5 ms·

If I run a startup, and one of my employees is making other employees uncomfortable, and he keeps getting accused of harassing other employees, and is generally

by Lazare 7y ago

If I run a startup, and one of my employees is making other employees uncomfortable, and he keeps getting accused of harassing other employees, and is generally just making some of my best engineers unhappy, hurting productivity, and ruining our carefully constructed culture... ...I can fire him. I mean, obviously I need to go through the proper HR procedures, follow local employment law, respect the terms of his contract, etc., but I have no obligation to keep him employed if I think he's a net negative to my company. Arguably I have an obligation to not keep him employed. And I certainly have no requirement to wait until he has been convicted of a crime; it's not even clear any of the above is a crime. Similarly, if I run a resort, and one of the guests is so unpleasant they're driving away other guests, or if I run a restaurant, and one of the guests is making other guests uncomfortable, or I run an apartment building, and one of the tenants is behaving poorly. A university is a business. People come and pay money in exchange for a service, and if someone is interfering with the ability of other people to receive that service, or making people reluctant to come and pay money, it's perfectly fine for them to be asked to leave. If what they're doing happens to be a crime, then by all means, also report them to the police, but it's kind of odd to suggest that you shouldn't expel students except if they've been convicted of a crime. That being said, I think universities are doing a terrible job here, and I think that given the extreme importance of a university education in modern life, the disruption that being expelled entails, and the stigma that will follow someone if they are expelled, we need to be very careful about the process here. My local dollar store will ban you from the store if they think you shoplifted, and I assume they get it wrong sometimes, but it's fine, because being unjustly banned from a dollar store does not ruin your life. Being unjustly expelled from university could! Things are broken and need fixing. But a world where you can only be expelled on conviction of a crime makes no sense either. The discussion need to be about the correct amount of protection needed.

