Category: sexual misconduct

A liberal feminist supports DeVos’s changes in Title IX

December 6, 2018 • 12:30 pm

There are two reasons why folks are opposed to Betsy DeVos’s revised Title IX regulations for adjudicating sexual assault and harassment in colleges.  The first is because the changes are proposed by a member of the Trump administration, and a particularly hated one. The second is that the general thrust of the changes protect the rights of the accused person more strongly and strengthen due process.

While the regulations aren’t perfect, I see them as a substantial improvement over the Obama-era regulation, especially the standards of guilt based on “preponderance of the evidence” (>50% likelihood of guilt) rather than “clear and convincing” evidence (roughly > 75% chance of guilt) or the court standard of “beyond reasonable doubt”. At present, if the finder of fact who collects the evidence—who is, unbelievably, also the judge and jury—finds the accuser even just a tiny bit more credible than the accused, it’s curtains for the latter: explusion and probably the ruining of one’s life. Sadly, even under DeVos’s changes colleges are still allowed the option of choosing “preponderance” of evidence above some more stringent standard, and I’m sure most will opt to keep the looser standards.

But the new regulations also eliminate the possibility of the investigator also being the judge and jury, which is good since it promotes objectivity; and they also allows the accused to see all the evidence against him (it’s usually a male), as well as allowing a companion of the accused (often a lawyer) to cross-examine the accuser. Such cross-examination was not allowed before, but is essential for even the most rudimentary form of justice.

But even the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has opposed these regulations, saying, as many Leftists do, that they “favor the accused” (note the irony of the ACLU criticizing changes that strengthen civil rights). Others say that the proposed changes “are biased against survivors”, not realizing that the hearings are supposed to determine whether someone is a survivor.  Remember, a “survivor” is not the same thing as “an accuser”.

It’s hard for a liberal, then, to swallow DeVos’s changes, as they come from Trumpism and supporting them also makes you seem to be someone who actually promotes rape, or at least wants rapists let off easily. (That’s not true, of course, because even in court there’s a much higher bar to convicting someone.)

Lara Bazelon, an associate professor and director of the criminal juvenile justice and racial justice clinics at the University of San Francisco School of Law, wrote the editorial below that appeared in the New York Times two days ago. Like me, Bazelon favors the Title IX changes, largely (but not entirely) on racial grounds.

It’s sad when someone like Bazelon—or any liberal—has to apologize for agreeing with the Title IX changes, even though objectively they seem fairer than their predecessors. But apologize we must—to placate the outrage crowd. Nevertheless, Bazelon takes a strong and principled stand, noting that the changes in regulations have in fact been tacitly approved by three appellate courts who found the present system unfair for violating due process.  Here’s one ruling from the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in Michigan (click on screenshot to see the whole opinion):

 

But she adds the racial consideration, too, based on one of her clients (a black student) being unfairly suspended in the face of no evidence at all save an assertion, and after a process that had no hearing. As she notes:

The Office of Civil Rights does not collect data on race in Title IX cases, but the little we know is disturbing: An analysis of assault accusations at Colgate, for example, found that while only 4.2 percent of the college’s students were black in the 2012-13 school year, 50 percent of the sexual-violation accusations reported to the school were against black students, and blacks made up 40 percent of the students who went through the formal disciplinary process.

We have long over-sexualized, over-criminalized and disproportionately punished black men. It should come as no surprise that, in a setting in which protections for the accused are greatly diminished, this shameful legacy persists.

Of course one could claim that black students commit sexual violations at a disproportionate rate, but I don’t think many opponents of the Title IX changes would want to say that, and at any rate we have no data.

But in some sense it doesn’t matter. Title IX needs to be modified along the lines of the DeVos changes because it’s fairer to everyone, not just black men. (If there’s a bias against black men that leads them to be accused more or found guilty more often, that bias will remain, though it will be harder to instantiate if the evidentiary standards are higher.)

