Month: August 2019

Categories
Campus Trauma Informed Violence Against Women Act

Highlights from the ATIXA Position Statement on Trauma-Informed Methods

On August 22, the Association of Title IX Administrators – ATIXA – issued a Position Statement on Trauma-Informed Training and the Neurobiology of Trauma that exposes the many fallacies of “trauma-informed” concepts and methods: https://cdn.atixa.org/website-media/atixa.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/20123741/2019-ATIXA-Trauma-Position-Statement-Final-Version.pdf

The Statement begins by quoting a claim that is often cited in trauma-informed training materials:

“Trauma leaves tracks on its victims. It is very difficult to fake or ‘act’ the sorts of symptoms [of trauma]. When someone displays these symptoms, this alone is evidence that they have been victimized.”

ATIXA delivers a strong rebuke to this claim: “Proffered as truth that a mere claim of trauma is proof of assault, this quote should be troubling to any rational mind. To assert that trauma cannot be faked is as flagrantly false a claim as asserting that trauma is proof of assault.”

The eight-page Statement goes on to address many of the flaws of the claims of trauma-informed proponents:

  • “Using a study of lab rats to reach any conclusion about the story of a victim of sexual assault is troubling..Do rats tell stories? Do they experience sexual assault?..there is science behind these ideas, but they are not empirical conclusions.”
  • “The ‘Neurobiology of Trauma’ should not significantly influence the way that colleges and schools evaluate evidence… improper use of trauma-informed methods turns trauma into evidence, which IS junk science and goes way too far.”
  • “application [of trauma-informed theories].. has gotten way ahead of the actual science… is being misapplied, and…some purveyors of this knowledge are politically motivated to extrapolate well beyond any reasonable empirical conclusions…”
  • There’s an “important distinction between practices that help an impacted party retrieve memory and avoid gratuitous re-triggering…and those [relying] on neurobiological theories to influence the interpretation of evidence.” Only the former is correct.

The ATIXA Statement concludes with this unequivocal message:

“The truth is that we understand perhaps 1/100th of 1% of what we need to know and may someday understand about how the brain responds to trauma. With such a nascent body of knowledge, most conclusions are premature. It is irresponsible to attribute much about how we interpret evidence to existing neuroscientific understandings of trauma, except to correlate scrambled memory encoding and retrieval with life-threatening incidents, and to see that flight/fright/freeze may be common reactions to such incidents. That is about it. Anything more than that is really theory, thus far unsupported by conclusive evidence.”

The ATIXA report may turn out to be a game-changer.

 

Quotes compiled by Cynthia Garrett, Esq.

Categories
Scholarships Title IX Equity Project

Colleges and Universities are Failing to Meet Their Title IX Obligations to Male Students

Contact: Rebecca Stewart

Telephone: 513-479-3335

Email: info@saveservices.org

 Colleges and Universities are Failing to Meet Their Title IX Obligations to Male Students

WASHINGTON / August 20, 2019 – A review of scholarships at over 200 colleges and universities in 36 states reveals widespread discriminatory practices in the provision of sex-specific scholarships for male students. The analysis reveals 57% of institutions offer scholarships that facially violate provisions of Title IX that ban sex-based discrimination. Among the other schools, 27% were classified as Borderline, and only 16% were assessed as Compliant with Title IX requirements (1).

For example, Kent State University in Ohio offers two scholarships for male students, compared to 11 scholarships reserved for females. In Academic Year 2018-19, each male undergraduate student was awarded an average scholarship of $1,567, compared to an average scholarship of $2,208 to each female student, based on information supplied by the university to the SAVE Title IX Equity Project (2).

This $641 disparity represents a violation of the Title IX regulation, which requires that “the overall effect of the award of such sex-restricted scholarships, fellowships, and other forms of financial assistance does not discriminate on the basis of sex.” (34 CFR 106.37(b)(1))

Discriminatory sex-specific scholarships are only one example of widespread Title IX violations at institutions of higher learning. Many institutions offer programs that limit participation to female students, such as engineering and information technology programs.

