Larger question re. sexual violence and Brock Turner - Printable Version
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Re: Larger question re. sexual violence and Brock Turner - Mick - 06-12-2016
(06-12-2016, 03:41 PM)81alum link Wrote:In the mid 1970s Stanford claimed not to give preference to legacies. One of many of the reforms that emerged from the 1960s that have since been abandoned. Princeton states that its legacies are admitted at about a 35% rate, while its overall admissions is closer to 7%. At least that is what they put in their letter to me earlier this year.
With regard to the eating clubs, times may well have changed. They were the subject of a lawsuit in the 1990s to force them to go coed, so they were dragged kicking and screaming into the 20th century after I departed. Their history is interesting. They were established because Princeton had the good sense to ban fraternities in the 19th C, so this was the next best thing that could pass muster within the rules. Even so, Woodrow Wilson was disgusted with their influence and had enormous friction with them during his tenure as university President. Today, the eating clubs cost an extra $2000 or so beyond a normal Princeton eating plan, and I am not at all surprised that 3/4 of the students feel the need to pay the premium to join them.Â
One of my students invited me to the Ivy Club. Perhaps I over generalized from my experience there. The antebellum comment was more about the racial relations than the architecture, but many of those "clubs" were incredible buildings. I naively remembered the Toyon eating club at Stanford--which looked like a hovel compared with the Princeton clubs, and was an entirely different kind of establishment. It was probably that contrast that set me up for such a shock.
I'm still wondering if Stanford's Greek life has also changed over the last 35 years, or its drinking scene. It seemed tame, benign when I was there despite my misgivings about the concept of exclusive clubs.
I admit that F. Scott Fitzgerald's 1920 novel "This Side of Paradise" conveyed the white, male essence of Princeton 100 years ago. A few things have changed since:
- Princeton's legacy admit rate was 30.8% for the class of 2018, not 35%.
- The experience at Ivy is considerably different than the other 10 clubs.
- Two of the 11 clubs at Princeton faced the lawsuit ordering them to admit women. Not 11...2. Both of those two clubs, Tiger Inn and Ivy, have female Presidents, and half of TI's six officers are women.
- All eleven clubs are essentially 50/50 women/men. They cover 3/4 of the juniors and seniors.
- And when they finally admitted women in 1990, Harvard had nine all-male clubs at the time. Yale's Skull & Bones remained all-male at the time.
Re: Larger question re. sexual violence and Brock Turner - needle - 06-12-2016
The LA Times covered commencement, for obvious reasons--
Quote: Supporters of the protest also said they wanted to express their anger toward Turners sentence.
Ive witnessed us as a society not properly raising men to treat women properly, said senior Mattias Johansson. This isnt about drinking on campus. This isnt about campus promiscuity Its about the atmosphere of mistreatment of women on our campus, and its a statement for me against this idea that rape isnt a crime worth talking about.
Stanfords graduating student body president, John-Lancaster Finley, said it was important to stand in solidarity with survivors of sexual violence at Stanford. We want people to know that this happens here.
Added outgoing student body vice president Brandon Hill: We need a broader conversation about what does masculinity mean. What is toxic masculinity? What is informing rape culture and people to take part in rape? What is it that fathers are teaching their sons?
Most graduating students did not participate in the protest, and a few were annoyed by its appearance at commencement.
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-stanford-protest-20160612-snap-story.html
Washington Post, too.
Quote: Jackson Beard, an international relations major from Chicago, interacts regularly with the Stanford administration in her capacity as president of the Associated Students of Stanford University (ASSU). On May 12, shortly after being elected president on a campaign platform that emphasized addressing the issue of sexual violence, Beard emailed a top Stanford official to discuss ideas for making improvements.
She said she received a response that appeared dismissive and then never heard back on her request to set up a meeting.
It was very disheartening, she said. Ive been very proud of how many students in our community feel the urgency and importance of this issue. It remains unclear to me at this point whether that same sense of urgency is shared by the higher levels of the administration.Â
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/at-stanford-commencement-protests-amid-the-revelry/2016/06/12/fe016622-30e1-11e6-8758-d58e76e11b12_story.html
Re: Larger question re. sexual violence and Brock Turner - ThePassionOfTheChryst - 06-12-2016
I've tried to avoid commentary on this story so perhaps I've missed it, but can someone help me understand the logic behind protesting the commencement? I was under the impression that people are angry at the judge.
