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Stanford faculty say anonymous student bias reports threaten free speech

159 points by sam345 4y ago

sam345 4y ago
No paywall: https://archive.is/aP6Im https://archive.is/aP6Im
- mellosouls 4y ago
  [dead]
WalterBright 4y ago
Anonymous accusations are a fine way to harass and intimidate anyone you disagree with or have a grudge against. As the article points out, it's a fine tool for oppression. A fundamental right we have in the US is the right to face our accusers, for good reason. Here's the text of it: > Sixth Amendment > In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.
- afraid_to_speak 4y ago
  Isn't this is the actual issue? HR doesn't have to be upheld to the sixth amendment. If someone makes a complaint about me at work, I don't exactly have the right to know my accuser. The issue is that the people that now make up these corporations and various education administrations don't care about these protections people are granted when dealing with the federal government. Maybe they should be? That would be an extremely hard legal argument to make, that would go up against the first amendment and the idea of freedom of association. After all, no one is forcing you to teach at Stanford right?
  - burnished 4y ago
    Its unclear to me the point you are trying to make. It reads to me that you think because that law does not apply here that the principles involved do not? Your points about freedom of association are likewise illegible in this context.
    - kube-system 4y ago
      The principles outlined in the Bill of Rights are within the context of a relationship with a government that uses force to apply their actions without any higher recourse. Losing a job is different in magnitude than being sentenced to death or imprisonment.
      - burnished 4y ago
        So you wouldnt suggest that you should generally be able to know who your accuser is (the principle), but rather that is a standard we hold the process of whether or not some one can out you into a little box? Thats coherent. I was originally thinking about this as a 'good for the goose, good for the gander' situation because the idea that you should generally speaking know who is accusing you and of what seems pretty reasonable.
      - lliamander 4y ago
        Anonymous accusations are easy to abuse. They should be treated with a skeptical eye regardless of the context. Any institution that makes decisions on such accusations is going to be rife with petty, vindictive politics.
        kube-system 4y ago
        I don’t disagree. But “should” is different than “fundamental right”.
        yamtaddle 4y ago
        The original post wasn't saying that the bill of rights binds the behavior of this school in this case, but pointing out that the reason that's protected as a fundamental right in our constitution is that, given cover of anonymity, accusations are highly weaponizable—that's the reason that's included as a fundamental, enumerated right—which fact will apply to most any institution, whether or not it's legally required to allow one to face one's accuser.
- notch898a 4y ago
  That only applies to criminal prosecution. Can still have, say, your children taken away without ever facing your accuser. In fact the law keeps you from ever finding out who made the complaint. I believe another case ruled it's fine for police etc to make retaliatory civil complaints for your speech, or call CPS, code enforcement etc.
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  > In all criminal prosecutions, ...not in non-criminal government actions, or in private contexts.
  - viscanti 4y ago
    It appears the argument is that was included for a good reason for criminal cases and shows a precedent for it. The argument isn't that civil cases are currently covered, but that they should be.
    - uoaei 4y ago
      Are these accusations being made to civil courts, or just in the public sphere? It doesn't sound like it's the former, so the 6th Amendment doesn't apply. If we want to play the textualist game, there's nothing in the 1st Amendment about free speech only for people who identify themselves unambiguously. The 1st Amendment applies to anonymous speech, too (especially).
      - moronicQ 4y ago
        [dead]
    - freejazz 4y ago
      Under the 6th amd? That's a fundamental misunderstanding regarding what the constitution is, which is a document addressing the powers the gov't is entitled over its citizens, it has nothing to do with civil law. Civil law has had its own standards for as long as either of them have existed. Civil law always has a lower standard than criminal law does. Maybe a better avenue, rather than wielding your obtuse misunderstanding of civics, is to make an affirmative argument as to why civil law should adopt a similar standard to the 6th amd (despite never having done so since around the year ~1000).