I really can’t see many good reasons for opposing these changes, and they’ll become almost mandatory anyway if there are more court rulings mandating due process in college. Nevertheless, here we again see a clash between liberal principles (due process vs. justice for women), and to many it seems clear that “survivors’ rights” automatically trump due process.  I don’t think that’s a good way to think about the issue, but regret that Bazelon has to apologize for taking the right side:

The DeVos reforms are in their public comment period, which gives people on all sides of this debate a chance to weigh in. That is a good thing. I know my allies on the left will criticize my position, but we cannot allow our political divisions to blind us to the fact that we are taking away students’ ability to get an education without a semblance of due process. What kind of lesson is that?

Here’s Alyssa Milano using sarcasm—a Dr. Seuss-like poem—to mock and denigrate the proposed changes in Title IX. This is deeply misguided (yes, the off-campus regulation is debatable, but in general the changes are good. Note that Milano asserts that the changes “protect predators”. Here we see ideology trumping (excuse the pun) common sense.

 

 

NYT philosopher writer flaunts virtue by flagellating himself for sexism, but doesn’t do squat for gender equality

October 25, 2018 • 9:00 am

In the last few years a genre has arisen that doesn’t just call for social justice—those calls that have been around for a while—but in which a person (usually a man) flagellates himself for sexism, racism, or other sins, excoriating his behavior in an attempt to purge himself—and by extension the entire class to which he belongs. Yes, here we have an article by George Yancy, a black professor of philosophy at Emory University, who’s penned a long diatribe for the New York Times’s “The Stone” philosophy column. You can see it below, but if you have a Y chromosome, realize that you’re going to be indicted for sexism, no matter how much of a feminist you are.

Click on the screenshot to read the article:

Like a Cultural Revolution victim wearing a dunce cap and a sign, here Yancy confesses to numerous sexist crimes, including asking his wife to take his last name when he married her (she refused). While I wouldn’t do that, and many men don’t care about that either, he uses that example to put the first wound in his back. He argues that this, as well as his expectation that he be thanked for doing the household tasks that he should do (again, many many wouldn’t act this way) constituted not sexual assault, but something close to it: misogyny, and even “acts of violence”. Note the hyperbolic rhetoric (“act of violence”) and the familiar words of the woke, like “toxic masculinity”:

It is hard to admit we are sexist. I, for instance, would like to think that I possess genuine feminist bona fides, but who am I kidding? I am a failed and broken feminist. More pointedly, I am sexist. There are times when I fear for the “loss” of my own “entitlement” as a male. Toxic masculinity takes many forms. All forms continue to hurt and to violate women.

For example, before I got married, I insisted that my wife take my last name. After all, she was to become my wife. So, why not take my name, and become part of me? She refused. She wanted to keep her own last name, arguing that a woman taking her husband’s name was a patriarchal practice. I was not happy, especially as she had her father’s last name, which I argued contradicted her position against patriarchy. But as she argued, “This is my name and it is part of my identity.” I became stubborn and interpreted her decision as evidence of a lack of full commitment to me. Well, she brilliantly proposed that we both change our last names and take on a new name together showing our commitment to each other

Despite the charity, challenge and reasonableness of the offer, I dropped the ball. That day I learned something about me. I didn’t respect her autonomy, her legal standing and personhood. As pathetic as this may sound, I saw her as my property, to be defined by my name and according to my legal standing. (She kept her name.) While this was not sexual assault, my insistence was a violation of her independence. I had inherited a subtle, yet still violent, form of toxic masculinity. It still raises its ugly head — I should be thanked when I clean the house, cook, sacrifice my time. These are deep and troubling expectations that are shaped by male privilege, male power and toxic masculinity.

If you are a woman reading this, I have failed you. Through my silence and an uninterrogated collective misogyny, I have failed you. I have helped and continue to help perpetuate sexism. I know about how we hold onto forms of power that dehumanize you only to elevate our sense of masculinity. I recognize my silence as an act of violence. For this, I sincerely apologize.

Fine; he’s apologized. But he insists that the rest of us apologize, too, for we are all mini-Weinsteins, complicit in the Patriarchy and toxic masculinity. Indeed, we are all guilty of “soul murder” (his words), even for looking at a women’s bum! Sadly, the man knows nothing about evolution and sexuality.

