William Creeley
May 24, 2013

The controversial University of Montana findings letter and resolution agreement (together, the “blueprint”) issued by the Departments of Justice and Education two weeks ago have drawn criticism from commentators nationwide. The heat has come from all corners, with UCLA School of Law professor and First Amendment expert Eugene Volokh, former Department of Education attorney Hans Bader, editorial boards, columnists, bloggers, civil libertarians, and many more weighing in on the threat to free speech on campus.

Given the hailstorm of criticism that has followed the feds’ high-profile roll-out for the University of Montana agreement, I’ve been struck by the lack of public support for the shockingly broad definition of “sexual harassment” that the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) will now require of institutions receiving federal funding. Disappointingly, OCR has gone silent again, just as it did the last time it decided to severely erode student and faculty rights. I encourage folks reading at home to try your luck contacting OCR, because I’m pretty certain that they plan to simply ignore concerns about campus civil liberties until forced by popular demand to do otherwise.

So while we wait for answers from the authors of this “blueprint for colleges and universities throughout the country,” I want to address a question I’ve seen surface in a few comment sections online. A couple of folks have noted that the broad definition of sexual harassment put forth in the blueprint—that is, “any unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature”—closely tracks language contained in OCR’s 2001 Revised Sexual Harassment Guidance. In that document, OCR states that “[s]exual harassment is unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature.”

Given the nearly identical phrasing, I’ve seen a few commenters ask why we’re so concerned. How is the blueprint released two weeks ago different from the 2001 Guidance?

Short answer? Plenty.

For the long answer, let’s review the three central differences.

1. Unlike the 2001 Guidance, the “blueprint” requires the broad definition to be adopted verbatim as university policy.

In describing sexual harassment generally, the 2001 Guidance uses the same formulation found in the new blueprint—but it absolutely does not require colleges and universities to adopt that language, verbatim, as university policy.

In fact, the opposite is true. According to the 2001 Guidance, “Title IX does not require a school to adopt a policy specifically prohibiting sexual harassment or to provide separate grievance procedures for sexual harassment complaints.” Read that again: Not only does the 2001 Guidance not require schools to adopt the broad definition of sexual harassment as a statement of policy, it doesn’t require schools to adopt a sexual harassment policy at all. As long as the institution adopts and publishes “a policy against sex discrimination and grievance procedures providing for prompt and equitable resolution of complaints of discrimination on the basis of sex,” and as long as that policy and those procedures “provide effective means for preventing and responding to sexual harassment,” the school has fulfilled its obligations under Title IX.

And far from requiring universities to adopt the broad definition of sexual harassment verbatim, as the new blueprint does, the 2001 Guidance grants colleges and universities significant autonomy to draft their own procedures for fulfilling their Title IX obligations, based on their own particular institutional circumstances. The 2001 Guidance provides:

Procedures adopted by schools will vary considerably in detail, specificity, and components, reflecting differences in audiences, school sizes and administrative structures, State or local legal requirements, and past experience.

No one-size-fits-all mandate here!

In sharp contrast, the findings letter issued two weeks ago instructs the University of Montana to define sexual harassment in a very specific, very expansive way: “sexual harassment should be more broadly defined as ‘any unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature.’” In so doing, the blueprint entirely erases the autonomy provided to institutions by the 2001 Guidance.

The findings letter explicitly rejects one of the University of Montana’s previous definitions—stating that sexual harassment is conduct “sufficiently severe or pervasive as to disrupt or undermine a person’s ability to participate in or receive the benefits, services, or opportunities of the University, including unreasonably interfering with a person’s work or educational performance”—as deficient. (It’s worth noting that FIRE rates this policy as a “green light,” as it presents no threat to protected expression as written. The policy does a fair job of tracking the core elements of the speech-protective definition of harassment in the educational context announced by the Supreme Court of the United States in Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education, 526 U.S. 629, 652 (1999).)

The rejection of this University of Montana policy cannot be squared with the deference granted to institutions in the 2001 Guidance. And by proclaiming the University of Montana agreement to be a “blueprint for colleges and universities throughout the country,” OCR and the Department of Justice (DOJ) have fired a warning shot intended to be heard nationwide. To be in compliance with Title IX, the federal government is now on record as demanding that schools specifically adopt the broadest possible definition of sexual harassment as an operable statement of policy. That’s new.

2. Unlike the 2001 Guidance, the blueprint requires a new policy distinction between “hostile environment” harassment and “sexual harassment” more generally.

The second key difference between the 2001 Guidance and the blueprint is related to the first, but important enough to discuss separately.

