3 Part Series: Rape Charges On Campus Obama

[Kathianne]

For those who've been following what has happened on many campuses since the 'Dear Colleague' letter, maybe not so much news; for everyone else the first edition is going to be appalling. The good news is, the justice system doesn't work just one way, though $$$ is needed. The lawsuits against the universities and even a few 'victims' are beginning to add up and often result in substantial settlements.

I look forward to the other two articles to come.

Rape is serious, when charges of the crime are being used to 'build women up' and 'change behaviors between the sexes' the social experiment must stop.

https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2017/09/the-uncomfortable-truth-about-campus-rape-policy/538974/

[Kathianne]

Part II on 'the science':

https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2017/09/the-bad-science-behind-campus-response-to-sexual-assault/539211/?utm_source=twb



The Bad Science Behind Campus Response to Sexual Assault
Assertions about how trauma physiologically impedes the ability to resist or coherently remember assault have greatly undermined defense against assault allegations. But science offers little support for these claims.


EMILY YOFFE
This is the second story in a three-part series examining how the rules governing sexual-assault adjudication have changed in recent years, and why some of those changes are problematic. Read the first installment here.


As debate has begun over whether the rules governing sexual-assault adjudication have gone too far, one subject has received almost no attention, although it has become central to the way that many schools and many activists view sexual assault. In the last few years, the federal government has required that all institutions of higher education train staff on the effects of “neurobiological change” in victims of sexual assault, so that officials are able to conduct “trauma-informed” investigations and adjudications.


In meeting this federal demand, some schools have come to rely on the work of a small band of self-styled experts in the neurobiology of trauma who claim that sexual violations provoke a disabling, multifaceted physiological response. Being assaulted is traumatic, and no one should expect those who have been assaulted to have perfect recall or behave perfectly rationally, but this argument goes much further. It generally goes like this: People facing sexual assault become terrified, triggering a potent cascade of neurotransmitters and stress hormones.This chemical flood impairs the prefrontal cortex of the brain, impeding victims’ capacity for rational thought, and interferes with their memory. They may have significant trouble recalling their assault or describing it coherently or chronologically. The fear of imminent death may further elicit an extended catatonic state known as “tonic immobility,” rendering them powerless to speak or move—they feel “frozen.”

As a result, those adjudicating sexual-assault allegations are told, the absence of verbal or physical resistance, the inability to recall crucial parts of an alleged assault, a changing story—none of these factors should raise questions or doubt about a claim. Indeed, all of these behaviors can be considered evidence that an assault occurred.

...

As of 2014, Harvard Law’s Title IX training for its disciplinary board included Campbell’s PowerPoint slides. Janet Halley, a professor at Harvard Law School, wrote of the intended effect of the training on recipients: “It is 100% aimed to convince them to believe complainants, precisely when they seem unreliable and incoherent.”


All of these concepts are presented in information distributed to students on many campuses. The University of Michigan’s Sexual Assault Prevention and Awareness Center has a webpage for students on the “Neurobiology of Trauma” based largely on Campbell’s lecture. It explains that as a result of the “hormone soup” provoked by an assault, “the survivor cannot move and is rendered immobile by the traumatic event” and that “survivors may have trouble accurately remembering the assault.” Bowdoin College’s Title IX webpage on “The Neurobiology of Sexual Assault,” also based on Campbell’s lecture, tells students that “the flood of hormones can even, and often does, result in a complete shutdown of bodily function, a state referred to as ‘tonic immobility,’ but better described as paralysis” and that victims “also may exhibit fragmented memory recall due to the disorganized encoding that occurred during the incident.”


This information sends the message to young people that they are biologically programmed to become helpless during unwanted sexual encounters and to suffer mental impairment afterward. And it may inadvertently encourage them to view consensual late-night, alcohol-fueled encounters that might produce disjointed memories and some regret as something more sinister.

...