To this end he quotes the uncapitalized feminist bell hooks, another sign of wokeness:

It’s true that many of us, including me, have not committed vile acts of rape, sexual assault and sexual abuse the likes of which Harvey Weinstein has been accused of. We have not, like Charlie Rose, been accused of sexual harassment by dozens of women who worked for us; and we are not, like Bill Cosby, being sent to prison for drugging and sexually assaulting a woman, in this case, Andrea Constand. Yet I argue that we are collectively complicit with a sexist mind-set and a poisonous masculinity rooted in the same toxic male culture from which these men emerged.

I’m issuing a clarion call against our claims of sexist “innocence.” I’m calling our “innocence” what it is — bullshit. As bell hooks writes in “The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity and Love,” men unconsciously “engage in patriarchal thinking, which condones rape even though they may never enact it. This is a patriarchal truism that most people in our society want to deny.” When women speak out about male violence, hooks writes, “folks are eager to stand up and make the point that most men are not violent. They refuse to acknowledge that masses of boys and men have been programmed from birth on to believe that at some point they must be violent, whether psychologically or physically, to prove that they are men.” We have learned it. In the language of Simone de Beauvoir, “One is not born, but rather becomes” masculine.

Well, that’s not entirely true. Differences in sexual behavior, in which men pursue and stare at women (the “soul murder” he mentions) are partly evolved: the result of differential mating strategies that were adaptive in our ancestors. It’s not all culture. But as I’ve said many times before, any evolved differences that now act to degrade modern society, demean women, or given women fewer opportunities or less freedom, need to be ditched. Biology, as we all know, is not destiny.

Yancy goes on to describe some of these degrading acts, like rubbing up against girls in school, citing Luce Irigaray (what does this add except to show off?) that this shows a “dominant phallic economy. He then segues into the Brett Kavanaugh/Christine Ford affair, which I’ve written about before. While I believed that Kavanaugh was unfit for a position on the Supreme Court—based on his behavior at the hearings as well as other reasons—Yancy is absolutely sure she was innocent, something that I can’t go so far as to say. All we have is our take on the hearings and a tentative judgment.

Yancy goes on to assert that “one in five women are raped at some point in their lives,” which of course is a statistic subject to contention. I hasten to add that all rape is reprehensible, and even one rape in 500 is too many, but he’s really playing fast and loose with the statistics here, all in an attempt to not only claim we live in a “rape culture,” but to add that all men are complicit in this.

We all recently lived through the public spectacle of the Brett Kavanaugh hearings. What is at stake transcends but also includes Christine Blasey Ford’s allegations that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her when they were both in high school during the 1980s. The history of toxic and violent masculinity should have been enough for us to give full weight to the reasonableness and believability of Ford’s testimony. But we did not.

Full weight? We should have believed Ford not on the basis of the evidence but because of “the history of toxic and violent masculinity”? I don’t think so, for that’s past history, not evidence. And if you take that tactic, then “believe the female accuser” becomes all one needs for conviction.

Don’t get me wrong here: women have always gotten, and still largely get, a raw deal. They are harassed, catcalled, subject to biases, and diminished. I’ve seen it in my own classes, in which male graduate students talk over women, or take credit for their ideas. But don’t call me complicit in that, for I do the best I can to ensure that women students not only get the same respect (and opportunities) as men, but also to share their views as much as men. After constantly examining my own behavior vis-à-vis women, I don’t recognize in myself the kind of toxic misogynist that Yancy sees in himself. He and others may say I’m fooling myself, of course, but I’ve never asked any woman to change her name, rubbed up or groped any woman, or, I think, been guilty of the species of “toxic and violent masculinity” that Yancy sees in all men.  And I’m not just exculpating myself: many of my friends wouldn’t recognize themselves in Yancy’s caricature, either. Realize that when someone who is reflective hears an accusation like Yancy’s, he immediately (and correctly) thinks that Yancy is a self-serving extremist.