In rejecting the University of Montana definition of sexual harassment provided above, OCR and DOJ charge that the university has impermissibly merged the definitions of what it characterizes as two separate offenses: “sexual harassment” and “hostile environment” harassment. Here’s the exact passage from page 8 of the findings letter:

The confusion about when and to whom to report sexual harassment is attributable in part to inconsistent and inadequate definitions of “sexual harassment” in the University’s policies. First, the University’s policies conflate the definitions of “sexual harassment” and “hostile environment.” Sexual harassment is unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature. When sexual harassment is sufficiently severe or pervasive to deny or limit a student’s ability to participate in or benefit from the school’s program based on sex, it creates a hostile environment. The University’s Sexual Harassment Policy, however, defines “sexual harassment” as conduct that “is sufficiently severe or pervasive as to disrupt or undermine a person’s ability to participate in or receive the benefits, services, or opportunities of the University, including unreasonably interfering with a person’s work or educational performance.” While this limited definition is consistent with a hostile educational environment created by sexual harassment, sexual harassment should be more broadly defined as “any unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature.” [Internal citation omitted.]

In other words, the blueprint requires universities to distinguish between “hostile environment” harassment and “sexual harassment” more generally—seemingly creating a broad third category of “sexual harassment,” distinct from hostile environment harassment and quid pro quo harassment. Accordingly, OCR and DOJ reject the University of Montana’s definition, claiming that it only reaches hostile environment harassment, and not sexual harassment writ large.

But this distinction between “sexual harassment” and “hostile environment” harassment is very different from the conception of sexual harassment discussed in OCR’s 2001 Guidance. In 2001, OCR stated:

This guidance moves away from specific labels for types of sexual harassment. In each case, the issue is whether the harassment rises to a level that it denies or limits a student’s ability to participate in or benefit from the school’s program based on sex. However, an understanding of the different types of sexual harassment can help schools determine whether or not harassment has occurred that triggers a school’s responsibilities under, or violates, Title IX or its regulations.

The type of harassment traditionally referred to as quid pro quo harassment occurs if a teacher or other employee conditions an educational decision or benefit on the student’s submission to unwelcome sexual conduct. Whether the student resists and suffers the threatened harm or submits and avoids the threatened harm, the student has been treated differently, or the student’s ability to participate in or benefit from the school’s program has been denied or limited, on the basis of sex in violation of the Title IX regulations.

By contrast, sexual harassment can occur that does not explicitly or implicitly condition a decision or benefit on submission to sexual conduct. Harassment of this type is generally referred to as hostile environment harassment. This type of harassing conduct requires a further assessment of whether or not the conduct is sufficiently serious to deny or limit a student’s ability to participate in or benefit from the school’s program based on sex.

Teachers and other employees can engage in either type of harassment. Students and third parties are not generally given responsibility over other students and, thus, generally can only engage in hostile environment harassment. [Emphases added; internal citations omitted.]

Here, OCR makes no functional distinction between “sexual harassment” among students and “hostile environment” harassment at all. Indeed, OCR states that for students, sexual harassment is hostile environment harassment. So if the University of Montana’s policy impermissibly conflated hostile environment harassment and sexual harassment, as OCR and DOJ charge, then OCR’s 2001 Guidance is guilty of the same.

OCR’s distinction between “hostile environment” harassment and “sexual harassment” more generally is new, and so is requiring schools to make this distinction in their policies.

Why does this new distinction matter for freedom of expression?

Here’s why mandating this new distinction is important—and why it harms student and faculty rights. By separating “sexual harassment” from “hostile environment” harassment, OCR has also separated “sexual harassment” from the set of evaluative factors it uses to determine whether a hostile environment has been created. These factors include whether the conduct affected a student’s education, whether the conduct was part of a pattern of behavior, the identity of and relationship between the individuals involved, the context of the conduct, and more. By reviewing these and other factors to determine whether conduct created a hostile environment—and was thus sexual harassment—schools were able to separate truly harassing conduct from merely offensive or unwanted speech. Indeed, the 2001 Guidance instructed schools to “use these factors to evaluate conduct in order to draw commonsense distinctions between conduct that constitutes sexual harassment and conduct that does not rise to that level.”

Perhaps the most important of these evaluative factors is the requirement that allegedly harassing conduct must be evaluated from an objective, “reasonable person” standpoint. But under the blueprint, reference to this reasonable person standard may no longer be used to determine whether or not conduct is “sexual harassment.” As the blueprint states:

Sexual Harassment Policy 406.5.1 improperly suggests that the conduct does not constitute sexual harassment unless it is objectively offensive. This policy provides examples of unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature but then states that “[w]hether conduct is sufficiently offensive to constitute sexual harassment is determined from the perspective of an objectively reasonable person of the same gender in the same situation.” Whether conduct is objectively offensive is a factor used to determine if a hostile environment has been created, but it is not the standard to determine whether conduct was “unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature” and therefore constitutes “sexual harassment.” [Emphasis added.]

