The University of North Carolina took revenge against one of their students, a rape survivor, who reported on their failed administrative policies on sexual assault. After the initial report, she discussed her experience with The Daily Tarheel and as a result, the school is bringing her up on honor code violations. Officially, she is being charged with:
II.C.1.c. – Disruptive or intimidating behavior that willfully abuses, disparages, or otherwise interferes with another … so as to adversely affect their academic pursuits, opportunities for University employment, participation in University-sponsored extracurricular activities, or opportunities to benefit from other aspects of University Life.
That’s right, she’s being charged with abusing her rapist. It should be noted that she never named her assailant.
On today’s #TWiBRadio, I beam in from the Great Northern Tundra (Minnesota) and we discuss this story with #AfterBlack‘s Josh Homer as well as denials of the drone program and apparently used nooses are what’s hot in the streets. Check it out:
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And this morning on #amTWiB, we keep the conversation going on the UNC rape case and discuss the Trayvon Martin case a year later. Check it out:
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Litlebritdifrnt
I saw that earlier today and was absolutely and utterly disgusted with it. UNC should be ashamed.
Baud
like rape.
Schlemizel
how long before they apologize & offer her a free education to make the hate mail stop?
Baud
To be fair, the Duke lacrosse rape scandal a few years ago were a fiasco, so the state kind of owes rapists one.
Now we’re all even-steven.
raven
Damn, you can’t listen and refresh!
Baud
@raven:
Open the audio in one tab, and refresh the page in another.
burnspbesq
I’m a Dookie, so it never surprises me when the Tarholes do something stupid or despicable, but this is really off-the-charts despicable.
raven
@Baud: Duh
burnspbesq
@Litlebritdifrnt:
UNC? Ashamed? Sadly, bwahahahaha is the only response I can think of.
Tumbrel For Hire
Sometimes I think you WANT to fail!
scav
Poor abused men, unable to exercise their freedom to rape. Political Correctness gone mad. UNC is clearly standing up for the real oppressed victims of.
Ecks
I just has a sad that the bimbo Pistorias shot had the nerve to go and die from it, just to deny us the satisfaction of charging her with like totally wrecking his lifestyle.
MattMinus
@efgoldman:
This is what I was thinking.
How can the University decide that they’ll sit in judgment of violent criminals, shouldn’t they have to refer them to the police? How can you be upset that some weird fake court system failed you when , you know, real court is available? If you did decide to rely on weird fake court, and they found the alleged attacker not guilty, aren’t you, in the eyes of the weird fake law, kind of slandering the guy by calling him a rapist?
This whole thing is confusing.
Based on my own University experiences, the school tribunals are staffed by the worst people on the planet, and I’m sure they are in this case as well. I just don’t get why you’d leave the matter up to them.
Rick Massimo
I suspect that she’s being accused of “abusing” the people who failed to handle her initial report. The code, as quoted there, says “another,” not “a student.” “Opportunities for University employment” seems to confirm that, and of course “opportunities to benefit from other aspects of University Life” means “any other excuse we can think up to make your life miserable if we decide we don’t like you.”
So she’s being disciplined for pointing out that an adult in a position of authority sucks at their job. That’s awesome.
Punchy
@burnspbesq: That explains a LOT…..
dmsilev
@MattMinus: It’s even worse than that, if you read through the linked article. Some of the members of the Honor Court were undergrads, and opinions differ on how much training they received for dealing with such cases.
TR
@burnspbesq:
It’s a good thing UNC has done something reprehensible. Now the score is UNC 1, Duke 142.
Now, why don’t you go mock someone’s dead grandma? Or wear blackface to a party and post photos online? Or just scream racist bullshit?
There’s so much that Duke students are good at. Pick one.
john b
@MattMinus:
they’re not ruling on the rape/abuse. they’re ruling on the student conduct of the student. but it most certainly seems like retribution. and iirc, this all came to light because a conscientious employee noticed that the reported sexual abuse cases were less than what they should have been.
no argument there.