In the end, Yancy abases himself by apologizing to all women for his behavior. Fine, but, as I note below, what does he accomplish except flaunt his virtue? He ends by assuring all women he’s an Ally:

I know that if you are a woman, you don’t really need me as a man saying to you that you are not paranoid when it comes to male violence, sexual and otherwise. I speak not for you but with you. In my view, and in the view of many others, Kavanaugh failed himself, and you. And we have all played our part in that failure. I don’t want to fail women anymore.

Since the world is watching, we, as men, need to join in the dialogue in ways that we have failed to in the past. We need to admit our roles in the larger problem of male violence against women. We need to tell the truth about ourselves.

Well, I’m sorry, but the truth I see about myself is that I’m not Yancy, much less Harvey Weinstein. And the truth I see about Yancy is that he talks a good game, but his mea culpas do nothing to cure the problem of sexism.

As Grania pointed out when I discussed this article with her, Yancy’s behavior comes very close to the behavior of some religionists, who think that because they’ve been bad—in their case the Original Sin comes from Adam and Eve, in Yancy’s it comes from his Y chromosome—and because of that they need to humiliate themselves and punish themselves so they can be purified. Indeed, what we see in this Times article is, pure and simple, a humiliating attempt of moral purification.

Grania added that she, brought up Catholic but now a nonbeliever, can fully understand this mindset, but it would be harder for me, raised as a largely secular Jew, to comprehend the attitude that Hitchens characterized as “We are born sick and commanded to be well”. And it’s not just Catholicism or even Christianity. Here are the religious equivalents of what Yancy is doing (avert your eyes if you can’t stand the sight of blood):

And the ultimate humiliation and ritual of purification:

But these rituals of people making a show of their wokeness, humiliating and abasing themselves to confess their sins, has never done anything to improve themselves, humanity, or the world. It doesn’t lessen the amount of suffering on our planet. For the people who are causing problems for women in our society are not those who examine themselves and then confess their sins: they are the people who don’t have the introspection to examine themselves and then to change their behavior.  They are the entitled people, the Harvey Weinsteins and Bill Cosbys, as well as the men who grope women or make their lives miserable.

As Grania observed, “Instead of espousing conduct that is akin to a quasi-religious mea culpa that helps no-one and accomplishes nothing and is the #MeToo version of ‘Thoughts and prayers’, Yancy might consider coming up with practical suggestions for tackling / defusing actual misogynistic behaviour in the workplace, or indeed in broader society.”

Nothing less will do in today’s woke culture than for all men to grovel and confess in this way, and for all whites to admit that they are racists. And, to be sure, there is a point to examining your behavior with respect to other groups. Maybe some of us have behaved badly, or been guilty of sexism or racism. The unexamined life, as they say, is not worth living, but it’s also not good for society.

But, in the end, there’s something craven about Yancy’s show of contrition as well as his false indictment that all men must scour themselves and confess misogyny. It’s not impossible, in fact, that this kind of palaver heartens the Right by making the Left look ridiculous. For it surely does. It makes us look like the Soviet show trials of the Thirties, or the horrible degradations of China’s Cultural Revolution.

h/t: Grania

Lagniappe:

Lawrence Krauss to retire from Arizona State University after sexual misconduct allegations

October 22, 2018 • 10:30 am

I’ve posted before about the sexual misconduct allegations about Lawrence Krauss at Arizona State University (ASU)—allegations that were investigated by the University after the BuzzFeed article that raised the issue (see my posts here, here, and here). Krauss was removed as director of the ASU Origins Project and asked not to come to campus or teach, but retained his salary as the investigation continued. There are several layers to such an investigation, including a conciliation/mediation process that followed the recent recommendation of the ASU dean that Krauss be dismissed from the University, which would have been the first step if Krauss were eventually fired.

Apparently, according to azcentral.com (part of USA Today), the mediation reached an agreement that Krauss, rather than proceed on through the process, would retire on his 65th birthday next May and receive what retirement benefits he’s accrued during his tenure at ASU.

Below I’ve put Krauss’s tweet describing his decision.

From azcentral.com:

Krauss said the review process had “incomplete access to evidence and accusations during the investigation, no opportunity to cross-examine witnesses or be represented by a lawyer during the investigation interviews, and no option to directly appeal the subsequent determinations made by the investigators or the Provost.”