      - viscanti 4y ago
        No. The argument isn't that the 6th amendment applies. It's that the rationale made sense for criminal cases, and because it makes sense there, it should be included by others (say an HR department coming up with a policy on how to do something with anonymous reports).
- anigbrowl 4y ago
  But anonymous posters are also exercising their free speech. Sometimes this is out of a genuine fear of political persecution, sometimes it's hateful trolling or spamming (a problem not helped by anonymous domain registration, for example). A prohibition on anonymity has very negative implications for privacy. I's weird that a rational person like yourself conflates all anonymous speech with criminal prosecutions, a very narrow subset of public communications. Can you clarify what your broader position on anonymity is?
  - WalterBright 4y ago
    "All three said they wouldn’t discuss their views publicly on campus for fear of being reported to the school’s bias-response team for harassing students who disagree with them." Anonymous complaints are ok and are important to allow. Providing an official method for "name and shame" based on anonymous complaints are not. Having a "bias-response team" come after you based on anonymous complaints is not acceptable.
    - anigbrowl 4y ago
      But police operate anonymous tiplines and investigate separately. Some people reporting crimes have a fear of retaliation, and sometimes that retaliation might even be rooted in corruption within the police force. The Supreme Court has ruled (as recently as 2014) that anonymity of report is not a barrier to an investigative stop by police, if the report includes sufficient detail to seem credible (Navarette v. California, 572 U.S. 393, 397 (2014)). That's why I don't think this issue is as simple as you originally presented it to be, notwithstanding the Constitutional language on the topic.
      - prepend 4y ago
        Anonymous tips cannot be used as evidence at trial.
        anigbrowl 4y ago
        Nobody is asserting that they can. What I am saying is that they can be a valid basis for a police investigation, and the Supreme Court says this is Constitutional. It's possible that this shaped the design of Stanford's complaint handling process.
- freejazz 4y ago
  Key word: criminal prosecutions
  - tengbretson 4y ago
    "It's a private institution - They can quarter soldiers wherever they want."
    - freejazz 4y ago
      I wish people would just make their points instead of making statements like this as if I'm a mindreader. I don't know what you know. I don't know what you don't understand. Reading this post, I would assume you don't understand a lot about the constitution, so I ask that you make your point clearly.
      - db48x 4y ago
        The third amendment states that no soldier may be quartered in any house without the consent of the owner, but since that only applies to the government it is ok for McDonalds, the RIAA, Microsoft, or Elsevier to quarter their soldiers in your house even without asking for permission. This was a pretty common tactic of oppression back before the war; it’s harder to plot a rebellion if a squad of Redcoats is camped out in your living room. I understand that China is fond of it as well.
        freejazz 4y ago
        McDonald's doesn't have soldiers, but if they did and you allowed them to stay, what exactly would be the problem? > it is ok for McDonalds, the RIAA, Microsoft, or Elsevier to quarter their soldiers in your house even without asking for permission. really? trespass and private property are not a thing, or just not in your hypothetical because it would obviously be stupid then? like, are you seriously argue that because the constitution doesn't prohibit people from coming into your homes, people can come into your homes? did you think that through?
- Nifty3929 4y ago
  Yes, exactly. And I understand that you are not suggesting that Stanford is violating the 6th amendment, since this is not a criminal prosecution. What you're saying is that Stanford should adopt the same line of reasoning embodied in the 6th amendment, to the extent that being accused in this fashion is a very high cost, and that the accuser should not be able to escape accountability for making false or misleading accusations. If the accuser thinks you did something wrong, they should stand up in public and say so.
  - brigandish 4y ago
    I wonder if the same thing would work on social networks?
  - WalterBright 4y ago
    Yes, exactly.