Re: Larger question re. sexual violence and Brock Turner - Mick - 06-13-2016
(06-12-2016, 08:01 PM)needle link Wrote:Jackson Beard, an international relations major from Chicago, interacts regularly with the Stanford administration in her capacity as president of the Associated Students of Stanford University (ASSU). On May 12, shortly after being elected president on a campaign platform that emphasized addressing the issue of sexual violence, Beard emailed a top Stanford official to discuss ideas for making improvements.
She said she received a response that appeared dismissive and then never heard back on her request to set up a meeting.
It was very disheartening, she said. Ive been very proud of how many students in our community feel the urgency and importance of this issue. It remains unclear to me at this point whether that same sense of urgency is shared by the higher levels of the administration.Â
Then go and sit in his office, Ms. Beard. Bring friends. Email the board. Email the general counsel. Meet with the general counsel. Or meet with the press and name names. Share the email contents. There are many things you can do if one bureaucrat ignores your entreaty.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/at-stanford-commencement-protests-amid-the-revelry/2016/06/12/fe016622-30e1-11e6-8758-d58e76e11b12_story.html
[/quote]
Re: Larger question re. sexual violence and Brock Turner - stupac2 - 06-13-2016
(06-12-2016, 09:04 PM)ThePOC link Wrote:I've tried to avoid commentary on this story so perhaps I've missed it, but can someone help me understand the logic behind protesting the commencement? I was under the impression that people are angry at the judge.
I mean, when I was on campus people protested pretty much anything. But here I don't think the idea is to protest commencement as though commencement is a bad thing or responsible at all, but rather it's an opportunity to get a lot of people together and show solidarity, as the first quote needle posted said.
(06-13-2016, 06:08 AM)Mick link Wrote:Then go and sit in his office, Ms. Beard. Bring friends. Email the board. Email the general counsel. Meet with the general counsel. Or meet with the press and name names. Share the email contents. There are many things you can do if one bureaucrat ignores your entreaty.
Bureaucrats are gonna bureaucrat (and it's really hard for me to have a lower opinion of Stanford's bureaucrats), but the point is that this shouldn't be only on the students. Stanford's bureaucracy should jump at chances to meet with student representatives to talk about ways to improve the situation. Not doing it is ugly and I hope that person gets reprimanded.
Also you don't know that Ms Beard didn't follow up.
Re: Larger question re. sexual violence and Brock Turner - CTcard - 06-13-2016
(06-13-2016, 08:43 AM)stupac2 link Wrote:...
Bureaucrats are gonna bureaucrat (and it's really hard for me to have a lower opinion of Stanford's bureaucrats), but the point is that this shouldn't be only on the students. Stanford's bureaucracy should jump at chances to meet with student representatives to talk about ways to improve the situation. Not doing it is ugly and I hope that person gets reprimanded.
Also you don't know that Ms Beard didn't follow up.
Of course you also don't know who the top Stanford official was, or what was said in response that appeared dismissive.
Sometimes it's best to simply not have an opinion when you don't have much information.
Re: Larger question re. sexual violence and Brock Turner - Extra Point - 06-13-2016
(06-13-2016, 10:20 AM)CTcard link Wrote:Sometimes it's best to simply not have an opinion when you don't have much information.
+1
Re: Larger question re. sexual violence and Brock Turner - stupac2 - 06-13-2016
(06-13-2016, 10:20 AM)CTcard link Wrote:[quote author=stupac2 link=topic=15166.msg164921#msg164921 date=1465832612]
...
Bureaucrats are gonna bureaucrat (and it's really hard for me to have a lower opinion of Stanford's bureaucrats), but the point is that this shouldn't be only on the students. Stanford's bureaucracy should jump at chances to meet with student representatives to talk about ways to improve the situation. Not doing it is ugly and I hope that person gets reprimanded.
Also you don't know that Ms Beard didn't follow up.
Of course you also don't know who the top Stanford official was, or what was said in response that appeared dismissive.
Sometimes it's best to simply not have an opinion when you don't have much information.
[/quote]
Meh, if her quote is true then someone screwed up. Do you disagree? Even in the absence of this particular assault, campus sexual assault is a brobdingnagian problem that's been getting a lot of attention, and every administration in every university should be in communication with students (especially student leaders) to see what they can do to help reduce the problem. Maybe the suggestions will be bad and maybe it will be fruitless, but doing nothing isn't acceptable any more.
But maybe I shouldn't have an opinion.