ellius 7y ago
"A university is a business." This is a massive false equivalence. For one thing, most of the "employees" in your metaphor are eighteen to twenty-two years old. Not to mention the fact that students are regularly put through the ringer and expelled on the first accusation. It's hardly akin to the "repeat offense" scenario you outlined in your first example. And comparing being expelled for an alleged sexual assault to being asked to leave a resort for rude behavior? Come on. This is a different situation than anything you described. Universities have much more of a guardian and stewardship role than an employer, and rape is a fucking crime. It should be handled by the mechanism we've created to handle crimes, i.e. criminal courts of law.
- lainga 7y ago
  Employees come to a business and exchange their money for goods and services?
  - ellius 7y ago
    An apple is red, and your underwear are red, so you should eat your underwear. The fact that two things share a superficial attribute does not make them equivalent.
klipt 7y ago
In the workplace dating coworkers is generally frowned upon. At a university, dating other students is so commonplace that a large portion of people meet their spouses that way. Title IX may want to treat dating at universities with the same disdain as in the workplace, but it's not going to be an easy cultural shift.
- Lazare 7y ago
  > In the workplace dating coworkers is generally frowned upon. And at a restaurant, being in a relationship with a fellow patron is quite common. Similarly, no legal or cultural ban against dating your room mate when you rent a house (much to the relief of married couples everywhere). Students are (mostly) not employees of the university, but they are customers of educational services and (quite often) tenants. A university has a number of relationships to students, and a number of responsibilities, both to the (alleged) predators and to the larger student body. I mentioned a startup situation in the hopes it would seem relevant to many here (surely we've all had at least one co-worker that was disruptive?), but trying to view this purely through the lens of employment law will get you nowhere.
  - weberc2 7y ago
    Universities are paid largely by federal student loans and tax dollars. This is not a standard business/patron agreement. Expelling a student $50K in debt can ruin their life. The university owes them a fair trial. And there is no excuse for the overt discrimination or other shenanigans we’re seeing.
- closeparen 7y ago
  Not sure about the validity of the poll, but by at least one indication 15% of couples meet at work vs. 6% at school. https://www.reportlinker.com/insight/finding-love-online.html https://www.reportlinker.com/insight/finding-love-online.htm...
  - Udik 7y ago
    The amount of couples forming at work before starting to work (i.e. while in college) is probably approaching zero. This is to say that of course the poll at age 40 gives a very different result from the same poll at age 25.
FakeComments 7y ago
Universities aren’t always a business, they’re often government institutions. A state organization is legally bound to offer certain equal rights and due process protections, which is one of the trade-offs of having state schools.
mlthoughts2018 7y ago
What if employee A makes up lies about employee B, and the reason a bunch of other people feel uncomfortable or unproductive or unhappy around employee B is just based on perception from these lies? Are you in the right as an employer to fire employee B without serious due diligence? To potentially ruin employee B’s life or reputation? Instead of letting it escalate to a real court case (if applicable)?
learc83 7y ago
Most Universities are non-profit, and almost all of them take Federal money. Classifying them as a business isn't accurate.
- Lazare 7y ago
  > Most Universities are non-profit, You're still a business if you're a non-profit. > Almost all of them take Federal money You're still a business if you accept government contracts. > Classifying them as a business isn't accurate. I mean, they act like businesses, and in most cases they very explicitly legally are businesses. They accept money in exchange for services. If not a business, what would you classify them as?
  - learc83 7y ago
    >and in most cases they very explicitly legally are businesses. By that definition every nearly single non-governmental organization is explicitly legally a business, so stating that an organization is a "business" is meaningless. A church, a soup kitchen, and fraternal lodge are also explicitly legally businesses as well, but it's not useful to classify them alongside for profit businesses. Many very well off schools don't even charge students who make below a certain income, and the vast majority of their operating expenses come from donations--saying they charge money in exchange for a service isn't a very useful description of what they do.
- tomp 7y ago
  More importantly, people get paid to work for a business but pay to attend a university.
_emacsomancer_ 7y ago
Universities are not businesses. If they're being run like businesses...they're not serving a function as University any longer.
- kerkeslager 7y ago
  Universities should not be run like businesses, but that doesn't mean they aren't.
oijqoiwejoiqwj 7y ago
>...I can fire him. I mean, obviously I need to go through the proper HR procedures, follow local employment law, respect the terms of his contract, etc., but I have no obligation to keep him employed if I think he's a net negative to my company. Arguably I have an obligation to not keep him employed. And I certainly have no requirement to wait until he has been convicted of a crime; it's not even clear any of the above is a crime. This would be a valid comparison if the company in question were receiving massive amounts of federal funding, in which case, I would say yes the accused _does_ have a reasonable expectation of fair treatment. Why? Well the accused is also paying for the regulatory system in question. It's not really possible to deny that these universities receive "massive amounts of federal funding" either, considering that receiving federal funding is the explicit motivation of performing these title IX tribunals in the first place.
analog31 7y ago
>>> A university is a business Most universities and businesses (corporations) are government chartered and entitled enterprises. And students can already be expelled without being convicted of a crime, e.g., if they get bad grades.
cameldrv 7y ago
Weirdly, the situation is exactly the opposite of what you describe. You might say "hey, it's a private organization, they should be free to make their own rules about who they choose to serve." Many businesses before the civil rights act made exactly the same argument as they excluded African Americans as customers. This type of discrimination was made illegal. The strange thing is that it is precisely this type of law that has created this situation. The Feds assert that if a university does not apply these extraordinarily dubious adjudication rules for sexual harassment and rape, then it is discriminating against women and is subject to losing any federal funding, including student loans, which effectively shuts down the university.
BearsAreCool 7y ago
I see nothing wrong with asking guests to leave, and honestly not that much with expelling students as there are plenty of universities out there. At my local university I am attending I recently completed a mandatory course on plagiarism and it would supposedly dish out the following punishments: -Failing you from classes you are in with 0 refund. -Permanent mark on your academic transcript you supposedly can't escape. -Having to report to future employers you plagiarized. Which is essentially asking guests to leave and utterly destroying half a decade of their lives and tens of thousands of their dollars in many cases. This is the part I take issue with. The dollar store you shoplifted from according to one "witness" has now come into your house, took all the groceries in it, and beat up your fridge.
weberc2 7y ago
Public universities certainly don’t get to claim treatment as a business. Additionally, like you were driving at, it is dramatically more damaging to be expelled from a university than to be kicked out of a dollar general. And most importantly, if the business’s policy is clearly a thin veil of pretense that allows them to discriminate on the basis of gender (or any other protected category), they are not within their rights. We don’t tolerate businesses asking black patrons (or employees) to leave because a white patron claimed they felt uncomfortable, and we certainly wouldn’t tolerate it from a public institution. And we definitely shouldn’t tolerate it given that universities make students fundamentally more vulnerable than business patrons or standard employees by saddling them with debts that would take them their whole lifetime to pay off if not for a degree. Due process and equitable treatment is not too much to ask.

