[Kaiserschmarrn]

It's high time to do this in my opinion. There have been too many travesties of "justice" as a result and it goes beyond people being falsely accused and punished.

Some of these cases:

Here Is Every Crazy Title IX Rape Case Betsy DeVos Referenced, Plus a Bunch More

[...]

1. Stony Brook University

"The current failed system left one student to fend for herself at a university disciplinary hearing," said Devos. "She told her university that another student sexually assaulted her in her dorm room. In turn, her university told her she would have to prosecute the case herself. Without any legal training whatsoever, she had to prepare an opening statement, fix exhibits and find witnesses."

I covered that case here: "College Rape Trials Are Unfair to Men and Women. Here's Why."

2. The University of Southern California

"You may have recently read about a disturbing case in California," said DeVos. "It's the story of an athlete, his girlfriend, and the failed system. The couple was described as 'playfully roughhousing,' but a witness thought otherwise and the incident was reported to the university's Title IX coordinator. The young woman repeatedly assured campus officials she had not been abused nor had any misconduct occurred. But because of the failed system, university administrators told her they knew better. They dismissed the young man, her boyfriend, from the football team and expelled him from school. 'When I told the truth,' the young woman said, 'I was stereotyped and was told I must be a 'battered' woman, and that made me feel demeaned and absurdly profiled.'"

Elizabeth Nolan Brown wrote about that one here: "Star-Crossed Student Athletes Torn Apart By Title IX Witchhunt at USC."

3. George Mason University

"Another student at a different school saw her rapist go free," said Devos. "He was found responsible by the school, but in doing so, the failed system denied him due process. He sued the school, and after several appeals in civil court, he walked free."

There are a few different cases that arguably meet this description; I wrote about one of them here: "Students Had BDSM Sex. Male Says He Obeyed Safe Word. GMU Agreed, Expelled Him Anyway."

4. The University of Tennessee

"A student on another campus is under a Title IX investigation for a wrong answer on a quiz," said DeVos. "The question asked the name of the class Lab instructor. The student didn't know the instructor's name, so he made one up—Sarah Jackson—which unbeknownst to him turned out to be the name of a model. He was given a zero and told that his answer was 'inappropriate' because it allegedly objectified the female instructor. He was informed that his answer 'meets the Title IX definition of sexual harassment.' His university opened an investigation without any complainants."

That can't be true. It's just too crazy, right? Wrong. It happened, and I wrote about it here: "Tennessee Student Accused of Sexual Harassment Because He Wrote Instructor's Name Wrong." And I posted a follow-up here: "UT Student Now Being Investigated for Sexual Harassment After Writing His Instructor's Name Wrong."

[...]

There are more cases in the same article.

And here is why, in part, this nonsense has been introduced and can persist:

The Bad Science Behind Campus Response to Sexual Assault

Assertions about how trauma physiologically impedes the ability to resist or coherently remember assault have greatly undermined defense against assault allegations. But science offers little support for these claims.

As debate has begun over whether the rules governing sexual-assault adjudication have gone too far, one subject has received almost no attention, although it has become central to the way that many schools and many activists view sexual assault. In the last few years, the federal government has required that all institutions of higher education train staff on the effects of “neurobiological change” in victims of sexual assault, so that officials are able to conduct “trauma-informed” investigations and adjudications.

In meeting this federal demand, some schools have come to rely on the work of a small band of self-styled experts in the neurobiology of trauma who claim that sexual violations provoke a disabling, multifaceted physiological response. Being assaulted is traumatic, and no one should expect those who have been assaulted to have perfect recall or behave perfectly rationally, but this argument goes much further. It generally goes like this: People facing sexual assault become terrified, triggering a potent cascade of neurotransmitters and stress hormones.This chemical flood impairs the prefrontal cortex of the brain, impeding victims’ capacity for rational thought, and interferes with their memory. They may have significant trouble recalling their assault or describing it coherently or chronologically. The fear of imminent death may further elicit an extended catatonic state known as “tonic immobility,” rendering them powerless to speak or move—they feel “frozen.”

As a result, those adjudicating sexual-assault allegations are told, the absence of verbal or physical resistance, the inability to recall crucial parts of an alleged assault, a changing story—none of these factors should raise questions or doubt about a claim. Indeed, all of these behaviors can be considered evidence that an assault occurred.

“I don’t think I’ve seen a complaint in the past year that didn’t use the word frozen somewhere.”

Rebecca Campbell, a professor of psychology at Michigan State University, has taught the science of trauma to law-enforcement officials and Title IX administrators. In 2015, she gave a keynote talk at the Association of Title IX Administrators’ annual conference, about how the neurobiology of trauma could be used in their investigations. A highly influential presentation she gave in 2012 at the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), “The Neurobiology of Sexual Assault,” has been used as part of some schools’ Title IX–personnel training.

In her 2012 talk, Campbell acknowledged that she is not a neuroscientist, but rather is translating others’ work. (Campbell’s own scholarly work has involved community-based research into how contact with the legal and medical systems affect assault victims’ psychological and physical health, and research into the use of rape kits.) She asserted that the damaged memory of a victim can be likened to “tiny Post-it notes” scattered randomly across “the world’s messiest desk.” For a sexual-assault victim to reconstruct what happened requires a sympathetic questioner who will give the victim the time and space to reassemble the Post-its in a coherent order. She assured her audience that the story that emerges will be a true account of the crime: “What we know from the research is that the laying down of that memory is accurate and the recall of it is accurate.” She briefly recognized that victims who consumed alcohol may have serious memory problems as a result—“their Post-it notes are just blank.” Tonic immobility, she said, is a “mammalian response that is in all of us,” likely affecting close to 50 percent of sexual-assault victims. “Their body freezes on them,” she said, and not just for a moment or two. The victims go into an extended state in which they can’t speak or move, and hence cannot fend off an assailant.

As of 2014, Harvard Law’s Title IX training for its disciplinary board included Campbell’s PowerPoint slides. Janet Halley, a professor at Harvard Law School, wrote of the intended effect of the training on recipients: “It is 100% aimed to convince them to believe complainants, precisely when they seem unreliable and incoherent.”

All of these concepts are presented in information distributed to students on many campuses. The University of Michigan’s Sexual Assault Prevention and Awareness Center has a webpage for students on the “Neurobiology of Trauma” based largely on Campbell’s lecture. It explains that as a result of the “hormone soup” provoked by an assault, “the survivor cannot move and is rendered immobile by the traumatic event” and that “survivors may have trouble accurately remembering the assault.” Bowdoin College’s Title IX webpage on “The Neurobiology of Sexual Assault,” also based on Campbell’s lecture, tells students that “the flood of hormones can even, and often does, result in a complete shutdown of bodily function, a state referred to as ‘tonic immobility,’ but better described as paralysis” and that victims “also may exhibit fragmented memory recall due to the disorganized encoding that occurred during the incident.”

This information sends the message to young people that they are biologically programmed to become helpless during unwanted sexual encounters and to suffer mental impairment afterward. And it may inadvertently encourage them to view consensual late-night, alcohol-fueled encounters that might produce disjointed memories and some regret as something more sinister.

[...]

Apart from the often ridiculous and unjust outcomes this produces, one of the more worrisome aspects is the fact that institutions which are supposed to be the guardians of science, rational thought and objectivity are increasingly promoting and themselves relying on shaky science if not outright pseudoscience.