MikeJ
BTW, I had expected the EJW thread to point out the one year anniversary of the murder of Trayvon Martin.
Dave Ruddell
I’m a Carolina alum; I finished grad school in 2002, but I was a member of the Committee on Student Conduct, which oversees the student judicial system. I knew some of the players in the current scandal involving UNC allegedly covering up sexual assaults, but it’s been over ten years,so I don’t know how things have changed. Having said that, the student judicial system is a student system; the AG who makes the charges, as well as the members of the Honor Court. However, any member of the university community can file a complaint. So, I would guess either the alleged rapist made the complaint, or it was a member of the administration.
@dmsilev: Edited to add, all members of the Honor Court are undergrads; that’s the point. Before the interim procedures were implemented it would have been all students, and likely, better trained than the faculty members.
cmorenc
CAUTION HERE! But first, I strongly agree that UNC’s Honor Board is outrageously out-of-line for bringing the female student up on purported honor violation charges for publicly criticizing what she felt was demeaning, unprofessional handling of her rape allegations against a male UNC student.
However:
1) Recognize that we only have one partial, entirely unfiltered side of the story here: hers.
2) The Honor Court found the accused defendant “not guilty”. While it’s entirely possible they made a wrong decision here, nevertheless it’s just as abusively presumptive for us to label the accused as a “rapist”, when neither the honor board nor any court have found him guilty of such, nor do we know ANYTHING about the actual evidence in this case beyond what she said about it.
I fully realize that women who have been subjected to sexual assualt or rape far too often face an intimidating gauntlet of physical investigation and verbal interrogation, even before getting to any formal court proceeding. Too many genuine perps get away with it too often and for too long.
But nevertheless, this in no way justifies hanging first, trial later for any man just because they’ve been accused of sexual assault by a woman. A woman is *not* presumptively entitled to convict and have punished a man she accuses of such, merely because she’s made the accusation.
Calling the acquitted accused a “rapist” is just as abusive in its own way as the university bringing his accuser up on honor court charges because she publicly complained about the lack of professionalism, competence, or respect of those conducting the process.
piratedan
@TR: hey now, there is no excusing what the school did, it’s just flat out wrong and I damn well hope it’s rectified soon if her story is accurate. Burns has a well known love of his alma-mater, nothing wrong with that and the rivalry between the schools runs deep. In this case, I’m rather pissed off in how they handled this and I’ll express my displeasure by telling them that they won’t get a check this year and why if it turns out that there is some nudge nudge wink wink going on.
dexwood
I know I’m getting old, but still I ask myself – what year is this? Have we learned nothing?
The Other Chuck
What the fuck is a student court doing trying a sexual assault case in the first place? Isn’t that why we have real courts?
Dave Ruddell
@The Other Chuck: Sexual assault has now been removed from the jurisdiction of the Honor Court, according to today’s DTH, although it doesn’t say if it’s completely out of the university’s hands, or if it’s being done by a different body.
raven
@Dave Ruddell: “But administrators are not responsible for the newest charge against Gambill, officials said, adding that decisions are left up to the students who run the Honor Court.”
General Stuck
Rape is a major crime. And should be processed as such through the system. Which usually means the local police and prosecutors.
Dave Ruddell
@raven: Well, the decision on whether or not to charge is up to the Student AG; however the complaint can be from anyone in the community (unless things have changed in the last 10 years).
raven
This is a good comment from the DTH article today:
“I think it’s important that the UNC community jump to a lot of angry, emotionally-charged conclusions about this case, especially since there is so little evidence available and the governing bodies responsible for hearing such complaints have not yet responded. If there’s one thing mobs are useful for, it’s arbitrating justice.”
Baud
@raven:
What good is the Internet if we can’t jump to conclusions based on scant and sketchy information.
raven
@General Stuck: It doesn’t seem, from what I’m reading, that she filed charges with the police.