by Lazare 7y ago

ellius 7y ago

"A university is a business." This is a massive false equivalence. For one thing, most of the "employees" in your metaphor are eighteen to twenty-two years old. Not to mention the fact that students are regularly put through the ringer and expelled on the first accusation. It's hardly akin to the "repeat offense" scenario you outlined in your first example. And comparing being expelled for an alleged sexual assault to being asked to leave a resort for rude behavior? Come on. This is a different situation than anything you described. Universities have much more of a guardian and stewardship role than an employer, and rape is a fucking crime. It should be handled by the mechanism we've created to handle crimes, i.e. criminal courts of law.

lainga 7y ago
Employees come to a business and exchange their money for goods and services?
- ellius 7y ago
  An apple is red, and your underwear are red, so you should eat your underwear. The fact that two things share a superficial attribute does not make them equivalent.

klipt 7y ago

In the workplace dating coworkers is generally frowned upon. At a university, dating other students is so commonplace that a large portion of people meet their spouses that way. Title IX may want to treat dating at universities with the same disdain as in the workplace, but it's not going to be an easy cultural shift.

Lazare 7y ago
> In the workplace dating coworkers is generally frowned upon. And at a restaurant, being in a relationship with a fellow patron is quite common. Similarly, no legal or cultural ban against dating your room mate when you rent a house (much to the relief of married couples everywhere). Students are (mostly) not employees of the university, but they are customers of educational services and (quite often) tenants. A university has a number of relationships to students, and a number of responsibilities, both to the (alleged) predators and to the larger student body. I mentioned a startup situation in the hopes it would seem relevant to many here (surely we've all had at least one co-worker that was disruptive?), but trying to view this purely through the lens of employment law will get you nowhere.
- weberc2 7y ago
  Universities are paid largely by federal student loans and tax dollars. This is not a standard business/patron agreement. Expelling a student $50K in debt can ruin their life. The university owes them a fair trial. And there is no excuse for the overt discrimination or other shenanigans we’re seeing.
closeparen 7y ago
Not sure about the validity of the poll, but by at least one indication 15% of couples meet at work vs. 6% at school. https://www.reportlinker.com/insight/finding-love-online.html https://www.reportlinker.com/insight/finding-love-online.htm...
- Udik 7y ago
  The amount of couples forming at work before starting to work (i.e. while in college) is probably approaching zero. This is to say that of course the poll at age 40 gives a very different result from the same poll at age 25.

FakeComments 7y ago

Universities aren’t always a business, they’re often government institutions. A state organization is legally bound to offer certain equal rights and due process protections, which is one of the trade-offs of having state schools.

mlthoughts2018 7y ago

What if employee A makes up lies about employee B, and the reason a bunch of other people feel uncomfortable or unproductive or unhappy around employee B is just based on perception from these lies? Are you in the right as an employer to fire employee B without serious due diligence? To potentially ruin employee B’s life or reputation? Instead of letting it escalate to a real court case (if applicable)?

learc83 7y ago

Most Universities are non-profit, and almost all of them take Federal money. Classifying them as a business isn't accurate.