Put another way, because “hostile environment” harassment is now separate from “sexual harassment,” OCR no longer requires a showing of objective offense for conduct to be considered harassment. And because “conduct” includes “verbal conduct” (i.e., speech), even protected speech that wouldn’t offend a reasonable person may now be deemed “sexual harassment.” That’s new—and it’s certainly not common sense.

To demonstrate just how new—and dangerous—this result is, compare the blueprint’s removal of the objectivity requirement to the “Dear Colleague” letter issued by OCR in 2003 about the relationship between the First Amendment and federal anti-discrimination statutes like Title IX. In that letter, OCR made the importance of an objective evaluation very clear:

Harassment, however, to be prohibited by the statutes within OCR’s jurisdiction, must include something beyond the mere expression of views, words, symbols or thoughts that some person finds offensive. Under OCR’s standard, the conduct must also be considered sufficiently serious to deny or limit a student’s ability to participate in or benefit from the educational program. Thus, OCR’s standards require that the conduct be evaluated from the perspective of a reasonable person in the alleged victim’s position, considering all the circumstances, including the alleged victim’s age. [Emphasis added.]

Removing the objectivity requirement and the other evaluative factors presents a serious threat to free expression on campus by rendering any speech of a sexual nature “sexual harassment” if a listener happens to be offended. As I explained in depth over at The Huffington Post, expanding the definition of sexual harassment this broadly means that real harassment will be trivialized, everyone on campus will be effectively branded a harasser, and students and faculty will rationally choose to keep their mouths shut rather than risk offending somebody. Those are all terrible outcomes for free speech on campus.

3. Unlike the 2001 Guidance, the blueprint entirely fails to consider civil liberties.

Finally, the new blueprint differs from the 2001 Guidance because it completely and utterly ignores free speech and due process rights. Not only did the 2001 Guidance grant significant deference to schools, and not only did it equate hostile environment harassment with sexual harassment and require conduct to be evaluated via a speech-protective set of factors, it also discussed civil liberties concerns at length, with two separate sections explicitly devoted to the First Amendment and the due process rights of the accused.

With regard to the First Amendment, the 2001 Guidance states plainly that:

Title IX is intended to protect students from sex discrimination, not to regulate the content of speech…. [I]n regulating the conduct of its students and its faculty to prevent or redress discrimination prohibited by Title IX (e.g., in responding to harassment that is sufficiently serious as to create a hostile environment), a school must formulate, interpret, and apply its rules so as to protect academic freedom and free speech rights.

That’s a very clear recognition of the importance of protecting campus expression, made even clearer by the 2003 Dear Colleague letter that followed, as my colleague Samantha Harris pointed out last week.

In sharp contrast—again—the words “free speech” and “First Amendment” simply do not appear anywhere in the blueprint’s 47 pages.

Sadly, the situation is much the same with regard to due process rights. The 2001 Guidance unequivocally acknowledges the necessity of due process protections:

The Constitution also guarantees due process to students in public and State-supported schools who are accused of certain types of infractions. The rights established under Title IX must be interpreted consistent with any federally guaranteed due process rights involved in a complaint proceeding. Furthermore, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) does not override federally protected due process rights of persons accused of sexual harassment. Procedures that ensure the Title IX rights of the complainant, while at the same time according due process to both parties involved, will lead to sound and supportable decisions.

The blueprint, on the other hand, does not. In fact, the blueprint even criticizes the University of Montana’s emphasis on due process rights:

The focus of the SCC [Student Conduct Code] process is on the perpetrator, his or her due process rights, and resolving possible violations of the SCC, and it does not adequately address the Title IX rights of the victim.

While the blueprint later acknowledges, in passing, that “students who are accused of [Student Conduct Code] violations are entitled to due process,” this brief aside is far removed from the 2001 Guidance’s clear recognition. In fact, the blueprint evinces such a contempt for due process rights that it actually goes so far as to suggest that in some cases, punishment may be required before the end of the investigation of allegedly harassing conduct:

In addition, a university must take immediate steps to protect the complainant from further harassment prior to the completion of the Title IX and Title IV investigation/resolution. Appropriate steps may include separating the accused harasser and the complainant, providing counseling for the complainant and/or harasser, and/or taking disciplinary action against the harasser. [Emphasis added.]

Punishing a student before completing an investigation? It’s hard to imagine a more thorough rejection of due process rights than that.