General Stuck
@raven:
I do have a lot of sympathy in general with how rape victims are treated in this country. And fully understand the reticence they have to engage in our legal system. But there are really no alternatives with regard to rule of law standards, if you are going to accuse someone of a high level felony. A student honor court doesn’t seem like the correct venue for something that serious.
raven
@General Stuck: I agree.
Yutsano
My ex is from Whitehorse. Your argument is invalid.
MattMinus
@efgoldman:
Actually, under out system of law, I’m pretty sure all crimes have to be proven. I forget exactly what the saying is … something until proven something.
raven
@MattMinus: Someone needs to explain to me what this has to do with the law?
Dave Ruddell
@MattMinus: To be fair, it appears the efgoldman was referring to whether or not a crime occurred, not if someone has been convicted.
Also, the Office of Civil Rights of the Dept. of Ed now requires that university tribunals use a ‘preponderance of evidence’ standard of proof for sexual assault cases rather than the higher ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ or ‘clear and convincing evidence’.
MattMinus
@raven:
Well, if you’re talking about crimes, you’re kind of implicitly talking about laws, aren’t you?
raven
@Dave Ruddell: How is a university tribunal the proper body to deal with a felony? Maybe after a trial.
MattMinus
@raven:
I’m with you on this point. Unless the question is “can we remove this convicted rapist from campus” I don’t see how it’s a university issue.
raven
@MattMinus: Yea but she didn’t go to the police. She didn’t even tell her parents and she “expected that I would be believed and trusted, and that they wouldn’t doubt my story and try to devaluate my story,”. So she wants to make an accusation to this body, not have it questioned and for the alleged perp to be, what?
eta, and she goes to Carolina and says “devaluate”?
SiubhanDuinne
@Litlebritdifrnt:
I happen to be in Raleigh tonight and just got back from dinner with a friend who is a UNC alumna, and who currently works for the school. She — one of the most vocal, loyal, and enthusiastic Carolina fans I’ve ever known — told me about this shameful episode and said she is just ashamed and embarrassed to be associated with UNC. So, whether or not UNC the institution is ashamed, there are plenty of students/alums/faculty/staff who are as horrified as the rest of us.
raven
@efgoldman: She didn’t go to the POLICE! What the fuck.
Eric U.
a cursory reading of an article linked from the link in this post says that she went to the honor court to keep her ex-boyfriend/rapist from being admitted to UNC.
The student court aspect of the whole thing is a little weird. Go get your legal training somewhere else, students can be expelled by that court. I’ve never seen a student organization that really deserves that much power. If she is expelled or sanctioned over this I fully expect that bad things will happen to the university.
raven
@SiubhanDuinne: Did she discuss why she didn’t go to the police. Am I making a mistake that this is pretty important to this situation?
Dave Ruddell
@raven: I agree with you completely; a university should not be deciding criminal matters.
@Eric U.: Technically, the UNC Honor Court cannot expel a student, but only recommend expulsion. The decision is solely up to the chancellor. Picky, I know, but they have slightly less power.
raven
@Dave Ruddell: Ack, I better get out of this.
Walker
@Eric U.:
The organizations are supposed to be a check on faculty power in the case of cheating allegations. But they break down when it comes to student-against-student issues.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@raven: The whole thing makes kinda little sense to me. And I’ve had a few decades more than a day of legal training. It puzzles me that there was no police report.
stormhit
@efgoldman: There are so many other examples where a crime has to be proven first, that it’s not even worth listing them. Just actually TRY to think of them.
Dave Ruddell
@Walker: You’re right on. Interestingly enough, apparently student Honor Courts are far tougher on cheaters than faculty run tribunals.
YellowJournalism
I don’t think the issue here is whether the rapes were real or not. The issue is how terribly te issue was handled by the tribunal due to a lack of sufficient training and if it was appropriate at all for the tribunal to be handling it at all. This isn’t about the individual rapists or rape crimes but how the way it is handled discourages victims from coming forward.