ASU called Krauss’ description of the review process “inaccurate.” The process includes an opportunity for the accused person to have a hearing, present witnesses and evidence and cross-examine other witnesses, the university said.

“Should he have chosen to move forward with the review process, this would have taken place before any final decisions were made regarding dismissal. Dr. Krauss chose to retire rather than to move forward with that process,” ASU spokeswoman Katie Paquet said.

BuzzFeed has a longer article which includes the five-page settlement agreement between ASU and Krauss. That agreement stipulates that donors who gave more than $4,000 to the Origins Project since 2017, or $300,000 or more at any time, can request that their money be returned. That, I suppose, means that they could re-donate it to whatever projects Krauss undertakes in the future.

BuzzFeed reiterates ASU’s statement that Krauss’s description of the process was inaccurate, and names some of the donors:

In his statement, Krauss criticized the university’s disciplinary process: “My choice at this time to retire in May was prompted by the regulations of the Arizona Board of Regents, under which I would only be allowed to directly test the credibility of my accusers or the veracity of their claims if I first agree to be dismissed, which I was not willing to do.”

But the university spokesperson said that was not true.

“Dr. Krauss’ description of our review process is inaccurate,” the spokesperson wrote. The process would have allowed Krauss to “present witnesses and evidence in [his] own defense and cross-examine adverse witnesses,” the spokesperson wrote. “Should he have chosen to move forward with the review process, this would have taken place before any final decisions were made regarding dismissal. Dr. Krauss chose to retire rather than to move forward with that process.”

. . . The university spokesperson did not immediately respond to a question from BuzzFeed News about whether any donors have asked for their money back. Major donors to the Origins Project include Leon Black, the chair of the private equity firm Apollo Global Management, and his wife Debra; the Smart Family Foundation, which focuses on educational projects; and Krauss’s friend Jeffrey Epstein, a wealthy financier who in 2008 was convicted of soliciting prostitution from an underage girl.

I have already stated that my own investigations have shown sexual misconduct on Krauss’s part, misconduct apart from that described by BuzzFeed.  (Since then there’s also been a video by Christina Rad claiming that Krauss groped her.)

But I had no feelings about what should be done, except that something needed to be done to ensure that students at ASU would not be even potentially subject to sexual harassment or groping. That apparently has taken place with Krauss’s separation from ASU. There is also a deterrent effect for both him and others, of course, and that is good, too. As I’ve said repeatedly, women at a university—or anywhere—should not have to put up with groping, sexual harassment, or any form of misconduct based on gender.

Emily Yoffe on how to adjudicate claims of sexual misconduct

October 9, 2018 • 1:15 pm

Over at The Atlantic, Emily Yoffe, who used to do the Dear Prudence column for Slate (a feature I quite liked), has since moved on, reporting extensively for The Atlantic on sexual assault allegations, particularly in colleges. Like me, she’s worried about the lack of proper adjudication in colleges that arrived after Obama’s well-intentioned “Dear Colleague” letter, and removed many of what I see as the “rights” of accused people. This goes along with my discomfort about the #BelieveSurvivors hashtag, which takes accusations as equivalent to truth. (If a survivor of sexual assault has a credible story, especially in court, then yes, you’d believe them, but “survivors” are lately construed as those who claim to have been assaulted.)

Yoffe walks the line between fairness for both women and the accused; as she notes, she herself has been sexually assaulted more than once.  Her new article in The Atlantic, which you can get by clicking on the screenshot, is worth reading to calm the waters a bit.

Yoffe’s theme isn’t surprising, but is sufficiently inflammatory these days that even saying it makes you subject to accusations of sexism (For instance, calling attention to the deleterious effects of false accusations on men’s lives is verboten):

. . . when a woman, in telling her story, makes an allegation against a specific man, a different set of obligations kick in.

Even as we must treat accusers with seriousness and dignity, we must hear out the accused fairly and respectfully, and recognize the potential lifetime consequences that such an allegation can bring. If believing the woman is the beginning and the end of a search for the truth, then we have left the realm of justice for religion.