  - version_five 4y ago
    This is a good clarification - there are so many "it's not the government, constitution doesn't apply" comments that ignore that fact that the constitution is generally good advice for large institutions and it's a valid criticism when their policies differ, even of there is no legal requirement
    - HarryHirsch 4y ago
      Well, yes, and if one continues that line of inquiry further one might argue that things like due process and informal conflict resolution mechanisms are a good idea in employer-employee relationships, just because of the outsize power differential.
    - serverholic 4y ago
      Politics is just decision making in groups of people. Similar analyses can be used whether you're talking about government, schools, your workplace, open-source projects, your household, etc. As a general rule I tend to always interpret these discussions as "how humans interact with each other" unless the discussion itself is about the law.
- m463 4y ago
  how does that work with speed cameras?
  - IncRnd 4y ago
    I don't know of a camera that can write a ticket. My understanding is that the accuser is normally the officer of the court who signed the ticket, after making a determination based upon the camera's recorded video. If you are told that the People of the <State Name> are the accuser, it doesn't seem as if you can be charged criminally, unless all the People of the State are brought into court. IANAL (I am not a lawyer), so maybe one could respond?
  - rcpt 4y ago
    The person operating the camera is the witness in the trial. Same deal as security camera in a bank
- 908B64B197 4y ago
  > Anonymous accusations are a fine way to harass and intimidate anyone you disagree with or have a grudge against. As the article points out, it's a fine tool for oppression. That's exactly what happened to Stallman, who was cancelled by a mob citing... an anonymous blog post! > A fundamental right we have in the US is the right to face our accusers, for good reason. Here's the text of it: That's the beauty of all these "ethics committees" or "institutional boards" : they don't have to adhere to the much stricter standards of a real court of law. This is, of course, by design.
- pvaldes 4y ago
  > A fundamental right we have in the US is the right to face our accusers I'm not so optimistic, there is an increasing pressure to erode this right slowly but surely. We had seen several cases of sexual harassment claims by groups of anonymous people that can avoid the right by the simple process of retracting in the last second and refusing to sue or show proofs. This is basically free for the accuser tagged instantly as "the victim" but very efficient destroying lives and careers of the targeted people.
  - wolverine876 4y ago
    Which cases? Is there evidence that it's different than before? And how do we protect victims from retribution?
    - pvaldes 4y ago
      For example. Sylvester Stallone: Accused of raping a minor in the 90's. The complainant's name has never been publicly released. Dismissed by lack of evidence. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/not-enough-evidence-charge-sylvester-stallone-after-sexual-assault-allegation-n926686 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/not-enough-evidence-cha... Ian Cole: https://www.cbssports.com/nhl/news/nhl-finds-no-evidence-for-sexual-abuse-allegations-against-lightnings-ian-cole-closes-investigation/ https://www.cbssports.com/nhl/news/nhl-finds-no-evidence-for... And there was also the (particularly outrageous) Shitty Media Men list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shitty_Media_Men https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shitty_Media_Men
- msla 4y ago
  The best way to get those protections is from a union, which I acknowledge different people hate for different reasons, but any competent union will give its membership effective due process rights by turning at-will employment into employment governed by a bargaining agreement. The power of these "mere accusation" campaigns rests on the ability of the employer to fire based on a mere accusation, which goes away if there's a bargaining agreement in place which mandates actual hearings.
- wolverine876 4y ago
  It's an important principle and like anything it can't be dogma. Like anything, we need to take into account other important principles and also the higher purpose it serves - let's say 'liberty and justice for all'. Powerful people often threaten those who are less powerful when they abuse them: If you tell anyone, I will ... ruin your career, kill you, hurt your family, prosecute you; harass, humiliate and persecute you (e.g., rape survivors), etc. That's why we have some anonymous reporting in some situations, to provide liberty and justice for all, not just for the powerful. It's the same reason anonymous speech seems an essential civil right to many at HN. These days, a common reactionary rhetorical technique is to frame the desires of the powerful as if they are the vulnerable and powerless. What about their plight? ;) At the same time, insisting that anonymous reports - journalism, accusations, etc. - are invalid or violate their rights have long been a tool of the powerful: Make the vulnerable person expose themself to retribution, which also intimidates future victims from speaking. There are no easy answers, but one approach is differentiating a report and a prosecution. For example, anyone can make an anonymous police report; if the subject of the report is to be tried and convicted, then the accuser needs to come forward. How else do we protect the vulnerable without anonymity? How do we stop the powerful from running roughshod over them, unchecked? > Anonymous accusations are a fine way to harass and intimidate anyone you disagree with or have a grudge against. As discussed, that is not at all the only use for it. Do you have evidence about how common that is, for example at Stanford?
