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Many ages ago I served as defense counsel, of sorts, at a judiciary board hearing at my university. A young man was accused of stealing textbooks from the campu
by Overtonwindow 9y ago
Many ages ago I served as defense counsel, of sorts, at a judiciary board hearing at my university. A young man was accused of stealing textbooks from the campus bookstore, and selling them back. I was given wide latitude to investigate, and I poked a ton of holes into that, found there was zero evidence of the crime. Pure suspicion and assumption. Yet he was suspended for a semester having been found guilty, reasoning it was "more likely than not" he committed the offense. This was absolutely laughable.
I am reminded of this because universities have become adverse to conflict resolution, and conditioned to believe ever accusation, and every "victim" no matter the evidence.
- ubernostrum 9y agoDon't look now, but you're alleging the "believe every victim" (with scary air-quotes, no less!) in discussion of a story which alleges the problem of refusing to believe the person the university said was a victim.
- tbrownaw 9y agoBut they are believe the accusation regardless of evidence, it's just that this case is odd in that the accusation for once isn't coming from the "victim".
- Overtonwindow 9y agoI could have said things better, as I was trying to make a point about the dispute/discipline procedure of a major university. The victim, IMHO, in this instance is the student. The school believes they are the victim, but they also happen to be the judge and jury. I found the process, the evidence procedures, finding of fact, and guilt, to be seriously flawed.