Re: Larger question re. sexual violence and Brock Turner - terry - 06-13-2016
Quote:it's really hard for me to have a lower opinion of Stanford's bureaucrats
Your experience with bureaucracy must be much different from mine. There are many, many bureaucrats in the world who are far worse than Stanford's.
Re: Larger question re. sexual violence and Brock Turner - stupac2 - 06-13-2016
(06-13-2016, 11:37 AM)terry link Wrote:Quote:it's really hard for me to have a lower opinion of Stanford's bureaucrats
Your experience with bureaucracy must be much different from mine. There are many, many bureaucrats in the world who are far worse than Stanford's.
I never had a good interaction with them at Stanford (including being lied to multiple times). The DMV has always been better.
Re: Larger question re. sexual violence and Brock Turner - 2006alum - 06-13-2016
(06-13-2016, 11:37 AM)terry link Wrote:Quote:it's really hard for me to have a lower opinion of Stanford's bureaucrats
Your experience with bureaucracy must be much different from mine. There are many, many bureaucrats in the world who are far worse than Stanford's.
+1. I've experienced bureaucracies at a number of higher ed institutions (public, private, foreign), and Stanford is far and away the best I've seen. That said, I found the Office of Student Affairs and Res Ed to be extraordinarily frustrating to deal with at times. But everything academic and financial aid-related was tremendously easy.
Re: Larger question re. sexual violence and Brock Turner - fullmetal - 06-13-2016
The Registrar's office refused to fix an error on my transcript even after the professor for the class emailed them to do so. I don't know what it takes at Stanford.
Re: Larger question re. sexual violence and Brock Turner - CornFed - 06-13-2016
Bureaucracies are not famously incompetent and inefficient because the individuals are bad people. Rather, the organizational incentives are perverse relative to the object of customer service.
Re: Larger question re. sexual violence and Brock Turner - robin - 06-13-2016
Just last week my husband, older daughter and I had lunch with one of my husbands Stanford classmates and all heard him tell a story about how a former Stanford professor preyed on him when this man was a U. S. Congressman invited to talk at Branner. Apparently after the talk this freshman-classmate drove with this official to Berkeley expecting to attend a function and instead was taken -- with the $1 in his pocket, no debit card, no cell phone (those did not exist in the early 1970s, but then again neither did ubiquitous cameras for Internet porn shots for team members) -- to the Claremont Hotel, where he was told the bad weather prevented them from driving back to Stanford, a second hotel room would not be necessary....
Apparently this U. S. official was killed in 1980 by a former Stanford student, a person murderpedia.org describes as the politicians protégé. I wonder now if this protégé also had been sexually assaulted when he was a student at Stanford. We all know sexual assault is not limited to male-female interactions. When one hears an institution state it has done everything it [can] and he/she disagrees with the statement....
Bravo stupac2 for encouraging contributors to suggest ways sexual assault might be reduced (even if you do think frats are a red herring, an opinion I obviously do not share). ;)
Re: Larger question re. sexual violence and Brock Turner - 82lsju - 06-13-2016
(06-13-2016, 03:29 PM)robin link Wrote:Just last week my husband, older daughter and I had lunch with one of my husbands Stanford classmates and all heard him tell a story about how a former Stanford professor preyed on him when this man was a U. S. Congressman invited to talk at Branner. Apparently after the talk this freshman-classmate drove with this official to Berkeley expecting to attend a function and instead was taken -- with the $1 in his pocket, no debit card, no cell phone (those did not exist in the early 1970s, but then again neither did ubiquitous cameras for Internet porn shots for team members) -- to the Claremont Hotel, where he was told the bad weather prevented them from driving back to Stanford, a second hotel room would not be necessary....
Apparently this U. S. official was killed in 1980 by a former Stanford student, a person murderpedia.org describes as the politicians protégé. I wonder now if this protégé also had been sexually assaulted when he was a student at Stanford. We all know sexual assault is not limited to male-female interactions. When one hears an institution state it has done everything it [can] and he/she disagrees with the statement....
I assume these are the people you are referencing
http://www.nytimes.com/1982/06/13/books/a-protege-s-story.html
Re: Larger question re. sexual violence and Brock Turner - BostonCard - 06-13-2016
In the interest of constructive recommendations for reducing sexual assault and alcohol abuse, here's what I would do.
1) First, ingrain a culture of mutual respect and self respect. At its core, issues of sexual assault arise from a lack of respect, and a lot of the issues with regards to binge drinking arise from lack of self-respect. This is easier said than done, of course.