  - adharmad 4y ago
    How does one balance the rights of the vulnerable, who sometimes do need to be anonymous for fear of retribution and the people who use anonymous accusations as a harassment strategy or for political purposes or for a witch hunt? The only way seems to be to have a more-or-less independent panel who would look at the anonymous accusations and make an impartial decision on the same. The legal system, as it exists, seems to be such a body, definitely much more impartial and unbiased than a random administrator in Stanford.
    - wolverine876 4y ago
      > The legal system, as it exists, seems to be such a body, definitely much more impartial and unbiased than a random administrator in Stanford. How does Stanford process these reports? Also, the legal system is designed to handle prosecutions; I'd guess that only a small number of reports become any sort of prosecution.
blindriver 4y ago
This should all be looked upon through the lens of power structures. If you're talking about an a student launching a complaint against another student, it should be non-anonymous because they are at the same power level. If you're talking about a complaint against a faculty member or the school itself, or the government, anonymity should be allowed. In this case, anonymity should be removed when it's a student complaining about another student.
- lliamander 4y ago
  I think we are in basic agreement. > If you're talking about a complaint against a faculty member or the school itself, or the government, anonymity should be allowed. I would just nuance this by saying yes, but so long as such anonymous complaints are only the beginning of the investigation, rather than the end.
  - blindriver 4y ago
    Agreed. As I mention above, anonymity should be revealed once the investigation has reached a certain point, because now the power balance has shifted and the faculty member or whatnot has lost significant power.
- yodon 4y ago
  When an anonymous accusation has the potential to be career ending for the accused, the simplistic assessment of relative power between parties ceases to be correct. This is why the constitution (which doesn't apply here but was very thoughtfully designed) requires that defendants be given the right to face their accusers. Valid accusations and false accusations happen in all forms of law. There are commonly power or status differentials in the context of accusations. The constitution and 200+ years of case law have left our legal system far from perfect but far better than the ad hoc, administrator-defined, corporate insurance rate protecting pretend legal systems put in place by universities and the like. The right to face your accuser is a critical right that exists to facilitate legal systems arriving at the truly best right answer.
  - 4y ago
Animats 4y ago
At least there's a public incident list: https://protectedidentityharm.stanford.edu/news https://protectedidentityharm.stanford.edu/news
- prepend 4y ago
  > What happened: On the morning of Monday, November 29 a student reported seeing two long cords that may represent nooses in a tree near the intersection of Campus Drive and Junipero Serra Boulevard, along the Lake Lagunita walking trail. What is being done:Updated as of 5/10/22 Based on statements from staff and students, and photos showing the scene at Lake Lagunita, it was determined the cords in the tree had been in that location for several years prior to it being reported to DPS. Photos showed the cords in the tree dating back to at least June 2017. Separately, a former student reached out reporting their recollection that a rope swing used to be in that location. DPS closed the case on December 6, 2021, and the incident was not classified as a crime. It took a year of investigation to determine that two ropes hanging from a tree were the remains of a swing rather than the work of the world’s laziest lynch mob.
  - hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
    Wow - I think this highlights the point that is so aggravating. Many people are now searching for any way to be offended, even when an innocuous explanation is much more likely. It's like the "somebody called me 'G'" example: oh no, he's not using that as a term of endearment, but he must think I'm an actual gangster, and heck, I'm Chicano, what a racist! For example, people use the term "OG" all over the internet, and I think 99% of folks don't even make the connection to "gangster" at all - I think a lot of people just think it's some shorthand for "original" or something. And I don't think I've ever seen "OG" used in any context where it wasn't meant as praise.
korroziya 4y ago
I understand how Stanford is a proper univeristy, but given how the college industry as a whole has done nothing but abuse students with predatory tactics aimed to squeeze every last drop of money out of them, I'm hard-pressed to shed a tear for professors. Not their fault per se, but still.
neonate 4y ago
https://archive.ph/aP6Im https://archive.ph/aP6Im
my_usernam3 4y ago
> Senior Christian Sanchez, executive vice president of the Associated Students of Stanford University, the student-government group, said the system is necessary and important. Mr. Sanchez, who describes himself as Chicano, said he has bristled in the past when another student has addressed him as “G,” short for gangster. Is he implying this is a reportable offense? I've never heard "G" used in a derogatory sense, rather always endearing. Do we not allow language to evolve?
- pas 4y ago
  how are dialect and speech mannerisms not protected parts of one's identity? :) but of course if someone consequently ignores others' request to call them by their name instead of various nicknames that might be where said identity has to adapt to be able to integrate into the group.
- erosenbe0 4y ago
  If the accused uses "G" universally as his version of "dude" or "bro," then that isn't bias, just maybe a lack of tactfulness. If he uses "G" for guys who wear nice clothes, "dude" for surfer-looking guys, and "bro" for guys with muscles, it is also not racial or ethnic bias. It would seem that a [legitimate] investigator would need at least some kind of information on that before having cause to investigate. Perhaps the reporter didn't give us all the info from Mr. Sanchez, and there is more evidence of bias then we were informed of.
- hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
  I'm so done with this performative outrage. Yesterday somebody called me "dude". According to Wikipedia, dude was a replacement for "dandy" in the late 1800s. I'm gay. How dare thee??!! Where's my check?
  - didericis 4y ago
    > Where’s my check? That right there is the real problem. I’m convinced a huge motivation for a lot of the current performative outrage is a combination of conscious and unconscious anxiety about having very little to no real skill based leverage or ownership/stewardship of things that anchor you to society, like housing and kids. That’s the sympathetic angle. The unsympathetic angle is laziness and greed. Both are applicable. Everything is so damn complicated and fast paced and fewer and fewer people seem to know how anything actually works. That means fewer and fewer people know what a reliable career track will be. A lot of people can’t pivot their skillset nearly as fast as tech is demanding and they’re worried they’re going to be made obsolete and left without any viable alternative path if the one they’re on dries up. I think a lot of the performative outrage would disappear if the middle class regained stability and people felt like they owned something rather than felt like a replaceable cog in an unintelligible bureaucratic machine.
malshe 4y ago
“Anonymous student bias reporting” sounds mouthful. How about we succinctly call the system “compliance “?
kneebonian 4y ago
So reading the article this is about a student reporting system that allows students to snitch on other students, which seems even worse. Still I get a very "The Crucible" vibes from the whole thing.
IncRnd 4y ago
https://archive.is/cKToO https://archive.is/cKToO
sys32768 4y ago
>The system is designed to help students get along with one another, said Dee Mostofi, a Stanford spokeswoman. So instead of asking a student reading "Mein Kampf" what they are studying and what they have learned thus far from Adolf Hitler's autobiography, we can get along better by reporting them anonymously as a possible Nazi.
- dokem 4y ago
  It's a funny example you highlight. Traditional, you would think of Stanford or Harvard as specifically being a place where someone could read Mein Kampf out in the open and everyone would assume that they are just learning about Hitler and Nazism because these are the institutions of some of the most curious and learned people. It's now the last place you would want to be caught reading such material.