Currently, the federal Office for Civil Rights is investigating complaints of such discriminatory programs at the following colleges and universities: Florida Institute of Technology, Georgia Institute of Technology, Boston College, Brown University, University of Rhode Island, Yale University, Indiana University, University of Minnesota, University of Wisconsin-Stout, Grand Valley State University, Michigan State University, Saginaw Valley State University, University of Michigan, Wayne State University, Duke University, Princeton University, Rutgers University, Rochester Institute of Technology, UC-Berkeley, UCLA, and University of Southern California (3).

Last week the Office for Civil Rights reached an agreement with Clemson University in South Carolina to end sex-discriminatory practices for three programs: Project WISE [Women In Science and Engineering] Summer Camp, WISE Choice, and STEM Connections (4).

In addition, hundreds of lawsuits have been filed by male students against colleges and universities alleging due process violations. To date, judges have ruled in favor of these students in 151 such cases (5).

As institutions of higher learning prepare for the new academic year, the Title IX Equity Project urges campus administrators to carefully review policies, procedures, and practices to assure male students are being treated equitably.

Citations:

  1. http://www.saveservices.org/equity/scholarships/
  2. Email dated August 15, 2019 from Kent State University Associate Counsel.
  3. http://www.saveservices.org/ocr-investigations/
  4. http://www.saveservices.org/wp-content/uploads/OCR-LETTER-CLEMSON-U-8.14.2019.pdf
  5. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1CsFhy86oxh26SgTkTq9GV_BBrv5NAA5z9cv178Fjk3o/edit#gid=0
Categories
Uncategorized

Sex Without A Notarized Document Of Consent Is Teetering On Becoming A Thing Of The Past

Of course, even a notarized document doesn’t protect you, as the person you’re having sex with could say they withdrew consent mid-act, and you don’t have proof that you had consent to continue.

In short, this proposed new law is how to fuck any man over — because it’s mostly men who will get ensnared by the revision that’s being proposed, moving over “affirmative consent” from college campuses to the rest of the adult world.

Samantha Harris blogs for theFIRE.org:

In just a few days, the American Bar Association will consider whether to adopt a resolution urging state legislatures to adopt a criminal-law definition of consent similar to the “affirmative consent” standard increasingly popular on college campuses. Given the ABA’s reputation and influence, it would be disastrous for due process if this resolution were to pass.Here is the resolution (emphasis added):

RESOLVED, That the American Bar Association urges legislatures and courts to define consent in sexual assault cases as the assent of a person who is competent to give consent to engage in a specific act of sexual penetration, oral sex, or sexual contact, to provide that consent is expressed by words or action in the context of all the circumstances, and to reject any requirement that sexual assault victims have a legal burden of verbal or physical resistance.

By making sex presumptively nonconsensual unless and until someone can produce evidence of consent, affirmative consent standards effectively shift the burden of proof to accused parties to prove themselves innocent.

From The College Fix’s Greg Piper on the guilty until proven innocent tack of this resolution and some of the groups that oppose it on that count:

Among the groups opposing the resolution is the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, which says it would prove an offense occurred “merely upon evidence of a sex act with nothing more.”The resolution shifts the burden of proof to the accused for each act, undefined, within a larger sexual encounter, and “assumes guilt in the absence of any evidence regarding consent,” the association wrote last month.

“This radical change in the law would violate the Due Process Clause of the Fifth and
Fourteenth Amendments and the Presumption of Innocence,” the group argues. “The resolution will often force the defendant to testify in order to present evidence that consent was expressed.”

An essential bit from the NACDL link:

1. Burden-Shifting in Violation of Due Process and Presumption of Innocence: NACDL opposes ABA Resolution 114 because it shifts the burden of proof by requiring an accused person to prove affirmative consent to each sexual act rather than requiring the prosecution to prove lack of consent. The resolution assumes guilt in the absence of any evidence regarding consent. This radical change in the law would violate the Due Process Clause of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments and the Presumption of Innocence. It offends fundamental and well-established notions of justice.