. . . Whether an investigation takes place at a school, at a workplace, or in the criminal-justice system, neutral fact-finding must apply, regardless of how disturbing we find the offense, the group identity of the accused, or the political leanings of those involved. History demonstrates that ascribing honesty or dishonesty, criminality or righteousness solely on the basis of gender or race doesn’t increase the amount of equity in the world.

She gives some examples of “the realm of religion”, which involves both parties, but she’s particularly incensed by the preconceived conclusions of Democrats. (I hasten to add here that yes, I found Christine Ford’s accusations credible, but would have voted against Kavanaugh anyway based on his record and his unhinged demeanor on view during the hearings. And Republicans had just as many preconceptions as Democrats.)

In one sense, the hearing was theater, not fact-finding, because except for a handful of undecided senators, the rest had already made up their mind about the accusation based entirely on their desire to either seat or thwart Kavanaugh. Republicans sought to discredit Ford and quash the airing of her story. President Donald Trump, in a speech Tuesday night in Mississippi, openly mocked her.

As for the Democrats, in a Senate floor speech the day before the hearing, Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York announced that it was unnecessary for her to hear Kavanaugh’s testimony. Gillibrand declared, “I believe Dr. Blasey Ford.” Many Democrats, in keeping with #BelieveSurvivors, are taking their certainty about Ford’s account and extrapolating it to all accounts of all accusers. This tendency has campus echoes, too: The Obama administration’s well-intended activism on campus sexual assault resulted in reforms that went too far and failed to protect the rights of the accused.

The impulse to arrive at a predetermined conclusion is familiar to Samantha Harris, a vice president at the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (fire). Harris says that under Title IX, students who report that they are victims of sexual misconduct must be provided with staffers who advocate on their behalf. These staffers should “hear them out, believe them, and help them navigate the process,” she said, but added, “When the instruction to ‘believe them’ extends to the people who are actually adjudicating guilt or innocence, fundamental fairness is compromised.” Harris says that many Title IX proceedings have this serious flaw. As a result, in recent years, many accused students have filed lawsuits claiming that they were subjected to grossly unjust proceedings; these suits have met with increasingly favorable results in the courts.

One thing that puzzled me, though, was Yoffe’s reference to the British “scandal” in this bit, which I’ve put in bold:

We don’t even have to imagine the dangers of a system based on automatic belief—Britain recently experienced a national scandal over such policies. After widespread adoption of a rule that law enforcement must believe reports of sexual violation, police failed to properly investigate claims and ignored exculpatory evidence. Dozens of prosecutions collapsed as a result, and the head of an organization of people abused in childhood urged that the police return to a neutral stance. Biased investigations and prosecutions, he said, create miscarriages of justice that undermine the credibility of all accusers.

The legitimacy and credibility of our institutions are rapidly eroding. It is a difficult and brave thing for victims of sexual violence to step forward and exercise their rights to seek justice. When they do, we should make sure our system honors justice’s most basic principles.

When I asked Grania, she me a link to the article below, which gives the details. Click on the screenshot; I’ve put an excerpt below;

Police should refer to people who report rape as complainants rather than victims, senior legal figures said last night, amid warnings that the policy is undermining impartiality and leading to miscarriages of justice.

MPs and members of the judiciary have also called for an overhaul of the current guidelines which demand that officers automatically believe complainants from the outset.

Scotland Yard has ordered an urgent review of scores of sex abuse cases, including 30 which are about to go to trial, after it emerged that crucial material had been withheld from defence lawyers.

Two rape cases collapsed in the last week, because a detective constable in the Met’s Child Abuse and Sexual Offences (CASO) unit, failed to disclose texts messages undermining the complainants’ stories.

It raises concerns that dozens more cases could be thrown out by the courts and could potentially spark a raft of appeals by convicted rapists.

