Urge Your University to Preserve Dus Process

Stop Abusive and Violent Environments (SAVE) is urging its supporters to write their alma maters about the worrying trend toward so-called "victim-centered investigations." I've written a letter to Penn's President Gutman laying out the case against this approach:

I am very concerned about the threat to due process rights and the presumption of innocence posed by the trend toward so-called "victim-centered" investigations, primarily being promoted in connection with accusations of sexual assault on college and university campuses.

By substituting partiality toward the accuser -- even to the point of deliberately refraining from gathering evidence in some circumstances -- this approach not only increases the likelihood of false convictions, but ultimately can only undermine the public's confidence in judicial processes, and make it more skeptical even of true accusations.

Indeed, inasmuch as the push for this approach is mostly restricted to the context of sexual assault investigations, it could end up making the public even less willing to believe these allegations than those of other crimes.

Please commit Penn to maintaining neutral fact-finding as the standard for all its judicial processes.

This Metaphor Is Bad for Our Health

In a solicitation from the Center for Science in the Public Interest, I found a reminder of an irritating practice of theirs that I'd always meant to comment on. I've just done so now in an email to them as follows:

I'm writing to express my disapproval of your use of the phrase "food porn." Clearly you are trying to convey the concept of food that tastes good but isn't good for you. Trouble is, that's not true of porn itself.

Despite generations of attempts to scientifically prove the "common sense"* that porn is bad for us, such evidence is essentially nonexistent, and sometimes it suggests just the opposite. Here, for instance, is a court brief debunking the idea that it's "harmful to minors":
http://www.fepproject.org/courtbriefs/ashcroft.pdf

And here's a study refuting the idea that the availability of porn lowers women's status: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3812808?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

This isn't a merely "academic" question. These false notions about porn have been used to justify restrictive laws and customs which, so far from protecting people, may well contribute to psychosexual problems and leave children more vulnerable to sexual exploitation, as discussed by Judith Levine in her book Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children from Sex.

*"What many people refer to as common sense is nothing more than a collection of prejudices accumulated before the age of eighteen." -- Albert Einstein

Call on UC to Reverse Its Sexual Consent Catch-22

In a very disturbing development, the University of California system has adopted a new policy on adjudication of sexual assault complaints that compounds the erosion of civil liberties already brought by its "affirmative consent" standard.

Now, any non-consensual recording of a sex act, even if it's never shared with anyone, is considered a form of sexual assault. This may seem reasonable until one remembers that verbal agreement isn't considered proof of consent if the accuser claims they were under the influence of alcohol or other drugs. Since such influence isn't always obvious, this means the very act of attempting to create proof of consent could get someone accused of sexual assault.

This prospect looms even larger because of another change. UC is now abandoning adversarial process in favor of letting a single administrator hear and decide a case -- an administrator who may feel pressured to produce convictions to justify Title IX funding. The accused's only recourse is to appeal to a higher administrative body, which would have the same institutional bias as the original hearing officer.

This isn't only an assault on due process; it's also an assault on sexual freedom. While encouraging people to be comfortable talking about sex with prospective partners -- or anyone else -- is absolutely a good thing, trying to prescribe forms of consent in this way can only have an intimidating effect on people as they explore their sexuality, something that typically involves a good deal of anxiety already. Taken to its extreme, it could lead to involuntary abstinence for women and men alike. Accordingly, I've written UC President Janet Napolitano (president@ucop.edu) as follows:

Dear President Napolitano: I urge you to reverse the new policy concerning adjudication of sexual assault complaints at UC. It is unacceptable to give a single administrator, possibly under pressure to get "results" to justify Title IX funding, the power and responsibility to adjudicate such serious accusations -- especially when the new definition of assault covers the very recording that the affirmative consent standard makes necessary for proving innocence. This puts the accused truly in a Catch-22.

The option to appeal does not adequately address these concerns, since it would still leave the ultimate decision in administrative hands. We have already seen examples of universities' refusing to consider clearly exculpatory evidence on the technical grounds that the original trial was procedurally correct, as illustrated here: https://kcjohnson.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/amherst-complaint.pdf

Please restore adversarial process and the presumption of innocence without delay.

For further information on this issue, visit Stop Abusive and Violent Environments at http://www.SAVEservices.org

Here's an excellent piece by Wendy Kaminer on what's wrong with "affirmative consent" as  a legal standard.