Regardless of the outcome, the parents of the one victim should never have been given copies of her testimony without her permission. A former member of the student board even admits they were improperly trained! It’s also pretty obvious that she or the other victim was targeted by the student tribunal for speaking out about how her case was mishandled.
PurpleGirl
I wonder, and I don’t know about the school’s policy, but is it possible that crimes committed on the campus first have to be handled by the school’s own agencies. I’m wondering if it’s similar to the way stock problems have to go to arbitration and not the courts. Just wondering…
Ted & Hellen
@cmorenc:
“However:
1) Recognize that we only have one partial, entirely unfiltered side of the story here: hers.
2) The Honor Court found the accused defendant “not guilty”. While it’s entirely possible they made a wrong decision here, nevertheless it’s just as abusively presumptive for us to label the accused as a “rapist”, when neither the honor board nor any court have found him guilty of such, nor do we know ANYTHING about the actual evidence in this case beyond what she said about it”
HELLO. The people here serving as judge and jury and throwing around the term “rapist” ought to be ashamed…but won’t be.
raven
@PurpleGirl:
Ted & Hellen
@The Other Chuck:
Don’t get this either. Shouldn’t rape be tried in a criminal court of law?
raven
my bad
Keith G
I do not get this episode at all. Rape is a violent crime committed against the peace of the state. How such a crime can be ignored by the state’s criminal justice system is beyond me.
As a teacher in Houston TX, if I was intentionally pushed by a student, that student would likely be charged by Harris County with assault. Why would government officials in North Carolina do less? Since there is a history of this, why isn’t the word out that victims bypass the university and go directly to a county prosecutor?
Ted & Hellen
@efgoldman:
Don’t prosecutors in cases of burglary/murder/extortion/whatever have to submit evidence and prove that the crime they are accusing a defendant of actually took place?
Or do they just kind of say…”we have no dead body and nothing else, but trust us…?” ???
MattMinus
@efgoldman:
You’ve obviously never reported a car stolen and been told that it was probably just towed so you should check with the impound lot in the morning and call back if they don’t have it.
burnspbesq
@TR:
Why don’t you get your head out of your ass long enough to do some research and learn that what the Crazies were really shouting at the NC State backup point guard who looks about 12 years old was “past your bedtime?” Even the State fans who were at the game have said as much.
Irrational haters gotta hate irrationally.
Eric U.
the questions the UNC victim was asked were pretty reprehensible. Not surprising given the moronic crap I heard at Penn State about Sandusky’s victims — even while they were being victimized again by rabid football fans.
There is now some question in my mind if the student honor board members should be brought up on charges in front of their own organization. Apparently it’s easy enough to bring charges.
cmorenc
@efgoldman:
So…the mere fact that a woman accuses a man of sexual assault is of itself airtight unchallengeable proof that the man is criminally guilty of rape? That the woman is not required to convince a judge or jury that she’s telling the accurate truth about what happened, and that she should expect to be immune from skeptical challenge of her story or presentation of contradictary evidence or testimony?
What the judicial process (including an honor court) owes a woman bringing a claim of sexual assault before them is to be taken seriously, respectfully, and professionally, and to avoid inflicting any gratuitous humiliations upon her along the way. However, these obligations do NOT include accepting her claims free of critical examination, including issues of credibility. In the past, expeditions into the woman’s credibility were allowed far too much latitude into gratuitous humiliating territory, which amounted to a witch-hunt to prove she was a whore who therefore asked for it or deserved what happened. That kind of abuse should not be permitted during the process.
However, neither is the purpose of what amounts to a serious criminal proceeding, even in an honor court setting, to serve as a therapeutic session for the accuser (except perhaps incidentally). Rather, she is seeking for the trial body to brand the accused guilty of a violent felony assault crime against women that will both destroy his future employability and subject him to other further harsh sanctions.