Conclusion

So those are three major reasons that the blueprint represents a startling new approach for OCR—and a real threat to student and faculty rights. There are more. For example, the 2001 Guidance was issued after public notice and comment, in accordance with the Administrative Procedure Act, which requires agencies like OCR to solicit comments from those affected by proposed rulemaking before enactment. (Here’s a thorough discussion of the APA in the context of OCR’s 2011 “Dear Colleague” letter.) In contrast, the blueprint tacitly announces new requirements for institutions under Title IX, but was subject to no such review or comment.

We’ll have much more on the blueprint here soon. In the meantime, if you don’t support what OCR and DOJ’s new blueprint has done to student and faculty rights, remember to tell them directly.

Source: http://thefire.org/torch/#15838

The purpose of this survey is to learn from lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans* survivors of domestic abuse, what the lived experience of domestic violence is like, if or when you tried to find help, support advice or accommodation. We want to hear about what organisations and services do well and what needs improvement. We want to identify the barriers for getting help. We need to know where they exist and what the consequences are when survivors are faced with those barriers.

LGBT* people are diverse and different in many ways but the one thing we all deserve is equality, dignity and respect when we are most vulnerable. We hope this survey will find good examples of this happening but we have an inkling that all might not rosy, the other side of the rainbow.

Take the survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/Roar2013

The survey will close on the 25th August 2013.

Source: http://lgbtdaf.org/

Mike McIntyre
04/26/2013

A Winnipeg mother has permanently lost custody of her three children after admitting she falsely accused her ex-husband of sexually abusing them.

The woman appeared before the Manitoba Court of Appeal last month begging for a second chance, apologizing for the bogus claims and saying she was “at most, guilty of caring too much.”

But the high court slammed the door shut in a decision released this week, upholding a family court judge’s decision to award sole custody to her estranged spouse. The woman will continue to be allowed supervised access.

“She argues… specifically that she falsely accused the father of sexual abuse of the children of the marriage and tried to alienate them from him… that she has been ‘punished long enough,’ ” Justice Freda Steel wrote in the Appeal Court. “She submits the conditions placed on her ability to see her children as harsh, punitive and contrary to the best interests of her children.”

The case began shortly after the couple separated in 2003 following eight years of marriage. They initially agreed to joint custody of their three young boys, but their arrangement quickly imploded and the courts were brought in to mediate.

It was in 2006 when the woman first accused the man of molesting the children. The bombshell claim led to several months of Child and Family Services and police investigation which greatly disrupted the father’s life, the Appeal Court wrote this week.

Eventually, the abuse was ruled out and the woman eventually admitted she had made it up in an attempt to discredit her ex and gain sole custody. She was never charged for the malicious allegations, although they have come back to haunt her in the child-custody dispute. The woman has twice been found in contempt of court for failing to abide by previous legal rulings in the case. She is on the hook for more than $10,000 of her ex-husband’s legal costs.

A Winnipeg psychiatrist who did a court-ordered family assessment as part of the ongoing legal dispute predicted this case wasn’t going to have a happy ending for all parties.

“The parents are incapable of negotiation, co-operating or conversing in an open, civil manner on any subject. As such, they are completely incapable of collaborative parenting of any kind,” the doctor wrote.

This followed an earlier report from a couples’ therapist who predicted back in 2002 — months before they formally separated — that big trouble was looming.

“They will spend 10 years and all their money on litigation because of their inability to agree on anything,” the therapist said in a report referenced by the Appeal Court this week.

Steel, writing on behalf of the three justices who decided the case, said that’s exactly what has happened.

“This is a high-conflict domestic dispute which has been ongoing for 10 years and which has resulted in thousands of dollars of legal fees to both parents, emotional anguish to the entire family and continuing litigation,” said Steel. “It is the kind of domestic dispute which is particularly ill-suited to the blunt blows of the legal system, despite the best intentions of all involved.”

Both parents can no longer afford lawyers and have been self-represented for the past several years, court was told.

Another court-ordered report has found the three boys to be “happy and adapting well to life with their father.” Unfortunately, the author also concluded the mother continues to be “inappropriate with the boys during her visits” in terms of trying to turn them against their father. This is why all visits must now be supervised, the Appeal Court ruled.

The mother has also been ordered to undergo a psychiatric assessment because of concern she may have a “delusional belief system or some other mental-health issue.” To date, she has refused to comply on the grounds she can’t find a psychiatrist willing to work with her.

Source: http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/a-child-custody-catastrophe-204810201.html

Kia Motors seems to think they will sell more cars to women if their ads include a little female-on-male abuse. In the following ad they’ve made the woman a human-looking robot. We think it’s offensive, whether she’s a robot or not.