0xdeadbeefbabe 4y ago
Can threaten more than speech https://petermaguire.substack.com/p/the-red-queens-rules https://petermaguire.substack.com/p/the-red-queens-rules tldr the administration used anonymous reviews to play politics and get rid of the good professor, and he died.
lapcat 4y ago
> The reports are stored in a platform operated by a third party called Maxient, a Charlottesville, Va.-based company that has contracts with 1,300 schools I'm sure this "anonymous" information will never get out, because of course third parties are extremely secure, and there are never leaks or data breaches.
opisthenar84 4y ago
Anybody who has gone to college knows that students say dumb stuff - it's a part of the learning process. So long as it's not physically or psychological harmful, I think folks should let it play out. Healthy normalization is better than forced normalization.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
imgabe 4y ago
> Mr. Sanchez, who describes himself as Chicano, said he has bristled in the past when another student has addressed him as “G,” short for gangster. He has let it roll off his back, he said, but less thick-skinned students should have a path for redress. Maybe less thick-skinned students should just develop thicker skins. Break the system. Flood it with bogus complaints until the people in charge learn why anonymous accusations are a bad idea.
- prepend 4y ago
  > Break the system. Flood it with bogus complaints until the people in charge learn why anonymous accusations are a bad idea. I’m surprised this hasn’t happened already. Since it’s anonymous I would expect 4chan to flood all these stupid policies. Maybe they selectively review and pursue.
  - krapp 4y ago
    You expect 4chan to fight against anonymity?
    - mikysco 4y ago
      Not necessarily.. but they have been known to fight against (ridicule) certain forms of stupidity in the past. Which I feel many here would agree Stanford's policy is a form of.
    - prepend 4y ago
      I expect 4chan to abuse anonymous reporting systems to troll people.
  - Clubber 4y ago
    Reminds me of pushback against DeBlasio's "snitch line." New York City had to shut down its social-distancing 'snitch-line' after it was flooded by trolls brandishing penis pictures and Hitler memes https://www.insider.com/new-york-city-social-distancing-snitch-line-number-de-blasio-2020-4 https://www.insider.com/new-york-city-social-distancing-snit... Americans can be really awesome from time to time. We don't suffer well, and I'm happy for it.
chaps 4y ago
You hear this from police, too and it's one of the reasons police will often require you to go to a specific station, sign an affidavit, record an interview of you, and provide maximal information to show that your complaint is valid, and now your name is stored in their systems forever. Which, you know, leads to situations where a complaint is filed, but eg there's fear of retribution. So maybe they'll fill out an affidavit but don't go downtown for an interview. Or they'll do everything by the book, but because they didn't know the badge number of the cop who physically harmed them, the complaint is dropped. This shit happens all the time. Hell, I've seen complaints get dropped -- despite videos proof attached to the complaint -- that show cops slamming a kid against a wall and threatening to beat the kid up. Because the person getting slammed against a wall didn't know the badge number. There are probably ten different ways to figure out who the thug cop was, but nope. Point is -- anonymous complaints are important because they give people with real claims of harm the comfort of reduced exposure to retaliation. Not being able to file a complaint because of genuine fear of retaliation is a threatened voice. Anonymity is important.
- shockeychap 4y ago
  > Hell, I've seen complaints get dropped -- despite videos proof attached to the complaint -- that show cops slamming a kid against a wall and threatening to beat the kid up. Because the person getting slammed against a wall didn't know the badge number. If there was video evidence of a cop slamming a kid against a wall, why was this not used to identify the officer? This seems like a pretty outrageous claim that demands specifics - where and when did this happen - and citation of sources. EDIT: Fixed grammar
  - chaps 4y ago
    Your guess is as good as mine, man. But -- I saw the video, I saw the cop's face, I saw his partner's face, and the faces of the cops who were also dispatched, I saw the reports, I've seen the dispatch data, I've seen the assignment sheets, I've seen the car number, the GPS logs, etc etc. It should have been easy, but... Mind you, the only reason we have these docs is because a FOIA lawsuit that required their release, among about a hundred thousand other complaints, while the city's FOP was pushing to destroy those documents. Your guess is as good as mine.