That said, if the judicial body both believes her factual claims convincingly credible and that they amount to sexual assault, then yes, that in principle is enough to support a conviction. But not without the judicial body carefully, critically weighing her testimony, other witnesses’ testimony (if any) and any other relevant physical or circumstancial evidence relating to the event.
Your statement is as repugnantly frightening as the crime of rape itself when a man is guilty of it: you effectively bypass any requirement that the accuser convincingly prove that he’s guilty beyond simply making the accusation.
Mary
A really disturbing number of college rape cases are handled “in house” because many universities put significant pressure on students not to report the crime to the police. I’m fairly certain there is research out there about it but I am currently doped up on Benadryl and will probably fall asleep before I enter the search terms in Google.
MattMinus
@cmorenc:
You must be new here…
Keith G
@cmorenc:
I think this is why technically competent law enforcement professionals need to be handling such cases and not a frickin student court.
Eric U.
it wasn’t really a trial in the sense that the alleged rapist could be convicted and thrown in jail. My understanding is that she chose not to go to police for the original assault, but was afraid that this person was trying to stalk her by seeking admission to UNC. Seems like a reasonable fear.
The victim’s story is really bad, and people involved aren’t really disputing any of it. The honor court put her on trial during the original hearing, and they are really deserving of rebuke for that. The fact that they now have put her on trial again really argues for some stronger action by the university.
Robert
Are we really pretending it’s okay to dismiss an alleged rape victim’s claims because she suffers from depression? Because that’s what the honor board did and that’s what this student complained about. There’s a world of difference between explaining what happened and being accused of lying because you have depression. One is trying to figure out the facts of the case; the other is, at best, blaming the victim and, at worst, accusing the victim of lying just to get attention because she’s not right in the head.
So, no, I don’t see where this student said that she thought she wouldn’t have to explain what happened. I’m seeing complaints about being asked really insensitive questions about her health and her social life. I mean, has no one seen The Accused? Or better yet, has no one read the really sad story of Cheryl Araujo? 27 years ago, it was still a valid rape defense to say “but she was asking for it, look at her, she’s a slut.” Now, this honor court tried to discredit her by saying “but she’s depressed, she’s clearly making it up for attention, the slut.” Not that far apart. That’s where the objection comes in.
I still want to know how discussing her experience is somehow naming names and making other students involved in the case uncomfortable. Did she name her rapist? Did she name the students on the honor court? Are the names of her rapist and the students who presided that day so commonplace on campus that the only way to protect them from such trauma as a rape victim telling her story with the honor court is for the victim to never ever speak out?
Eric U.
it’s really screwed up how many people think that depression is some sort of disqualification. I don’t tell doctors that I have been treated for depression because I’m pretty sure some of them have dismissed or at least diminished my concerns because of it. An eye doctor, for example. Then he told me to eat more broccoli.
People don’t understand sexual assault unless they have been through it. And even then, it seems to me that most victims don’t really understand their emotional reaction to the assault. But looking at the continuing assault on this student should be instructive to people who wonder why she didn’t run to the police.
tam1MI
Absolutely true, and it has been this way for almost 30 years now. The victim gets gulled into believing that the school will look out for her interests and enact appropriate punishment against her attacker, which never happens. The real reason universities pressure students who have been raped to keep “in house”, of course, is that makes it easier for them to shut them down and shut them up. Parents get very twitchy about sending their kids to a school where rapes are known to have occurred, this way everything stays on the down low and the schools don’t have any embarassing crime statistics to have to explain away.
If I could tell girls going to college one important thing, it’s this – if you are raped or otherwise sexually assaulted, GO TO THE POLICE. Do NOT go through your university. They are not to be trusted on this issue AT ALL.
Eric U.
If a student at Penn State is raped on campus, the campus cops have jurisdiction. You really can’t go downtown — it would be like going to the police in the next town over from where an assault happened. This is one reason why Sandusky is only now in jail. I suspect the situation is similar on many campuses, particularly at large state schools.