Please contact Kia Motors today. Use whichever link is the most convenient.

Tell them you won’t be buying any of their cars as long as they try to sell them with “humorous violence.”

• Kia Motors: http://www.kia.com/worldwide/contactus.aspx
• Kia on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Kiamotorsworldwide
• Kia on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Kia

On behalf of every victim of violence, thank you.

teri

Teri Stoddard, Program Director
Stop Abusive and Violent Environments
www.saveservices.org

PS. Please help us grow our efforts. And share this e-lert with a friend.

COTWA
May 22, 2013

A follow-up to a story we’ve followed closely. Elizabeth Coast pleaded guilty yesterday to making a false sexual assault report that led to the conviction and imprisonment of an innocent man. Johnathon Montgomery spent four years in prison for a sexual assault that never happened.

Coast falsely claimed that Mr. Montgomery molested her in 2000 when he was just 14-years-old and she was 10. Mr. Montgomery denied the allegations, but in 2008 a judge convicted him of aggravated sexual battery and other charges based solely on his accuser’s story. He was sentenced to 7½ years in prison. Coast finally recanted her story last year and was charged with perjury.

Coast told investigators that her parents caught her looking at pornographic websites in 2007 when she was 17, so she concocted a story of prior sexual abuse to explain her behavior. In 2000, Montgomery lived across the street from Coast’s grandmother in Hampton.

A newspaper account this morning noted that when Coast devised the assault story, she supposedly didn’t think anything would happen to Montgomery because he had moved with his father and stepmother to North Carolina in 2004.

Coast’s excuse scarcely mitigates her heinous wrongdoing. Once unleashed a rape lie takes on a life of its own. In this case, Coast could have spared Mr. Montgomery the horrors she put him through at any time but chose not to. When Coast saw that Mr. Montgomery had been targeted by law enforcement authorities, she allowed him to be charged, and then tried, convicted, and imprisoned for four years. Finally, she spoke up. (To put this in perspective, if a young man failed to withdraw for several seconds after his sex partner tells him to “stop,” he is considered a rapist and will face years in prison. In contrast, Elizabeth Coast allowed Johnathon Montgomery to spend four years in an unspeakable false rape hell.) It would be difficult to fathom a more despicable act.

A Circuit Court judge exonerated Mr. Montgomery last November and ordered him freed. He was released after Gov. Bob McDonnell issued a conditional pardon. The governor stated: “Tonight I called Johnathon to personally offer, on behalf of the citizens of the Commonwealth, our heartfelt apologies for all that he has been put through due to this miscarriage of justice. I am thankful that the witness in this case finally stepped forward to recent her testimony. Justice, while tragically delayed, has been served.”

The governor’s sentiments no doubt were sincere, but this was anything but “justice.” And despite the pardon, Montgomery will not be fully exonerated unless the Virginia Court of Appeals grants his petition for a writ of actual innocence. The court agreed last December to let Montgomery’s petition move ahead, but Montgomery’s lawyers and the Virginia Attorney General’s office asked the court to delay considering the petition until after the perjury charge against Coast was settled.

Source: http://www.cotwa.info/2013/05/false-accuser-who-sent-innocent-young.html

The most comprehensive review of the scholarly domestic violence research literature ever conducted concludes, among other things, that women perpetrate physical and emotional abuse, and engage in control behaviors, at comparable rates to men. The study was directed by the Editor-in-Chief of Partner Abuse, a Springer Publishing Company journal.

May 21, 2013

The most comprehensive review of the scholarly domestic violence research literature ever conducted concludes, among other things, that women perpetrate physical and emotional abuse, as well as engage in control behaviors, at comparable rates to men. The Partner Abuse State of Knowledge project, or PASK, whose final installment was just published in the journal Partner Abuse, is an unparalleled three-year research project, conducted by 42 scholars at 20 universities and research centers, and including information on 17 areas of domestic violence research.

“Over the years, research on partner abuse has become unnecessarily fragmented and politicized,” commented John Hamel, Editor-in-Chief of Partner Abuse and PASK Director. “The purpose of this project is to bring together, in a rigorously evidence-based, transparent and methodical manner, existing knowledge about partner abuse, with reliable, up-to-date research that can easily be accessed by anyone. PASK is grounded in the premises that everyone is entitled to their opinion, but not to their own facts; that these facts should be available to everyone, and that domestic violence intervention and policy ought to be based upon these facts rather than ideology and special interests.”

Among PASK’s findings are that, except for sexual coercion, men and women perpetrate physical and non-physical forms of abuse at comparable rates, most domestic violence is mutual, women are as controlling as men, domestic violence by men and women is correlated with essentially the same risk factors, and male and female perpetrators are motivated for similar reasons.

