Choosing a professional sports star to give an academic address at a premier university creates the wrong impression. To those observing the University from afar, it suggests that the University does not have its priorities set straight.
Though some might argue that the timing of the Republican-driven shutdown and Cuccinelli’s race (and the association voters will draw between the two) is an unfortunate coincidence, without the polarizing social conservatism he has already displayed, the shutdown wouldn’t be such a blow to his campaign.
In this case the staff of the Cavalier Daily has done an excellent job bringing attention to issues that are not only to be dealt with by women, by vulnerable people, by individuals directly affected, but by all of us as members of the University community.
Several studies demonstrate that the increased risk of defects among children born to consanguineous parents is small. An American research panel assembled by the National Society of Genetic Counselors reported that the increased risk of serious birth defect in children born to related parents is insignificant.
The point here is that the University could set up a system which applies a higher evidentiary burden and imposes harsher punishments on sexual offenders. That is to say, it is not clear that such a system is illegal, and there are good reasons to believe that a court might actually uphold it. But by doing so, the University might have to fight the Department of Education in court; and if the University won, it would probably mean that the Sexual Misconduct Board and its analogues at universities across the country would have to apply a higher evidentiary standard than a preponderance of the evidence.
Even though I come from a family of educators, I would have never learned the extent to which educational injustices occur on a daily basis throughout this country if I had not seen it for myself as a Teach for America teacher in New Orleans. Some of my students came into the sixth grade not knowing how to read and write. I worked with students with severe behavioral challenges that prevented them from performing in the classroom and made every day a constant struggle to achieve. I worked with students who fought to stay awake in class because of malnutrition or issues at home. I worked with students whose lives were governed by gang violence. While this was the most challenging work I’ve ever done, it was also the most satisfying. Not all TFA teachers seek out a lifelong career in teaching, but everyone comes away with a lifelong commitment to helping students gain access to quality education.
For state crime reporting purposes, the Incident Based Reporting System used by the Virginia Department of State Police uses the term “forcible fondling” to include acts of aggravated sexual battery, sexual battery and attempted sexual battery.
According to a statement released by the University, “Provisions of the federal Affordable Care Act are projected to add $7.3 million to the cost of the University health plan in 2014 alone.” A $7.3 million addition to health care costs is nothing to sneeze at, and the figure will surely rise in time. Harsh cutbacks follow this rise in costs — cutbacks that intimately affect the lives of University employees. For instance, this August, the University announced its intention to cut health care coverage to spouses already covered by their own employee plans.
The University of Wisconsin at La Crosse has issued an apology for an email a professor sent to students last week that blamed the government shutdown on the “Republican/tea party controlled House of Representatives.” Rachel Slocum, assistant professor of geography, sent the email to all of her students in an online class.
The lack of a public response to the Guides incident from the administration, the Guide Service and this newspaper is reprehensible. Hazing should be unacceptable regardless of who perpetrates it and we should not shy away from holding some institutions accountable for the sake of tradition or discomfort.
Ultimately we must modify the legal codes that pit due process against Title IX to the detriment of student sexual-assault survivors. But even in the context of a flawed system, we can work to improve the lives of students affected by sexual violence, and prevent other attacks.
The free flow of information is a beautiful concept when applied to the news or to theories and ideas; it is something altogether more sinister when someone’s professional reputation is at play.
But when I was 16 and in high school and wore floor-length butterfly skirts, I believed that anyone who could possibly even have the slightest afterthought of dating me was a miracle from God. When he came along, I was just getting over the emotional impact of being told by another male classmate that I looked like a horse at the homecoming dance. We were snacking on pretzels in a parking lot and I said yes.
Ten years ago, the University community was shaken by the murder of one of our students, a fourth-year woman only weeks from graduation. She had worked so hard to complete her college education, and had her whole life ahead of her, and dreamed of becoming a lawyer. Who killed her? The man who professed to love her. Think you know the name of this student? Guess again.
It’s ordering way too many Campus Cookies and crying over how good they are. She laughs, at long last. She also eats for the first time that day. You knew she couldn’t resist warm cookies. You had a plan.
As a community, we tend to want to ask a person who reveals that they were assaulted: “What happened?” We want to know if they said no, or whether the people involved were drinking, and whether the “victim” fought back — as if the answers to these questions determine whether the trauma has occurred or not. Regardless of whether it will stand up in a court of law, if someone calls it trauma, the best thing you can do is to assume that that is how the person experienced it, and support them in seeking help.
Everyone has a preconceived notion of what sexual assault looks like, but almost everyone is probably wrong. In reality, most of these assaults — over 80 percent — will occur where someone lives. The vast majority will be perpetrated by someone the victim knows. It might be a date, but more often, it will be a friend of a friend, a classmate or someone else the victim knows. Alcohol will be probably be involved.
The twin messages of “you should want sex!” and “don’t you go having sex!” are too much for anyone to bear, and create a toxic environment where we don’t know what to expect, often drowning our uncertainty in alcohol before diving in. We live in a society that is sexually traumatizing down to its very language, so how are we supposed to talk in an open, healthy way about sex, much less sexual trauma?
With student victims, we have four paramount concerns: safety, emotional and physical health, academic support and reporting options. In terms of safety, we want to know: Does the victim feel safe in her residence? Is she concerned that she may be targeted again?
As much as I want and believe that rape should be a single-sanction offense, it is legally untenable and impossible given the state of American justice today, which involves part of our very Constitution. To make rape a single-sanction offense involves either raising the standard of proof to a level that violates Title IX or sacrificing the viability of countless cases by mirroring the justice system, which only successfully prosecutes 4 percent of rapes every year (most of which, I will add, are stranger rapes with DNA evidence).
