There were claims on the Manton case study that Dixon had prior history of engaging in sexual activity at his high school, which led Dixon to be suspended twice for the prior sexual acts. At the time of this incident, Dixon was 18 years old, and the “victim” was 15 (Manton, 2005). Following this factual information, Dixon at that time claimed that the sexual act was consensual and accused the girl of fabricating the story because of fear of her parents finding out and punishing her for sleeping with a black man (Manton, 2005). Several charges were suggested for Dixon which included: statutory rape, aggravated child molestation, rape, sexual battery, false imprisonment, and aggravated assist (Manton, 2005). Dixon was then acquitted of a majority of the charges and found Dixon guilty of statutory rape and aggravated child molestation (Manton,
The Pennsylvania State University Jerry Sandusky Child Molestation case shed light on to a long line of horrific acts of sexual abuse and corruption within college football. Jerry Sandusky was an assistant football coach alongside the iconic football coach, Joe Paterno. While Sandusky was not brought to trial until 2012, reports of Sandusky sexually molesting football players and young boys date back to 1994 (Chappell, 2012). This was not through lack of acknowledgement; many of Sandusky’s victims came forwarded and reported the assaults to campus police, the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare, head coach Joe Paterno, the senior Vice President, and the Penn State Athletic Director. Penn State’s blatant cover up of abuse allegations is worrisome and cannot be tolerated.
In Glenn Reynolds’ article “A War on College Men” he is responding to Jared Polis’ idea of expelling all men who are accused of sexual assault on college campuses, believing it is better to get rid of all, even if two out of ten are actually guilty. It would flip one of the “longstanding traditions of American law,” which is the idea that letting ten guilty men free is better than imprisoning one innocent. According to Reynolds, this policy would be going against due process rights. Expulsion for sexual assault on a man’s record would create extreme difficulty with entering a new college or finding a job. Reynolds quotes Eugene Volokh’s ideas that Polis “doesn’t think the rights of the accused are very important at all” and that this
Last summer, I was afforded the opportunity to take a three-day class on Title IX in Intercollegiate Athletics hosted by a former employee of the Office of Civil Rights, Ms. Valerie Bonnette. The class opened my eyes to the basic fundamentals of Title IX, key issues on college campuses and what I could do to make an immediate impact on the campus of Hampton University. The class broke down the understanding of the three prong test and with the recent additions of Women’s Soccer and Men’s Lacrosse. In addition to understanding Title IX’s effects on scholarships, budget, facilities and most importantly female student-athletes.
A school could be held to pay legal fees to the victim, something that was ruled by the Supreme Court. In addition, the school can be held in court if the sexual harassment/assault was perpetrated by a faculty member, staff, or student. In order to make the school be held responsible, the institution must have power over the harasser and over the environment the incident
Michigan State’s handling, or frankly lack there of handling of sexual assault cases has been appalling to say the least. Administrators have chosen not to address the multiple institutional issues we have in our community and have repeatedly tried to pay off survivors in the past with large monetary gifts for their silence. This past year has been extremely trying and irritating for not only survivors, but also the rest of the Michigan State community. However, I think that it is important to remember and utilize Burke’s thoughts about joy and accountability when moving forward. We need to learn from these atrocities and we need to set an example for other universities and institutions that this will not be tolerated and the survivors will not be tolerated.
During the hearing of the case, Andrew’s assailant was already suspended for sexual misconduct of two other men, only to be expelled when Andrew’s case came into the picture. “I wish they had taken it seriously the first one or two times,” he stated, “I could’ve had days of my sophomore year that I didn't have to drag myself out of bed every morning. We are up against a system that’s not designed to help us”. Another victim, who chose to remain completely anonymous shared the realities of being a man who was raped by a woman. His assault happened at a party, after repetitively telling the girl to stop, while he was hardly conscious.