Here the police construed “survivors” as “those who complain,” which is the sense it’s been used with respect to the Kavanaugh hearings. Of course we should take every accusation seriously and investigate them (if the accuser so requests) to the limit of our ability. Just remember that “accuser” is not synonymous with “survivor.”

h/t: Grania

Dean recommends Lawrence Krauss’s dismissal from Arizona State University; Krauss is appealing

October 8, 2018 • 9:15 am

According to the State Press, Arizona State University’s (ASU’s) student newspaper (click on link below), Patrick Kenney, Dean of ASU’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, has recommended that physicist Lawrence Krauss be dismissed from the University for sexual misconduct.

This is the latest development in a series of events beginning with a BuzzFeed expose of Krauss’s sexual misconduct (the accusations were of varying credibility), and then ASU’s own investigation, which resulted in Krauss being removed as director of ASU’s Origin project and also removed from his academic chair as a Foundation Professor. This is the latest step in a procedure that could result in his complete dismissal from ASU.

 

According to the report, Krauss, who has been on paid leave from ASU, is appealing this decision to a “conciliation committee,” and has two layers of appeal beyond that:

But dismissing a tenured faculty member is difficult. According to Crow, Krauss’s case is in the process of being reviewed by a series of faculty committees that will help determine his future as a tenured professor at ASU.

“We have eliminated his role as director of Origins, his academic chair, and the dean has recommended that his tenure be revoked,” Crow said. “The last stage of the process is, what does the rest of the faculty think about that? And then they make a recommendation to me, and then I make a decision.”

This process is outlined by the Arizona Board of Regents and is therefore similar among all three in-state universities. According to ABOR guidelines, faculty members can appeal recommendations of dismissal to the university president, who will refer the case to a conciliation or mediation process. In these processes, committees attempt to help the faculty member recommended for dismissal and the university official who made the recommendation “arrive at a mutually agreed upon solution.”For example, the faculty member might offer to resign rather than face dismissal.

If a resolution is not reached within 30 days, the university president will re-issue a written notice of dismissal to the faculty member. However, the president can extend this deadline to a total of 60 days if they believe a successful resolution is possible.

At this point, the faculty member recommended for dismissal can appeal the decision to the university’s Committee on Academic Freedom and Tenure. This committee will then hold hearings at which “the university bears the burden of proving the existence of just cause by a preponderance of the evidence.” In other words, the university has to prove that the majority of the evidence supports the faculty member’s dismissal.

After the hearings, the committee issues recommendations to the university president regarding the dismissal. The president’s ultimate decision, however, is not bound to the committee’s recommendations.

The BuzzFeed allegations were not dispositive for me, but I did my own digging and came up with other cases that convinced me that Krauss habitually engaged in sexual misconduct. I wrote this on March 10:

After that article appeared, I did some digging on my own, and came up with three cases that have convinced me that Krauss engaged in sexual predation of both a physical nature (groping) and of a verbal nature (offensive and harassing comments).  The allegations that convinced me are not public, but the accusers are sufficiently credible that I believe their claims to be true. Further, these claims buttress the general allegation of sexual misbehavior made in BuzzFeed. In my view, then, Krauss had a propensity to engage in sexual misconduct. I therefore disassociate myself from the man. He has, of course, denied every allegation in the BuzzFeedarticle, but the cases that pushed me to write this post aren’t in that piece. But to me these other cases make it likely that at least some of the allegations in BuzzFeed are true.

I am not of course aware of the evidence that ASU considered in its decision, as those matters are confidential. Krauss has unconditionally denied all the allegations in the BuzzFeed article, but the incidents of which I am aware have not been addressed by  Krauss or ASU. And, as before, I am not making them public because I was asked to keep them confidential.

As for the recommendation of dismissal, it’s one way to keep women in Krauss’s professional ambit from experiencing sexual predation. Rehabilitation is another, but I don’t know how this can be done in an academic setting; and of course that eliminates the deterrent effect, which is important given the ubiquity of allegations (and admission) of sexual predation in academia. Some might argue that his removal as head of the Origins Project and loss of his chair is already a deterrent. Regardless, no woman should be exposed to such behavior—in the workplace or anywhere else.

