Many have wondered what the rationalization could be when “survivor” advocates complain that the new Title IX rules make it too hard for “victims” to accuse male students of sexual misconduct. The answer isn’t hard to state: it’s that accusers feel burdened by the potential of being put to the test of proving the truthfulness of their claims. If they’re simply believed without question, they feel no such burden.
If they’re required to prove their accusation, or even worse, challenged by the accused, the trauma of their victimization will be multiplied, their pain re-inflicted, and so they will be more reluctant to come forward. Accordingly, their rationalization goes, the perpetrator of their sexual wrong will not be taken to task and will be free to inflict his maleness on other unaware women.
Brown University has come up with its solution.
The Title IX Office introduced a new method of reporting incidents of sexual harassment, sexual violence or gender-based discrimination on its website Dec. 10, 2020. The online Sexual Violence and Gender-Harassment Incident Reporting Form aims to provide an easy mechanism to report incidents, Title IX Program Officer Rene Davis wrote in an email to The Herald.
The form “adds an easily accessed and direct line of communication to the Title IX Office,” Davis wrote.
The form allows students to report descriptions of incidents, concerns and involved persons, such as alleged aggressors, harmed individuals and witnesses, as well as the desired response from the Title IX Office. Students can also opt to make their reports anonymous.
Anonymous? Sure. After all, how else can a “victim” feel safe from the harsh repercussions of accusing someone of being a rapist without any responsibility? It’s not that this notion of anonymous accusations is new, but if anyone thinks we’ve gone beyond such wildly irresponsible mechanisms that are so easily subject to abuse, think again.
Curiously, proponents of the online form applaud its ease of use and protection for accusers.
The option to anonymously report incidents through the online form “can feel liberating” for survivors, Cooper added.
Cooper said the online form streamlines the “dense” amount of information on reporting incidents of sexual harassment through the Title IX Office, in a way that facilitates students’ comfort disclosing their experiences with sexual violence.
Yet, the online form cannot, and does not, serve as a lawful substitute for a formal Title IX complaint.
The online form is not the same as a formal complaint to the Title IX Office, Davis noted. While a formal complaint requests engagement in a resolution process, the Sexual Violence and Gender-Harassment Incident Reporting Form does not require that an individual engages in this process — though they have the option to if they would like to request an investigation.
Essentially, this anonymous online complaint system is directed toward alleged “victims” obtaining benefits for themselves. As for the accused, it’s unclear what impact these complaints would mean. Will they be suspended? Will they be branded as rapists, but outside any system where they can defend themselves from the anonymous accusations? Or it this just about “survivors” receiving services?
The ability to use an online form may help in reducing barriers, like shame and confidentiality concerns, that exist for student survivors of harm, SHARE advocates Alana Sacks and Elliot Ruggles wrote in an email to The Herald.
They added that the online form may also better facilitate survivors’ access to physical and psychological assistance from medical and mental health professionals.
To what end will anonymous online accusations be put? Will they prove a facile means for false accusations, for people to take revenge when angry or upset, to brand innocent people as sex offenders without any recourse to challenge accusations or defend themselves? Who cares? As long as it makes “survivors” feel comfortable, isn’t that what really matters?
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If the purpose of the complaint is to allow the complainant to access services, why does it go to the Title IX office and not, for instance, campus health services?
An excellent question, although it doesn’t quite claim to be for campus health service, but rather that it “may also better facilitate” access to services. There’s a lot of wiggle room in there.
Maybe I’m slow on the uptake today, but exactly how does one provide services to an anonymous person? Seems like the moment services are provided, anonymity ceases to exist.
It’s a conundrum.
Maybe they will offer a valuable new service to graduates and prospective employers, whereby the Title IX Office will provide a “Certificate of Possible Non-rapeyness” to any student who was NOT anonymously accused during their years at Brown.
Depends on the need. If hit men could somehow provide anonymity for their services and still get paid, it would probably be pretty good for their business model.
I read the link from BU. No mention of gender.
I can see some guy getting turned down for a date and his frat brothers flooding the Title IX office with false complaints.
But given the tone of voice from the comments in the link, I can also see them just ignoring any complaints made by biological males that identify as male.
Well, these folks are clearly old-timey Shitlords. They even call their newspaper The Brown Daily Herald, harking back to the days when people of color were saddled with the menial, daily task of trudging through the squalid streets, crying the news for the idly curious.
If a Male at BU was smart, every time he had an interaction with a female he would make an anonymous complaint right away and keep a record of it. That way if a female makes a complaint about him later he can point and say, ” look I complained about being harassed and you did nothing about it”
Won’t matter. If you’re male, you’re automatically guilty.
See the other post for today. No link per rules.
I sincerely hope that this system is not abused such that a flood of reports comes in, naming administrators and Title IX enforcers as violators.
That would be so very, very wrong.
Well, of course, the real purpose is to replace the periodic, unverifiable “surveys.” These anonymous forms will be the new unverifiable source for the “statistics” that “prove” how the epidemic of rapeyness exists, but is not reported.
I think it’s probably wise to allow a school to give accommodations to a student alleging misconduct without the need to prove it as long as no consequence falls on the accused, btt that aspect should be spelled out.
What worries me is will a student be forced to answer a complaint without knowing the who, what, and when of it.
There’s a case in Canada where a girl filed a complaint with a student board. He was found responsible without knowing any of that information. She then wrote to the newspaper and they printed a letter where she felt he shouldn’t get to know who she was, but of course, named him. He’d just won an election to the school board and had to resign. The school ended up hiring a lawyer to do a new review, this time with him knowing the details and he was found not responsible. He’s seeing for $1.5 million.
This seems to be the next stage. We’re moving beyond Start by Believing to a point where the accused isn’t even entitled to know what they’re accused of.
Its only fair that an anonymous complaint should not be allowed to name the accused, then those involved in Title1X still get their masturbation porn and the rest can get on with their lives.
We would see a boom in women’s bodice ripper stories.
Sexual assault is a crime. For the investigation of crime there are organizations known as police forces, which are vastly more qualified than the university staff who deal with such complaints and have legal powers and access to resources which university staff do not. We also have organizations known as law courts which are designed to adjudicate cases and, although imperfect, pretty good at it. Rather than dealing with sexual assault in academic kangaroo courts without serious investigation, why don’t we let the police and courts deal with it, as we do with other crimes?
This has been the perpetual response to campus sex tribunals, that colleges are wholly unequipped to perform this function and have no business becoming the sex arbiter of their students. Unfortunately, the Dear Colleague Letter of 2011 created this system, and it’s now so deeply entrenched that colleges are obliged to sex-police their students that it’s unthinkable to go back. Or to put this another way, that horse left the barn a decade ago when only a few of us were watching and raised the alarm. Too bad that so few people cared back then, and too late now.