From Sam Harris’s excellent piece at FIRE:

Affirmative consent standards are already common in campus disciplinary proceedings. On campus, not only has affirmative consent proven confusing, but the state of due process and fair procedure is so bad that over the past eight years, more than 500 accused students have filed lawsuits alleging that they were not afforded even the most basic procedural protections before being found responsible for sexual misconduct. As high as the stakes are on campus — where students found responsible face the loss of educational and job opportunities as well as permanent stigma — they are higher still in the criminal context, where those found guilty face imprisonment.We hope that the ABA’s House of Delegates will reject this resolution as a grave threat to the due process rights of those accused of one of society’s most serious crimes.

Categories
Investigations

CORRUPT COPS: Planted Evidence, Coerced Confessions, and now, ‘Conviction-Oriented’ Investigations

Police misconduct is a long-standing problem in our criminal justice system. Examples include fabrication of evidence, high-pressure interrogations, bribery, and more. Now there’s a new way to corrupt the process: Conviction-oriented investigations. AND IT’S BEING ACTIVELY PROMOTED BY THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE.

Ethics codes require investigators to follow the evidence without bias or preconception. For example, the International Association of Chiefs of Police ethics code states, “The law enforcement officer shall be concerned equally in the prosecution of the wrong-doer and the defense of the innocent. He shall ascertain what constitutes evidence and shall present such evidence impartially and without malice.”[1]

FAIRNESS GOING OUT OF FASHION?

On May 29, 2019, the DOJ Office for Victims of Crime presented an online training session titled, “Law Enforcement Response: Approaching Your Work with a Trauma–Informed Lens.”[2] The session was conducted by retired sheriff’s deputy Marcus Bruning, described as a “nationally recognized expert, a 28 year veteran of public safety.”

Bruning did not state that the main objective of a criminal investigation is to obtain the facts and details of the alleged incident. Instead, the investigator’s main job, according to Bruning, is to avoid re-traumatizing the “victim” — ignoring the fact that in the event of a false allegation, the real “victim” is the person who is wrongfully accused.

CONVICTION-ORIENTED

Most troubling of all, Bruning advised law enforcement personnel to take a “conviction-oriented approach,” which means investigations should be carried out with an eye to “determining what elements of the crime must be proven and what will be challenged in court.” In essence, he argued to work the case from the position that a crime has been committed (because the “victim” says it did) and that the suspect committed that crime.

The main focus of courtroom testimony should be the feelings of the “victim” before, during, and after the alleged incident, Bruning insisted. This provides the prosecutor, jury, and judge “an opportunity to experience a traumatic event with understanding and without blaming the victim.”

DOUG WILDER, VICTIM OF A CONVICTION-ORIENTED INVESTIGATION?

On July 12, the Washington Post reported on former Virginia governor Douglas Wilder, accused of non-consensual kissing of a female. But Wilder said he was railroaded by a biased investigator who glossed over inconsistencies in the accuser’s testimony and excluded important exculpatory evidence from the investigative report.[3] In other words, the investigator cared more about getting a conviction than seeking out the truth.

The Center for Prosecutor Integrity asks persons to contact Attorney General William Barr and urge him to reject biased, “conviction-oriented” investigations. Because justice is at stake.

Citations:

[1] http://www.prosecutorintegrity.org/sa/ethics-codes/

[2]https://www.ovcttac.gov/ovcttac_assets/eblast/ExpertQA-Eblast-May-2019.HTML

[3] https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/former-va-governor-doug-wilder-says-claims-against-him-are-untrue-days-after-investigation-finds-he-kissed-a-20-year-old-student/2019/07/12/0c3286dc-a4b5-11e9-b8c8-75dae2607e60_story.html