“Although research confirms that women are more impacted by domestic violence,” stated Hamel, “these findings recommend important intervention and policy changes, including a need to pay more attention to female-perpetrated violence, mutual abuse, and the needs of male victims.”

Hamel also argues that men are not only disproportionately arrested in domestic violence cases, but sometimes arrested for arbitrary reasons, citing, for example, that police often arrest the bigger and stronger party in cases where the perpetrator is unclear. “Such policies are not only ineffective but violate people’s civil rights,” Hamel concludes. “People in the domestic violence field say that ‘it’s all about the victims.’ Well, the victim is not always the one hit, but sometimes the one arrested.”

Read more about the Partner Abuse State of Knowledge Project, or visit the world’s largest domestic violence research database at http://www.domesticviolenceresearch.org for free access to thousands of pages summarizing 1,700 peer-reviewed studies.

Watch an interview clip with John Hamel discussing PASK’s key findings and policy implications.

For more information or to schedule an interview with John Hamel, contact Dara Salem at dsalem(at)springerpub(dot)com, or at 212-804-6236.

Source: PR Web

Women are more likely to speak up

By Rowan Scarborough
May 20, 2013

More military men than women are sexually abused in the ranks each year, a Pentagon survey shows, highlighting the underreporting of male-on-male assaults.

When the Defense Department released the results of its anonymous sexual abuse survey this month and concluded that 26,000 service members were victims in fiscal 2012, which ended Sept. 30, an automatic assumption was that most were women. But roughly 14,000 of the victims were male and 12,000 female, according to a scientific survey sample produced by the Pentagon.

The statistics show that, as Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel begins a campaign to stamp out “unwanted sexual contact,” there are two sets of victims that must be addressed.

“It appears that the DOD has serious problems with male-on-male sexual assaults that men are not reporting and the Pentagon doesn’t want to talk about,” Elaine Donnelly, who heads the Center for Military Readiness. She noted that only 2 percent of assailants are women.

Pentagon spokeswoman Cynthia Smith said the Sexual Assault Response and Prevention Office is tackling the entire problem.

The assault office “recognizes the challenges male survivors face and has reached out to organizations supporting male survivors for assistance and information to help inform our way ahead,” Ms. Smith said. “A focus of our prevention efforts over the next several months is specifically geared toward male survivors and will include why male survivors report at much lower rates than female survivors, and determining the unique support and assistance male survivors need.”

She said the department has included information on male victims on the “DOD Safe Helpline,” which connects them to trained professionals.

“Together, everyone in this department at every level of command will continue to work together every day to establish an environment of dignity and respect, where sexual assault is not tolerated, condoned or ignored, where there is clear accountability placed on all leaders at every level,” Ms. Smith said.

The Pentagon’s 1,400-page annual report came with two basic sets of data: official reports of sex crimes and a scientific survey sample of the 1.4 million active force from which the department extrapolated the number of abuses, regardless of whether they were officially reported.

Data showed 2,949 reports of abuse against a service member last year compared with 1,275 in 2004. The vast majority of victims (88 percent) were female — a statistic that tells the Pentagon that male victims (12 percent) do not come forward at the same rate.

Subjects of investigations are almost always men (90 percent), compared with women (2 percent) — a statistic indicating that male victims are assaulted by other men.

The survey determined that 26,000 service members were victims of sexual assault last year, based on the 6.1 percent of female and 1.2 percent of male respondents who claimed to have suffered such abuse. With an active-duty force of 200,000 women and 1.2 million men, that amounts to roughly 12,000 female victims and 14,000 male victims.

“The [Sexual Assault Response and Prevention Office] continues to focus its attention on women who experience abuse but don’t report it, overlooking the far greater numbers of men who, according to the survey, are experiencing abuse but not reporting it,” said Mrs. Donnelly, who heads the Center for Military Readiness.

“If the Pentagon considers the survey results a credible reflection of hidden reality, they must also concede that there are more men than women who are being sexually assaulted,” she said.

Mrs. Donnelly fought President Obama’s decision to lift the ban on open gays in the ranks, which took effect in September 2011. She also opposes plans to open direct ground combat jobs to women, saying it will import the sexual abuse problem into the combat ranks.

The annual report shows that of assaults on women, 67 percent happened on base, 19 percent in a war zone and 20 percent on a ship or a field exercise.

For male-on-male assaults, 73 percent happened on base and 26 percent in a combat zone.

The Pentagon’s definition of unwanted sexual contact ranges from rape to “abusive sexual contact” and “involves intentional sexual contact that was against a person’s will or occurred when the person did not or could not consent. The term describes completed and attempted oral, anal and vaginal penetration with any body part or object, and the unwanted touching of genitalia and other sexually related areas of the body.”

