It only took me a month to get through the idiotic Title IX training we have to take online. It’s the stupidest thing ever because it teaches professors how to adjudicate rape cases on campus.
The very first requirement of the training is that if a student approaches me to communicate an instance of sexual assault or harassment, I need to “believe the student.” I have no idea how I can manufacture belief if it’s not something controlled by an act of will. There is no space for questioning these bizarre wisdoms, though. We have to accept whatever we are told by the brainless bureaucrats who come up with these idiotic seminars whether we like it or not.
Also, I find it quite disrespectful of my boundaries and invasive of my own sexual space that I have to be forced to listen to a litany of different forms of sexual penetration while I’m in the workplace.
Clarissa's Blog 
“it teaches professors how to adjudicate rape cases on campus”
I’m gonna go out on a limb and say if a literature professor can ajudicate it, then it’s not rape. If it’s rape then it needs to be taken to the police.
The big take away from the Rolling Stone fake rape story was that universities are now expected to micro-manage young women’s unresolved feelings about sexual encounters. Since no one cares about young mens’ feelings there are no equivalent services for them (though I can’t imagine what those would be like anyway).
IIRC of the several possible courses of action available to students who approached the Dean for Sexual Ambilanence was for a young woman to tell the guy she wished she didn’t have sex with what a cad he was with the support of an authority figure assuring her that she’s still a good girl. That is almost Victorian in its implication of female lack of emotional control and infantilism.
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“I’m gonna go out on a limb and say if a literature professor can ajudicate it, then it’s not rape. If it’s rape then it needs to be taken to the police.”
We recently had a group of police officers with dogs come to campus to investigate a bomb threat somebody scribbled in a bathroom stall. But we can’t have police investigate rape? WTF?
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the Dean for Sexual Ambilanence
I assume you meant “ambivalence”? Because, as much as I oppose the constant hiring of more superfluous administrators, I think I might support hiring a Dean for Sexual Ambivalence. It would be worth it for the name alone.
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I agree. At least such a Dean would be useful for providing material for jokes. It’s not like they do much else.
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“The big take away from the Rolling Stone fake rape story was that universities are now expected to micro-manage young women’s unresolved feelings about sexual encounters.”
Funny. The big take away for me was how easier would it now become for people like you to write off rape as ‘unresolved feelings about sexual encounters’. Not that you ever believed rape victims in the first place, but now you can point out this story to lend credence to your position.
I agree. Rolling Stone really fucked up in a big way.
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Even something like theft of petty cash or theft of a backpack from the library is investigated by actual law enforcement. Nobody ever asks the professors and the administrators to hold court over these minor infractions, let alone something more serious. It is only rape that is trivialized in this way. And that causes more problems than it solves.
The issue is farmed off to newspapers, classrooms, and scandalous TV programs because we all collectively agree that it’s not to be treated like a regular crime.
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Oh, I am in complete agreement with you that this is a police matter and should not be handled by professors or campus staff.
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“Not that you ever believed rape victims in the first place”
It’s not my job to believe or not believe people who claim they’ve been raped (not is it yours). It’s the police’s job to figure out what happened and if something actionable took place.
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If it is not your job to believe or disbelieve you can start off by not calling rape allegations on campus ‘unresolved feelings’. That is making a specific judgement, no?
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“rape allegations on campus”
Rape allegations belong with the police and not university personnel. If someone refuses to go to the or refuses to cooperate with them….. then there’s no rape allegation.
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I realized how unqualified I was to investigate these matters when there were accusations of sexual assault at my workplace. I listened to both accused and accuser and discovered that I have absolutely no idea how to figure out what happened. Not surprisingly, the university investigation of the matter went exactly nowhere. And now the accused person will never have this suspicion removed from her. It’s all a total mess.
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Good old collapse of the personal vs public distinction again. I get the impression that the actions/attitudes advised here are the ones appropriate for a friend of the victim. It’s creepy as hell to have people who are not, actually, the friends of the victim, be demanded to play that role – especially considering the risk of hostility fueled by said demand being projected on the victim.
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Yes, precisely, you formulated it perfectly. It’s being asked to transform into a friend – like figure at the drop of a hat that disturbs me.
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What? I thought the whole Title IX ish is about mandatory reporting and trying to get professors to encourage people to go through campus judiciary, not the professor adjudicating anything.
Basically, if I’m understanding this correctly, professors are supposed to act like counselors while being HR with a heavy emotional labor component? You’re supposed to evince the proper emotional facade just enough so that they report it?
Is it really a coincidence as more women go to college and the number of women in academia increased that professors have these quasi-HR duties? It’s not the old fart whose been tenured since the 1970s who gets these confessions. I didn’t say shit to my professor until he asked me what was going on because my work was suffering and I sure as hell didn’t want to involve campus judiciary. Or the police. Perhaps I should be grateful for these Title IX requirements?
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There is a whole script of what one is supposed to say to a student who approaches one on this subject. There is a list of things you must say but also a list of things you must not say. After that, you become “a designated outcry witness” and the process goes to the university level committee that hears the evidence and makes a decision based on the preponderance of evidence. It’s all very complex and, to me, deeply weird.
You are right about us being pushed into the direction of pseudo-psychological caretakers. There was also a memo we got on how to assist students in emotional distress, for instance. And the suggestion we were given was NOT to direct students in distress to the campus health services.
I feel disturbed by this because a person with no training can make things worse by messing with such sensitive matters.
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