2) Secondly, ingrain a culture of mutual responsibility, and helping one-another out. I think that a lot of the issues can be helped if rather than encouraging one another to get more s***-faced, or ignoring irresponsible behavior, the default should be students ensuring each other's well-being. What happened in the Turner would have been much worse had it not been for the two graduate students who happened upon the scene and intervened. That means that students need to speak up if someone has already had too much and help them to safety. It means they have to intervene if sexual advances are unwanted or go unreciprocated.
3) Since I agree that eliminating alcohol from campus is an ultimately futile endeavor that will just serve to drive it underground, I believe energy should be focused on ensuring responsible use of alcohol. It means that the university ought to start cracking down on binge drinking, and should identify students susceptible to binge drinking and ensure they get the help they need. The emphasis ought to be on getting students help, rather than punishing them.
4) I still think that fraternities/sororities can play a positive role here, but you need buy in. If they can't or don't want to play a positive role, then I agree with robin.
BC
Re: Larger question re. sexual violence and Brock Turner - needle - 06-14-2016
FWIW, "bystander intervention" is a buzzword that carries a lot of currency at pretty much every single college campus by this point.
I'd say that the actual meaning of the term may be a little nebulous to the average college student, but here's an example from an education program that apparently is gaining some traction:
Quote: Among those programs is Green Dot, a growing national campaign that was started six years ago to stop campus rape through bystander intervention. Dorothy Edwards, a former director of the University of Kentuckys Violence Intervention and Prevention Center, wrote the curriculum that about 300 colleges have since adopted, including Harvard University, the University of Notre Dame and Northwestern University.
Green Dot first aims to teach students how to identify strange behaviour, the smaller warning signs. If they see a man leading a stumbling woman into a room, for example, why not ask, Is that your boyfriend? If they see someone start to pass out at a house party, theyre advised to call the person a cab.
Students, instructed to place their own safety first, follow the Three Ds direct, delegate or distract.
https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2016/06/09/stanford-sexual-assault-case-shows-how-bystander-intervention-works-to-stop-rape.html
Re: Larger question re. sexual violence and Brock Turner - 2006alum - 06-14-2016
Definitely engaged in bystander intervention several times in undergrad, esp. at the end of senior pub nights. Just like Homeland Security says, if you see something, say something...
Re: Larger question re. sexual violence and Brock Turner - PrinceLightfoot - 06-14-2016
(06-13-2016, 06:13 PM)Boston Card link Wrote:In the interest of constructive recommendations for reducing sexual assault and alcohol abuse, here's what I would do.
1) First, ingrain a culture of mutual respect and self respect. At its core, issues of sexual assault arise from a lack of respect, and a lot of the issues with regards to binge drinking arise from lack of self-respect. This is easier said than done, of course.
2) Secondly, ingrain a culture of mutual responsibility, and helping one-another out. I think that a lot of the issues can be helped if rather than encouraging one another to get more s***-faced, or ignoring irresponsible behavior, the default should be students ensuring each other's well-being. What happened in the Turner would have been much worse had it not been for the two graduate students who happened upon the scene and intervened. That means that students need to speak up if someone has already had too much and help them to safety. It means they have to intervene if sexual advances are unwanted or go unreciprocated.
3) Since I agree that eliminating alcohol from campus is an ultimately futile endeavor that will just serve to drive it underground, I believe energy should be focused on ensuring responsible use of alcohol. It means that the university ought to start cracking down on binge drinking, and should identify students susceptible to binge drinking and ensure they get the help they need. The emphasis ought to be on getting students help, rather than punishing them.
4) I still think that fraternities/sororities can play a positive role here, but you need buy in. If they can't or don't want to play a positive role, then I agree with robin.
BC
+1
Re: Larger question re. sexual violence and Brock Turner - 82lsju - 06-14-2016
In a sign of growing problems for the judge who ignited a national controversy by handing a light sentence to a former Stanford athlete convicted of sexually assaulting an unconscious intoxicated woman, prosecutors Tuesday got him kicked off another sex case.
Santa Clara County prosecutors filed the peremptory challenge against Judge Aaron Persky on Tuesday morning, automatically preventing him from presiding over a preliminary hearing for a Kaiser Permanente surgical nurse accused of sexually assaulting a sedated woman.
http://www.mercurynews.com/crime-courts/ci_30015499/brock-turner-da-gets-judge-kicked-off-new?utm_campaign=Echobox&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook#link_time=1465945058