In light of the annual report that shows an increase in unwanted sexual contact, Mr. Hagel and his senior officers and enlisted personnel met with Mr. Obama last week to discuss what the defense secretary called “this huge problem.”

“The president was very constructive,” Mr. Hagel told reporters Friday. “He was very clear. There wasn’t anybody in that room who wasn’t disappointed and embarrassed and didn’t recognize that we’ve in many ways failed. But we all have committed to turn this around, and we’re going to fix the problem. As the president said in his comments after that meeting, there’s no silver bullet. This is going to take all of us.”

Aaron Belkin, who heads The Palm Center, which studies gays and lesbians in the military, said “very few” male-on-male perpetrators are gay, saying such incidents are “somewhat similar to prison rape.”

“It is important to try as hard as possible to eliminate sexual assaults from the military, but I don’t think that procedural reforms will do much to lower the incidence rate unless military culture changes dramatically,” said Mr. Belkin, whose 2012 book “Bring Me Men,” included a case study on male-on-male rape in the military.

SOURCE: washingtontimes.com

In case you haven’t made plans yet to attend our June conference,”Celebrating Our Progress!” I thought I’d tell you about last year’s event. We had captivating speakers, connections were made, friendships were started, and we all left feeling a little more empowered.

This year, we are excited to have two women as our keynote speakers.

• June 21 – Optional lobbying. Speaker Erin Pizzey, founder of the abuse shelter movement. Complimentary dinner.
• June 22 – Keynote speaker Kathleen King, former magistrate. Several more speakers. Complimentary lunch.

Visit the SAVE website for the schedule and info on lodging: http://www.saveservices.org/dvlp/annual-conference-2013/.

Visit eventbrite to register online: http://celebratingourprogress.eventbrite.com/

I hope to see you there,

teri

PS. Conference ticket prices go up June 1st.

Teri Stoddard, Program Director
Stop Abusive and Violent Environments
www.saveservices.org

Please help us grow our efforts. And share this e-lert with a friend.

Hans A. von Spakovsky
May 15, 2013

Zero tolerance policies have led to elementary students being suspended for playing cops and robbers on the playground. Now, the federal government is telling colleges that behavior as innocuous as asking a fellow student for a date is sexual harassment and a potential violation of both Title IX, the federal law prohibiting sex discrimination in education, and Title IV of the Civil Rights Act.

In a bizarre letter to the University of Montana, the government lays out the rules on how the university must handle “allegations of sexual assault and harassment at its Missoula campus.” The letter specifically says that it “will serve as a blueprint for colleges and universities throughout the country.”

The letter comes from the Department of Education and the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, which is headed by Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez, President Obama’s nominee to be the new secretary of Labor. It is signed by Anurima Bhargava, chief of the Civil Rights Division’s Educational Opportunities Section. Bhargava was the director of the NAACP’s Legal Defense and Education Fund before Perez bypassed career civil service lawyers within the Division and hired her to head the Section.

As PJ Media previously reported in its “Every Single One” series on hiring in the Division, when Bhargava was at the NAACP, she tried unsuccessfully to convince the Supreme Court that local schools should be allowed to assign public students to different schools based on their race. She told a United Nations Forum on Minority Issues that it was imperative that schools consider race, language, immigration status, and religion in placement decisions.

In other words, the head of the Justice Department’s Education Section believes that schools should be able to discriminate on a wholesale basis – as long as it is the “right” kind of discrimination. When she was at the ACLU, she was actually honored for her work opposing state referenda trying to outlaw racial preferences.

The DOJ/DOE letter lays out a legal rule that directly contradicts Supreme Court rulings. It criticizes the University of Montana’s policy that conduct must be objectively offensive to constitute sexual harassment. The university policy provides that “whether a conduct is sufficiently offensive to constitute sexual harassment is determined from the perspective of an objectively reasonable person of the same gender in the same situation.” But the Orwellian letter dictates that the university must institute a policy that defines sexual harassment as “any unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature.”

In 1999 the Supreme Court stated in Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education that, for a school to be liable for student-on-student sexual harassment, the conduct in question must be “so severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive that it can be said to deprive the victims of access to the educational opportunities or benefits provided by the school.” Needless to say, one could steer a modern cruise ship through the vast gulf between the actual state of the law and the twisted policy being advanced by the Obama administration’s Justice and Education Departments.

Indeed, the rule that DOJ/DOE is pushing would mean that a single instance of conduct that is “offensive” to only one individual would constitute a violation of the law, even if that individual’s reaction is totally unreasonable. DOJ/DOE also insists that sexual harassment includes “unwelcome” (not just offensive) conduct that is “verbal, nonverbal, or physical conduct.”

