California Assemblyman Das Williams, (D) Carpenteria, has authored and sponsored three bills touted as the “College Campus Sexual Assault Legislative Package, Assembly Bills, 967, 968, and 969. The proposals have received widespread support thus far in the legislature, and most likely will pass in the near future.
These proposals were touted in an article in Time Magazine http://time.com/3910602/campus-rape-sexual-assault-california-law/ which prominently portrays a picture of–you guessed it1 Mattress Girl Emma Sulkowicz, the now Columbia graduate who toted around a mattress in protest of Columbia not expelling her rapist. The only problem of course is that the rape never happened, and readers to this site are fully aware of that entire circus. Sulkowicz’s mattress toting bordered on pathology yet she was an invited and honored special guest by the equally pathological Senator Kristen Gillibrand to the State of the Union Address.
In one brief dissent of logic and sanity of the Bill was a statement from Republican Assemblywoman Shannon Grove, one of the four lawmakers who voted against the bill.
“Those committing sexual assault within our college campuses should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law by our judicial system, not at a campus disciplinary proceeding. “College administrators should not be conducting criminal trials for serious crimes and our state legislature should not mandate punishments at these quasi- judicial hearings.”
Duh! Haven’t tons of advocates, college law professors, attorneys, law enforcement professionals and some journalists been saying the same thing? Helllllllooooo!!!!! Hey,,,,, politicians,,,,, is there anyone home upstairs???
Let’s take a brief look at what these bills propose.
AB 967 – Requires college campuses to establish a minimum of a two year suspension up to expulsion if an individual is found guilty of a sexual offense. It also requires colleges to report and disclose adjudication outcomes for sexual assault offenses.
Notes: The Bill proposes the elimination of special status of a student in determination hearings, such as a member of an athletic team.
AB 968 – Requires the college academic transcripts to include a notation to indicate on a student’s transcripts when the student is ineligible to reenroll due to a suspension or expulsion.
Notes: The Bill provides additional clarity to protect colleges from civil liability when denying re-enrollment, and does necessarily require a finding of guilt, just a suspension.
AB 969 – Clarifies existing law to allow community colleges to suspend or expel a student for conduct that threatened the safety of students or the public that occurs off campus. The bill would also require prospective students to disclose in any application process for any college, if they dismissed from a college for campus sexual assault. Colleges would be have to allow a prospective student a hearing before being enrolled, if they were previously dismissed from a college for a sexual assault.
Notes: The Bill proposal makes it mandatory for students to declare prior suspensions or expulsions including if they are currently in the adjudication process, prior to being allowed entry into the new college. This allows for the free flowing of information between colleges to determine eligibility to enroll and relieves the institution from civil liability if they deny to hold a hearing to an applicant student.
On the surface, these Bill proposals seem to clarify and establish uniform standards for the handling of sexual assault related violations as well as other crimes that may be of concern to the safety of students and staff. From a common sense perspective, these proposals seem logical and well intentioned to allow for a safe campus environment.
We all know however, how these things morph from something entirely different from the original legislative intent.
In looking at the fine print of the Bill proposals, there are some glaring problems, omissions, and obvious inconsistencies that could follow student for the rest of his or her life.
Money – $$$ – in each of the proposals, there is language allowing for the schools to receive state financial assistance if they comply with all of the rules, and the implementation of additional bureaucracies.
False allegations – NONE of the proposals indicate any type of sanction for the false reporting of a sexual assault or related crime, and none allow for any type of notation on transcripts for the false reporting of a crime or sexual assault.
Preponderance of evidence – None of the proposals reveal, or would indicate that a suspension or expulsion came about as a result of a preponderance of the evidence of a sexual assault or related offense. Most people and prospective employers are completely unaware of just how easily a college male can be railroaded in a college tribunal.
Self-admission – The proposals force students to declare, when applying to new colleges if they had been suspended or expelled due to a safety or sex related violation.
Transcripts – Any student, male or female, would take into their life; their entire life, college transcripts with a notation that they had been suspended or expelled due to a sex related violation. There is no language indicating that a college must remove any such notations if the allegations were later proved to be false or unfounded. Imagine applying for a job and having to supply your college transcripts that indicate a suspension for a sex related offense that was later proved false, then having to explain that to a prospective employer?
Liability – There is significant language that protects the educational institution from civil liability if they deny enrollment or entry to a student upon learning that the student had been previously suspended or expelled from another campus for a sex related violation. Essentially, and in realistic terms means that in order to protect themselves from civil liability, there will be no college in the land that will allow for a student to attend their campus if they had been previously suspended for a sex related offense.
Future college admissions – any future college admission or attempted transfer to another school will be affected. In legitimate cases, this is a good idea, however the new college, upon learning of a prior suspension for any type of sex offense, will most likely deny admission to limit the possibility of civil liability; meaning any future college attendance will be non-existent. We have all seen the inept and constitutionally defective college kangaroo court process and the future of a student that depends on a group of ideological circus clowns, is abhorrent.
We have all seen how the college campus adjudication process has been an abject failure when handling alleged cases of sexual assault, and how the most simple and innocent of behaviors falls under the umbrella of sexual assault violations. We have also seen the implementation of affirmative consent, and how one minor misstep in any intimate setting, any misstep in communication, any misstep in receiving enthusiastic consent will and shall be labeled a sexual assault.
To further validate just how absurd the lunacy has gotten with respect to any kind of intimate contact, the well-respected the prestigious (allegedly) American Law Institute has recently proposed a model domestic violence penal code that would criminalize a man on a date who innocently reaches out to hold the hands of his date without her prior permission. http://www.ali.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=projects.proj_ip&projectid=26 Image, after a nice evening dinner date and movie, a couple happily walking on a pier in anywhere USA and the man reaches out and innocently holds the hand of his female date, risks criminal sanction, if this absurd suggestion ever becomes law.
We are seeing more and more legislation, more and more policies, more and more awareness programs and information campaigns that essentially will seek to criminalize and sanction any type of routine and intimate contact between men and women on a college campus. Virtually all of these programs however place the responsibility and fault on males. To say that this is an understatement, would in fact be an understatement since the inception of language in man; since the times when primitive man began communicating with one another by grunting and banging rocks together.
Common sense, sound logic, science, fact, rule of law and due process should be the prevailing factors in the drafting of legislative proposals, not emotion, hysterics, ideology, and what this seems to reveal; pathology.
Readers are encouraged to contact Assemblyman Das Williams to either abandon this legislation as colleges are ill equipped to handle cases of sexual assault or to include in the list of violations, the false reporting of a sexual assault.