I’m really getting the impression that nobody read the story because going to the university was really what this student wanted to do. She apparently didn’t want the person to be prosecuted, just kept off campus
YellowJournalism
@Robert: What also concerned me were the accusatory questions of the woman whose alleged attacker was her boyfriend. “Why did you stay? I wouldn’t have!” It shows a oral lack of understanding of the complexities of an abusive relationship.
Which reminds me…I understand that court cases are complex and all, but could someone inform the CNN tragedy vultures that just because a woman likes sex doesn’t mean she can’t be abused and sexually assaulted by the guy she liked to have sex with. I keep seeing snippets about some murder case where the CNN hosts are gleefully getting too close to calling the accused alleged murderess a slut on national TV.
Gian
I actually read a goodly portion of the article.
It covers complaints from multiple people, not just one.
and it deals with the student run honor court.
it seems rather silent on the actual criminal court/prosecution of the offenses.
I’d like to think that if an actual criminal case is brought, and a conviction obtained that attendance at the UNC for the rapist has some serious bars in the way of the rapist and the school.
So, I anticipate the cases are ones which fell short of criminal prosecution for some reason.
Is that because the university pd has a dim view of rape victims and doesn’t properly work up their cases? Is it because the cases they had were reported long after the rape happened and there was no opportunity for an exam?
I’d be stuck speculating about the university PD or the County prosecutor’s office… DO they file any rapes out of this school? Are they leaving the victims with no recourse but the “honor court?”
If the university PD does a decent job of investigating and preparing rape cases, the county prosecutor just didn’t file these because he or she didn’t think they could meet the reasonable doubt burden, well it’d be hard for the “honor court” to jump in and have undergrads do more with the facts of the case than presumably seasoned lawyers could.
Given the events at Penn State I lean toward no real investigations done, but that’s just a hunch.
RoonieRoo
I can’t remember if I’ve already said this in another thread, but I am very happy that John has added you and TWIB to the front page.
Just wanted to say it since I’m not a frequent commenter and I’m not sure I had said it yet.
Mo
My guess, based on my experiences at a completely different college is that the student is running afoul of the confidentiality rules that people involved in honor code violations and their adjudications are forced to abide by. The problem is, they were set up to deal with students breaking rules, so that was the rule broken or not is the only thing to be decided. Putting them in the position of deciding which student to believe is highly problematic. In theory, confidentiality rules protect students from having their transgressions known and allow for a fresh start – which is perfectly acceptable when dealing with exam cheating or drunken property damage. But sexual assault isn’t the same, because a person was assaulted – not on the college. My guess is that the bogosity of the charges is due to the fact that the Honor Board can’t exactly charge her with breaking confidentiality rules because the administration broke the rules themselves when they gave confidential material to her parents without her consent.
Honor Boards can make HOAs look good. After I graduated, a friend still in school confessed she was being harassed via an honor code complaint. The complaint against her was about something she did in her role in student government. The opposition didn’t show up at the meeting where X was voted on, but later dragged my friend through a secret honor code violation trial (as the article linked in the linked article says, these trials can last 3 to 5 weeks). She wasn’t allowed to tell anyone what was going on and could have been expelled for her late night tears in my apartment. All for something for which either a protest or an editorial in the school newspaper would have been the appropriate action. Even if they won, her accusers weren’t allowed to tell anyone either. Secrecy can breed crazy.
lojasmo
In before Ted and Helen defends another motherfucker who puts his penorz where somebody doesn’t want it.
Too late.
lojasmo
Looks like all UNC sexual assault claims get filtered through the honor court. Members of the court have, in the past, been instructed to underreport sexual assault instances.
For all you wondering why there was no police report, rape is a grossly underreported crime.
Of all sexual assaults, only 46% are reported to police, and only 12% of sexual assaults result in a conviction.
The process is also emotionally painful to the victim.
Ted & Hellen
@lojasmo:
Shorter Jism: I don’t need no stinkin’ evidence! I don’t need to demonstrate there was a stinkin’ crime! String em up!
Idiot.