Title IX recognizes that all students have the right to due process and directs universities to be as supportive as possible to students who have experienced an incident of sexual assault or harassment. However, institutions have to be fair to the person that is reported and honor their rights to due process as well. If complaints are filed by students saying that the institution falls short of their requirements, it is The Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights who is responsible for enforcing Title IX regulations (Palumbo). While these regulations seem to be clear, the controversy comes when institutions have to decide what is considered a “hostile environment.” A hostile environment is defined as “an environment in which it is impossible for the assaulted student to carry on with daily life in his or her normal manner.”
In Ohio, two high school boys raped an unconscious girl and posted the video of it online. After they were arrested, the media victimized the boys by saying these “star athletes’ futures were ruined.” The rape victim received numerous death threats because she wanted justice for herself. Another case, Brock Turner was a Stanford University student was “convicted on three counts of felony sexual assault for raping an unconscious woman behind a dumpster” but was only sentenced to six months of prison. The judge believed that too much jail time would “a severe impact on Turner and his future.”
In 1994, President Bill Clinton signed the Violence Against Women Act (“VAWA”), which funded rape investigations and prosecutions, imposed mandatory sentences on rapists and penalized prosecutors who did not follow standard operating procedures on certain rape cases (Nanos, E., 2015). President Clinton’s successor’s Presidents Bush and Obama, both renewed VAWA during their time in office. Following VAWA, the Clery Act helped colleges fight university campus violence, and in 2013, Congress passed an amendment called the Campus SaVE Act. In July of 2015 Rep. Matt Salmon introduced to the House of Representative the Safe Campus Act (Nanos, 2015).
The outcome following a sexual assault is sometimes referred to as being worse than the actual assault itself (The Hunting Grounds, 2015). Following the assault, the college campus, police, criminal justice system, media, and various other forms of institutions are known to re-victimize these individuals whom have already been previously assaulted. These numerous institutions are suppose to help, and report fairly and justly. Unfortunately that’s not the case in Liz Seccuro’s book, Crash Into Me, or in the film The Hunting Ground. Every single victim experienced a form of revictimization whether that is through false reports in the media, or the college campuses’ failure to report or help sexual assault victims.
Title IX has become a prevalent topic of discussion over the past few months. Last September Betsy DeVos, Secretary of Education announced that she would be working on rescinding the Obama-era Title IX guidance and implicating a new interim guidance. The #MeToo Movement, a campaign aimed at supporting survivors of sexual violence began taking on momentum due to accusations towards Harvey Weinstein and numerous top-tier celebrates. Recently, former USA Gymnastics team doctor for Michigan State, Larry Nassar has been found guilty for decades of abuse on young students. A scandal that can cost MSU millions for concealing reports and allegations of victims.
In how many cases have heard that the whole case is built on the foundation of a lie? These rare cases of misleading accusations lead to speculations on other case that truly deserve to be looked into. A Stanford University driven website called Men Against Abuse Now conducted an experiment to find out the percentage of false rape cases the number falls at 2%, that may not seem like a very huge number but just imagine being the person falsely accused of this horrible crime. On july 16th, 2016 Auburn running back Jovon Robinson’s life was turned upside down after he was falsely accused of domestic abuse by his ex-girlfriend. The following month on August 3rd Jovon had been kicked off of the football team with any investigation by the school/coach.
Sexual assault is a basic violation of human rights involving perpetrators that still typically get their allotted sentence reduced with next to no punishment. As a result, victims are discouraged from reporting their assault. Out of every sexual assault charge, only six in every one-thousand rapist will be successfully prosecuted. One out of every six American women have been victims of attempted or completed rape in their lifetime with 14.8 percent completed, and 2.8 percent attempted. About three percent of American men, or one in thirty-three have experienced an attempted or completed rape at some point in their
19% of freshman in college are victims of attempted or completed rape, that is nearly one in every five students on campus. The majority of these numbers are female, and in many situations she is the one who is blamed. This growing issue is being swept under the rug by colleges, hiding their statistics to make sure that their college doesn’t get a bad rep from what is going on behind closed doors. Predators are receiving little to no punishment for their actions leaving them on campus with the ability to rehash their previous actions. This newfound epidemic needs to be addressed and colleges need to start stepping in when in comes to the safety of their students.
