To elaborate, Jim was a mentor to me and a lot of other students. I wasn’t in his department but he was the resident faculty advisor for a special dorm, and he did a lot for us. He is a decent man who worked very hard on the development of the students under his charge, and he has earned our loyalty. Jim would be the first to offer help if a student of his were assaulted, and the first to intervene if a student of his were an assailant. He is an ally to USC students. USC has a lot to answer for in its handling of assaults, but people like Jim are part of the solution, not part of the problem.
Very interesting read, in particular the “corrections” section below. Apparently the original version of the article was more militant and they then had to take some statements back.
There is another side of the problem, though. It is also a reality that nearly everyone in the certain age /gender group knows of multiple cases of sexual harassment or assault of various severity where the victims either did not report it because they felt it hopeless, or actually reported it to the university and it was buried.
But the proper solution is not to remove the due process, it is to invest more in the due process – train and hire more SVU investigators, have more labs testing rape kits… and taking those investigations out of the universities jurisdiction and giving them back to regular police who do not have a conflict of interest with respect to university’s reputation. Close certain university offices rather than expand them. If the people working in those offices are any good, they will find jobs in new/expanded SVUs.
But by God, another good person is being hounded over nothing with a Komsomol-like earnestness. And the idiot adults who encourage kids to rant about “unsafe environments” don’t understand that they are unleashing a fury that would eat them next. Like it’s wrong to hand out drugs on school premises, it is wrong to give kids a taste of the drug of righteous indignation. Because once they feel that high, they will crave more. It’s immoral to get kids addicted to this.
They made a mistake going after Jim. The administration had better back him, or they will have a fight on their hands.
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It’s really great there are people who want to fight for him. This is really wrong.
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To elaborate, Jim was a mentor to me and a lot of other students. I wasn’t in his department but he was the resident faculty advisor for a special dorm, and he did a lot for us. He is a decent man who worked very hard on the development of the students under his charge, and he has earned our loyalty. Jim would be the first to offer help if a student of his were assaulted, and the first to intervene if a student of his were an assailant. He is an ally to USC students. USC has a lot to answer for in its handling of assaults, but people like Jim are part of the solution, not part of the problem.
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He sounds like a great person and a valuable professor. The whole thing about him creating an unsafe environment made no sense.
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Very interesting read, in particular the “corrections” section below. Apparently the original version of the article was more militant and they then had to take some statements back.
There is another side of the problem, though. It is also a reality that nearly everyone in the certain age /gender group knows of multiple cases of sexual harassment or assault of various severity where the victims either did not report it because they felt it hopeless, or actually reported it to the university and it was buried.
But the proper solution is not to remove the due process, it is to invest more in the due process – train and hire more SVU investigators, have more labs testing rape kits… and taking those investigations out of the universities jurisdiction and giving them back to regular police who do not have a conflict of interest with respect to university’s reputation. Close certain university offices rather than expand them. If the people working in those offices are any good, they will find jobs in new/expanded SVUs.
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I agree completely. That’s what might help.
But by God, another good person is being hounded over nothing with a Komsomol-like earnestness. And the idiot adults who encourage kids to rant about “unsafe environments” don’t understand that they are unleashing a fury that would eat them next. Like it’s wrong to hand out drugs on school premises, it is wrong to give kids a taste of the drug of righteous indignation. Because once they feel that high, they will crave more. It’s immoral to get kids addicted to this.
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