Discussion for article #235652
Let’s not forgot that this guy was also accused by two other female students and a male student of assault. In the case of one of those accusers, he was found responsible, but the case was tossed on appeal, because the accuser had graduated and was unable to comeback and forth to Columbia for proceedings.
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I understand that this lends credence to Sulkowicz’s account, but accusations are not convictions. The school is obligated to follow the law and its own procedures for determining guilt. That may suggest that the school’s procedures should be reformed, but in the absence of a criminal conviction or a determination by the school that the guy in question committed the acts he’s accused of committing, the school can’t just expel him.
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Agreed. There cannot be any exceptions to “innocent until proven guilty”. No one wants to think they are supporting a rapist over his victim, but an “alleged rapist” is not a rapist.
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The Mattress did not immediately respond to requests to comment on the proceedings.
What doesn’t lend credibility is the months of friendly messages she sent him and the fact that it wasn’t until he stopped his relationship that she colluded with two other women to file complaints against, one another former girlfriend. The fact remains that he was found “not responsible”. Yet, she has been allowed, by very University the found him " not responsible" to bully him by calling him a serial rapist. She is nothing but an attention hound. The fault is the University and the media who allows this behavior.
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I’m not sure that’s an accurate description of what happened. He was found “responsible” but the accuser chose not to participate in the appeal. She had already graduated before the first hearing.
The charge brought by Josie was the only one on which Nungesser was initially found “responsible,” with a sentence of disciplinary probation. But that finding was later overturned; Nungesser’s appeal cited various errors and improprieties, including the admission of hearsay, and claimed that the burden of proof—“preponderance of the evidence”—had not been met. When the complaint was referred for a new hearing, Josie decided to withdraw from the process. (The New York Times article suggested that this was because she had already graduated and was unable to participate, but in fact, Josie had already graduated at the time of the first hearing.) The second hearing cleared Nungesser on that charge as well.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/02/03/columbia-student-i-didn-t-rape-her.html
Numerous papers and journals have reported on this, there have been hearings and disciplinary proceedings and what not, and there is not a shred of evidence that this guy did anything to deserve this treatment. At this point in time it clearly borders on harassment. The law suit seems to me a way to caution the accusers that harassment might come with a price tag.
Based on the information I currently have I hope that he gets a huge settlement from Columbia.
No, there shouldn’t be an exception to “innocent until proven guilty” when referring to how the court system should handle cases. However, there’s no such thing in schools and in the workplace. Schools must protect their students. They need to have their own system of justice in place while criminal cases work their way through the court system. A young man could be accused of multiple assaults and it may take years for the case(s) to work through the criminal justice system. Meanwhile, this person could potentially be a threat to other students. If the university didn’t have a system to address this threat they could very well be held liable if another student is attacked.
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There are 2 people who need protection. The man needs protection from false accusations. The woman needs protection from assault. In this case, the university has taken the side of the woman, to the extent of giving her academic credit for a false accusation, at least one which was not supported by a proceeding. What then of the rights of a person not to be falsely accused, and of a person not to be slandered by another?
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“Innocent until proven guilty” cannot be just a legal precept. If anything it is more important as a social convention, not less. You say schools must protect there students. I agree. Schools must protect ALL of their students, and not merely the ones you are assuming to have been victims of rape.
I know; if you assume this young women was raped, then any attempt to defend the one she accuses seems galling. But the reverse is also true. Assume the young lady made it up and the daily, college-sanctioned harassment that the accused has endured is equally unfair.
And if the university has “a system to address” these threats that allows for convictions in the court of public opinion, then they are as open to liability as if they had no system at all.
Student don’t have rights not included in the student handbook. Cheating on an exam or plagiarizing another student’s work isn’t a crime, but it most certainly can get you kicked out of your school.
Also, you don’t know that the accusation was false and neither does the school, but because they had multiple accusations against this guy they had no choice but to act.
Does the school also have responsibility to protect him from being bullied? It would be no different than if someone accused you of rape and when the legal system either found you not guilty or not enough evidence to prosecute, the alleged victim was allowed to picket your home, follow you around, go to you workplace carrying signs that you are a serial rapist.
This nothing more than the University sanctioned character assasination and bullying against a student they cleared of any wrong doing.
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I absolutely disagree, and the term I used was assault and I used that term on purpose. If a student is accused of assaulting (ie starting fistfights) several other students, the university has a duty to act to protect the other students. They can’t wait around for the kid to seriously hurt someone. It’s also the same in other situations such as the workplace. If a worker has exhibited behaviors that aren’t necessarily illegal but are against policy they are allowed to act without due process. Innocent until proven guilty is how governments are supposed to treat citizens accused of a crime, it has absolutely nothing to do with private citizens or a private company or a university. It’s perfectly legal to post racist, homophobic, antisemitic rants on your Facebook page but if the company you work for finds out about it, you might get your ass canned and you’re not going to get a hearing. That’s life.
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I am genuinely concerned about sexual assault and rape. However, the thing I find troubling about this case and the UVA case, is that so much of the evidence that is exculpatory, disjointed timelines, incorrect facts, long periods of time passing in between the alleged act and its reporting, and so many other actions are cited as “not unusual for this kind of trauma” or even presented as exactly what we should expect to happen in this kind of assault. Basically, the evidence that points to a person’s innocence are actually evidence of a person’s guilt? That is just crazy. If that is the case, then absent actual physical evidence, and reporting in real time of the act itself, how can we ever hope to ascertain the truth in these kinds of cases?
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I’m sure you were just as outraged at OJ Simpson’s treatment after he was found not guilty.
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What is your interpretation of the FACT that she waited months prior to filing the rape charge, after she had discussed him with other students? Are you troubled by the strong possibility that her interpretation of the actual event that she experienced was changed, reinterpreted, or modified by the statements of other people? I sure am. Note also that the ACT in this single case is not a series of acts, but a single act.
If it takes 5 months and discussions with 3 other people to conclude that something was a rape, it wasn’t a rape.
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I don’t give crap about OJ. But that is a different situation, the family brought and was victorious in a wrongful death civil suit against OJ. In this case the very University found this man to be “not responsible” than allowed him to be bullied and vilified against their claim to foster a learning enivronment free of a hostilility, intimidation, discrimination , etc…
The fact is they not only didn’t live up to that requirement but they encouraged and promoted it by allowing this activity to continue for almost a year.
There are any number of reasons a woman might wait months before reporting a rape. I don’t think we should place an arbitrary time limit on when the accusation can be made. That said, in a case where there is neither physical evidence nor third-party witnesses, then proving the rape in either an academic or criminal setting is very, very difficult months after the fact.
What troubles me about this case is, as others have noted, the accused has no recourse from the trial-by-media that ensued.
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You simply cannot be serious. It’s either a rape or it is not. She either resists or does not resist, and if it takes months, it simply is not rape. If she needs a discussion with others, it is not rape.
There are a lot of sex acts which involve a lot of things that I would never do nor am I interested. I am 100% sure that at the end of the situation either I cooperated willingly or I did not. If you don’t know if you cooperated, it is not rape.
You say there are “any number of reasons”. What specific reasons would those be? You say number, so 1 or more will do.