The breadth of this new mandate, plucked from the mists occupied only by the most radical ideologues, is staggering. Under DOJ/DOE’s definition of sexual harassment, a student asking another out on a date could conceivably violate the law if the person being asked out found the question “unwelcome”and somehow believed it was the pretext to a sexual advance or romantic proposal. Or if a student was taking a health class where biological reproduction was discussed, the teacher might be found guilty of sexual harassment if one student found the discussion “unwelcome,” even if no one else in the class and no reasonable person found it unwelcome or offensive. In other words, under this definition, the most trivial conduct could be considered sexual harassment. And, get this — if a university did not take immediate and severe action to punish the “transgressor,” it could lose its federal funding under Title IX.

This political correctness madness essentially implements a zero tolerance policy in colleges for any verbal conduct a hypersensitive listener deems unwelcome. It could have a severe impact on the First Amendment rights of students, restricting not just the dating routines pervasive on campus, but free discussion and discourse on many different issues. It will damage the careers of students who are suspended or expelled for innocuous speech and behavior.

But DOJ/DOE’s policy directive gets worse, limiting the due process rights of students and requiring universities to implement what amounts to a “guilty-until-proven-innocent” rule that is completely at odds with impartial justice.

Bhargava criticizes the university’s procedure for investigating sexual harassment complaints, noting that it has “multiple stages,” including an appeals process which can take “months” to resolve. She seems particularly piqued that an initial finding against one accused student “resulted in reversal” after it was appealed. A Justice Department offended that a defendant might be able to go through several levels of appeal is something that should scare all of us. What’s wrong with an even-handed, deliberate process with appeals that protect the rights of both the accuser and the accused?

Perhaps Tom Perez’s Civil Rights Division would prefer a Star Chamber that immediately slams the door on anyone accused of sexual harassment. How else is one to interpret Bhargava’s suggestion that an “appropriate step” by a university might include “taking disciplinary action against the harasser” before “the completion of the Title IX and Title IV investigation/resolution”? They appear to want the university to apply the Queen of Heart’s admonition in Alice in Wonderland and lop off the heads of anyone accused of sexual harassment before there has even been an investigation or hearing to determine whether the accusations are true.

The university is also faulted for using a “clear and convincing evidence” standard instead of a “preponderance of the evidence” standard. In other words, in a situation involving very serious charges that could end a student’s college career, DOJ/DOE insist that the university use a weak legal standard that will find a student guilty if the likelihood that the sexual harassment occurred is only slightly higher than 50 percent. Such a “toss-a-coin” standard is an attack on very basic due process rights, which is why institutions like the University of Montana and Harvard University have long followed a higher standard of requiring clear and convincing evidence that an individual engaged in unlawful conduct.

This is another broad overreach by high-level government officials driven by rank ideology, not the best interests of students in an academic setting. Sexual harassment is a serious issue and should be treated as such. But the Justice and Education Departments are trying to ban speech protected by the First Amendment even if it is “unwelcome” and behavior that any reasonable person would find harmless.

In the Davis case, the Supreme Court said it was not outlawing “insults, banter, teasing…and gender-specific conduct that is upsetting to students” and that it “trust[ed]” courts would not be misled to impose “sweeping liability.” But it is exactly that type of “sweeping liability” that ideologues serving in this administration are now trying to impose.

Source: http://pjmedia.com/blog/making-a-request-for-a-date-could-be-a-federal-crime/?singlepage=true

May 17, 2013 

THE fake rape allegation of Kirsty Debanks made in her twisted scheme for “revenge” against her ex-lover is all the more disgraceful given the conclusion this week of the Operation Bullfinch trial.

However horrific it was at the time for Chris Newitt to be arrested, there were secondary victims to Debanks: every current and future victim of rape.

This week, six women abused by the Bullfinch gang finally achieved some justice after years of their collective plight being ignored by the authorities.

It took great courage for each of them to give their evidence, in part because they would face accusations from the defence they were lying and because the conviction rape for sex crimes is so low.

Often rape cases come down to he said/she said, and many juries find it hard to return a guilty verdict.

What Debanks has done with her preposterous plan is to potentially undermine the cases of genuine victims in the future.

Often with completely fictitious claims of rape, the complainant has mental health issues and so there has to be an element of sympathy.

But being in concert with two other people to create injuries to back up her case is plainly wicked and Judge Ian Pringle was right to reflect the community’s outrage in this case.

Source: http://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/10425805.COMMENT__False_rape_claim_undermines_bravery_of_women/?ref=rl