Lazare 7y ago
> Most Universities are non-profit, You're still a business if you're a non-profit. > Almost all of them take Federal money You're still a business if you accept government contracts. > Classifying them as a business isn't accurate. I mean, they act like businesses, and in most cases they very explicitly legally are businesses. They accept money in exchange for services. If not a business, what would you classify them as?
- learc83 7y ago
  >and in most cases they very explicitly legally are businesses. By that definition every nearly single non-governmental organization is explicitly legally a business, so stating that an organization is a "business" is meaningless. A church, a soup kitchen, and fraternal lodge are also explicitly legally businesses as well, but it's not useful to classify them alongside for profit businesses. Many very well off schools don't even charge students who make below a certain income, and the vast majority of their operating expenses come from donations--saying they charge money in exchange for a service isn't a very useful description of what they do.
tomp 7y ago
More importantly, people get paid to work for a business but pay to attend a university.

_emacsomancer_ 7y ago

Universities are not businesses. If they're being run like businesses...they're not serving a function as University any longer.

kerkeslager 7y ago
Universities should not be run like businesses, but that doesn't mean they aren't.

oijqoiwejoiqwj 7y ago

>...I can fire him. I mean, obviously I need to go through the proper HR procedures, follow local employment law, respect the terms of his contract, etc., but I have no obligation to keep him employed if I think he's a net negative to my company. Arguably I have an obligation to not keep him employed. And I certainly have no requirement to wait until he has been convicted of a crime; it's not even clear any of the above is a crime. This would be a valid comparison if the company in question were receiving massive amounts of federal funding, in which case, I would say yes the accused _does_ have a reasonable expectation of fair treatment. Why? Well the accused is also paying for the regulatory system in question. It's not really possible to deny that these universities receive "massive amounts of federal funding" either, considering that receiving federal funding is the explicit motivation of performing these title IX tribunals in the first place.

analog31 7y ago

>>> A university is a business Most universities and businesses (corporations) are government chartered and entitled enterprises. And students can already be expelled without being convicted of a crime, e.g., if they get bad grades.

cameldrv 7y ago

Weirdly, the situation is exactly the opposite of what you describe. You might say "hey, it's a private organization, they should be free to make their own rules about who they choose to serve." Many businesses before the civil rights act made exactly the same argument as they excluded African Americans as customers. This type of discrimination was made illegal. The strange thing is that it is precisely this type of law that has created this situation. The Feds assert that if a university does not apply these extraordinarily dubious adjudication rules for sexual harassment and rape, then it is discriminating against women and is subject to losing any federal funding, including student loans, which effectively shuts down the university.

BearsAreCool 7y ago

I see nothing wrong with asking guests to leave, and honestly not that much with expelling students as there are plenty of universities out there. At my local university I am attending I recently completed a mandatory course on plagiarism and it would supposedly dish out the following punishments: -Failing you from classes you are in with 0 refund. -Permanent mark on your academic transcript you supposedly can't escape. -Having to report to future employers you plagiarized. Which is essentially asking guests to leave and utterly destroying half a decade of their lives and tens of thousands of their dollars in many cases. This is the part I take issue with. The dollar store you shoplifted from according to one "witness" has now come into your house, took all the groceries in it, and beat up your fridge.

weberc2 7y ago

Public universities certainly don’t get to claim treatment as a business. Additionally, like you were driving at, it is dramatically more damaging to be expelled from a university than to be kicked out of a dollar general. And most importantly, if the business’s policy is clearly a thin veil of pretense that allows them to discriminate on the basis of gender (or any other protected category), they are not within their rights. We don’t tolerate businesses asking black patrons (or employees) to leave because a white patron claimed they felt uncomfortable, and we certainly wouldn’t tolerate it from a public institution. And we definitely shouldn’t tolerate it given that universities make students fundamentally more vulnerable than business patrons or standard employees by saddling them with debts that would take them their whole lifetime to pay off if not for a degree. Due process and equitable treatment is not too much to ask.