the council passed used language that the local newspaper found too vulgar to print, and since the state laws required publication of all ordinances…
great stuff to think about, Maggie. I teach undergrads (as a GA) currently and even though I have some strong opinions of my own, I am adamant that they own their own thoughts (though, of course, they must provide appropriate evidence if they are countering an assertion made in the texts or literature assigned for class). Your piece today was a great reminder to encourage free thought and reading with critical eyes.
Well, honestly, anything that discourages people from seeking a college education they don’t actually need is a-okay in my book.
Realistically, most jobs do not require a college degree. Some do, especially technical jobs like engineers or medical professionals and academic jobs like teaching or archeology, but most do not. You do not need to waist four years and an obscene amount of money on a BA in business, creative writing, or English. You could teach yourself everything you need with a combination of determination and, of course, the internet (and/or the library).
I would rather see higher education shift from a boarding school environment-degree based structure (BA, MA, ect) to a class based system (Take a class, get a certificate or something) that people do something like take one or two classes as needed for what they are actually doing.
Aren’t boarding schools for neglected rich children? Why do we want an entire world of infantilized self entitled fools? Especially since thy undermine the integrity of the college degrees that actually mean something (or would if they schools weren’t bloated with people who have no business on a college campus so the education itself must be dumbed down to accommodate them even as the bureaucratic monstrosity that was once a place of education inflates the prices astronomically.)
It would also be nice to see a high school degree actually mean something again also.
So yeah. If universities want to shoot themselves in the foot, that’s fine.
Boarding schools? I definitely saw some neglected rich kids in my high school, but only a few. I also saw kids whose public school districts were general-purpose horrible. A fair number of kids who were sent there to learn some discipline or to be put in a situation where there was the possibility of real failure (I know of more than one set of parents who didn’t get too upset with the school when the kid bombed out: their kid got a good lesson in humility). A few foreign students preparing for college in the USA, for whom some form of boarding was necessary (including foreign exchange programs with public schools, but those can be much more of an organizational hassle and hit-or-miss than simply going to a boarding school).
But mainly smart kids whose public school districts offered nothing challenging enough. We had an awful lot of AP tests at the end of the year, and it wasn’t all because of the excellent instruction.
I freely allow that my private boarding high school may not be typical of such – we didn’t have a rich kid clique that I could tell, for instance.
~~~~
on the broader point: I agree. Going to work after high school would be worth more on a resume I was judging than being fresh out of college with an irrelevant degree.
I’m sorry if I offended you on the boarding school thing- I was attempting to imply that college turns everyone (barring those who attend for a relevant degree) into spoiled rich kids who are too old to be kids. I have no issues with private schools- I think they are an important counterpoint to public education, and boarding schools can be really good for teenagers, giving them autonomy they would never experience otherwise (sometimes…)
Most of the education system from pre-school to graduate school is nothing more than a propaganda machine designed to condition one how to think and act in the way our ruling elites want that individual or group to think or act.
Yet if those same women who got drunk and had sex with men they would not have had sex with sober had instead gotten into a car with its own car keys which can turn the ignition then they would be arrested for driving under the influence. More and more states are turning DUI’s into felonies the first time. By the way, the keys could be in your pocket and you would still be arrested for DUI. None of this makes sense to me that a woman who could get a DUI is held responsible yet when she volunteers to have sex drunk then she is not responsible and it is someone else’s fault who is usually a man. Does it to you?
Maggie wrote in OP:
There is a fairly recent example of what to expect from these sterling champions of truth, justice and equality, in the roughly equivalent context of “racial harassment”.
In late 2007, Keith John Sampson, 58-year-old white janitor and student majoring in communication studies at Indiana University, was reading a book while on a break at his job. The book was Todd Tucker’s Notre Dame Vs. the Klan: How the Fighting Irish Defeated the Ku Klux Klan [Amazon link].
A black coworker took exception to his selection of reading material, and filed a complaint for “racial harassment” with the University’s Affirmative Action office. What happened next would make Franz Kafka look like an amateur. You can read part of the outcome here [NBC News link].
Considering the price of university education has become so prohibitively high, it probably won’t matter because most people will not be able to afford it.
I just had to stop at the first sentence just because you never heard somebody talk about rape doesnt mean it doesnt happen especially with the stigma attached to it. This is such an indication of your ignorance that im not even going to read further its just so dumb you probably cant grasp the reason why the put these new rules in the first place. Consent is very important on both peoples part.
Yes, I’m “ignorant” despite having been raped several times. Take your faux outrage elsewhere; I don’t want government sycophants who defend “feminist” tyranny (or any other kind) on my blog, so good riddance to you.
The whole point of “a liberal arts education” is that it’s what you study when you’re not studying in order to earn a living. The “liberal” originally meant “liberating” as in it liberates the mind. So any belly-aching about how a liberal arts degree won’t earn you a living misses the point.
Guilty thought: Among other things, one of the transient thoughts that flew by when I read this was “oh good, an effect that will reduce the playing of rap music”
Sigh.
[…] the constitutional rights of confrontation and cross-examination.” On university campus, a similar third-party accusation can subject a young man to a “campus tribunal” such as the one described […]
I couldn’t help guffawing at the irony: those university neofeministas insisting it’s “sexual assault ” unless a woman and her partner overtly and expressly agree
“…regarding the who, what, where, when, why, and how this sexual activity will take place”… consent must be ‘verbal,’ ‘enthusiastic,’ and must be ‘asked for every step of the way’…Consent also must also be a litany of other things, such as sober,’ ‘informed,’ ‘honest,’ ‘wanted,’ and ‘creative’…”
will turn around and insist it’s “victimization” (so still essentially some form of sexual assault) if a woman DOES overtly,expressly agree and consent in that manner but gets PAID for it!
Good observation. I suppose the excuse in this case is that she consented because she needs or wants the money, instead of because she’s so horny she could just burst. Oh wait, is that a condition too? She has to have had sex recently enough that her mind isn’t clouded with frustrated lust.
She’s starting to sound like a guy.