Nobel Peace Prize goes to two anti-rape activists

October 5, 2018 • 8:45 am

In all the fracas about the science Nobels, I completely forgot about the Peace Prize, which, unlike the Economics Prize, is a genuine Nobel Prize. And this year it went two two people, Denis Mukwege, a gynecologist from the Congo, and Nadia Murad, a Yazidi Kurdish activist who was held for several months by ISIS. Both of them have worked tirelessly against the employment of rape as a tool of war. Here’s the citation from the Nobel press release:

The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize for 2018 to Denis Mukwege and Nadia Murad for their efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict. Both laureates have made a crucial contribution to focusing attention on, and combating, such war crimes. Denis Mukwege is the helper who has devoted his life to defending these victims. Nadia Murad is the witness who tells of the abuses perpetrated against herself and others. Each of them in their own way has helped to give greater visibility to war-time sexual violence, so that the perpetrators can be held accountable for their actions.

The physician Denis Mukwege has spent large parts of his adult life helping the victims of sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Since the Panzi Hospital was established in Bukavu in 1999, Dr. Mukwege and his staff have treated thousands of patients who have fallen victim to such assaults. Most of the abuses have been committed in the context of a long-lasting civil war that has cost the lives of more than six million Congolese.

. . . Nadia Murad is herself a victim of war crimes. She refused to accept the social codes that require women to remain silent and ashamed of the abuses to which they have been subjected. She has shown uncommon courage in recounting her own sufferings and speaking up on behalf of other victims.

. . . After a three-month nightmare Nadia Murad managed to flee. Following her escape, she chose to speak openly about what she had suffered. In 2016, at the age of just 23, she was named the UN’s first Goodwill Ambassador for the Dignity of Survivors of Human Trafficking.

As the Committee noted, it’s the tenth anniversary of UN Resolution 1820, which deemed sexual violence as a tool of conflict to be a war crime. That, and the rising awareness of sexual violence in peacetime, makes this an especially appropriate award. (Note as well that this year’s Literature Nobel wasn’t awarded because of allegations of sexual abuse against someone associated with the Swedish Academy).

And here are the winners; kudos to them:

Denis Mukwege
Nadia Murad

Woman who accused Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault comes forward

September 16, 2018 • 2:30 pm

Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation as a Supreme Court justice would be a disaster for many years to come, ensuring a firmly conservative court for the future—perhaps even the overturning of decisions like Roe v. Wade. But then again, this would be the case for any of Trump’s nominees. I, for one, would prefer more of a centrist, but who can expect that in this age of right-wing American despotism?

Last week reports surfaced that, while at prep school (a private high school) in Maryland, Kavanaugh had sexually assaulted a woman in front of a witness, a far more serious accusation than the verbal harassment reported by Anita Hill during the Clarence Thomas hearings. But until today it seemed, because the woman didn’t come forward and details weren’t fully known, that this wouldn’t derail Kavanaugh’s nomination.

Today, however, the Washington Post names the woman, now a professor in California who has decided to come forward. Click on the screenshot to read the article:

It’s hard to decide what to think about this. On one hand, one has to ask why the woman would make the allegation if it weren’t true. But of course there are false reports. But her therapist from years ago has a record of her describing the incident, as does her husband, who also remembers Kavanaugh’s name. And the woman has passed a lie-detector test.

On the other hand, the supposed witness says he doesn’t recall the event (which of course Kavanaugh denies), and 65 women from the school have signed a letter testifying to Kavanaugh’s respectful treatment of women. The witness, however, is saying “no comment” now, whereas before he denied he saw any sexual assault. And of course plenty of assailants can behave properly to other women at their school.

This is one of those cases in which if the allegations are true, it’s a no-brainer: Kavanaugh is unsuited to the Court, or to be a judge in any court. The difficulty is in determining if the allegations are true. After all, it’s a he-said she-said business at the moment, and without more proof I’m not sure how this should weigh in Kavanaugh’s nomination.

I have no opinion on the matter yet save this: I think this will probably force Kavanaugh to withdraw his nomination (which Trump will furiously defend), and I won’t be sorry if that happens.

p.s. I forgot to add that the woman who has accused Kavanaugh, Christine Ford, should surely be given a chance to testify before the Senate committee vetting his nomination.