jgalt212 4y ago
There is no better way to create an environment of fear and general distrust than to allow and encourage anonymous accusations. Stanford is a community. All members of the community should have a base amount of trust* in all others. If you cannot countenance such a bargain, then one should leave the community. * a reasonable criticism of the wokes, is that they have no trust in anyone and all mis-steps by members of the patriarchy or those in power are actions of an evil person or cabal; and never merely a mistake or misunderstanding.
kepair 4y ago
SUSPICION BREEDS CONFIDENCE
t0bia_s 4y ago
> A group of Stanford University professors is pushing to end a system that allows students to anonymously report classmates for exhibiting discrimination or bias.. As a citizen of post-communist country, I would never expect something like that coming from West. This system and behavior of snitching for party was something that brutally destroyed trust in society and we are still learning. After over 30 years we have still huge snitching. For example during covid, reporting a suspicion of breaking chaotic regulations, that changed every week was most common call to police. Usually by people who was locked at home with bottle of alcohol because they would otherwise sit in bar that was closed. They reported every suspect behavior observed from their windows. Like state security was doing during communist regime. Source: My friend is police operator.
Khelavaster 4y ago
Speech generally doesn't threaten free speech. Misreaction to anonymous bias reports sounds like the real issue ..

159 points by sam345 4y ago

sam345 4y ago

No paywall: https://archive.is/aP6Im https://archive.is/aP6Im

mellosouls 4y ago
[dead]

WalterBright 4y ago

Anonymous accusations are a fine way to harass and intimidate anyone you disagree with or have a grudge against. As the article points out, it's a fine tool for oppression. A fundamental right we have in the US is the right to face our accusers, for good reason. Here's the text of it: > Sixth Amendment > In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.

afraid_to_speak 4y ago
Isn't this is the actual issue? HR doesn't have to be upheld to the sixth amendment. If someone makes a complaint about me at work, I don't exactly have the right to know my accuser. The issue is that the people that now make up these corporations and various education administrations don't care about these protections people are granted when dealing with the federal government. Maybe they should be? That would be an extremely hard legal argument to make, that would go up against the first amendment and the idea of freedom of association. After all, no one is forcing you to teach at Stanford right?
- burnished 4y ago
  Its unclear to me the point you are trying to make. It reads to me that you think because that law does not apply here that the principles involved do not? Your points about freedom of association are likewise illegible in this context.
  - kube-system 4y ago
    The principles outlined in the Bill of Rights are within the context of a relationship with a government that uses force to apply their actions without any higher recourse. Losing a job is different in magnitude than being sentenced to death or imprisonment.
    - burnished 4y ago
      So you wouldnt suggest that you should generally be able to know who your accuser is (the principle), but rather that is a standard we hold the process of whether or not some one can out you into a little box? Thats coherent. I was originally thinking about this as a 'good for the goose, good for the gander' situation because the idea that you should generally speaking know who is accusing you and of what seems pretty reasonable.
    - lliamander 4y ago
      Anonymous accusations are easy to abuse. They should be treated with a skeptical eye regardless of the context. Any institution that makes decisions on such accusations is going to be rife with petty, vindictive politics.
      - kube-system 4y ago
        I don’t disagree. But “should” is different than “fundamental right”.
        yamtaddle 4y ago
        The original post wasn't saying that the bill of rights binds the behavior of this school in this case, but pointing out that the reason that's protected as a fundamental right in our constitution is that, given cover of anonymity, accusations are highly weaponizable—that's the reason that's included as a fundamental, enumerated right—which fact will apply to most any institution, whether or not it's legally required to allow one to face one's accuser.
notch898a 4y ago
That only applies to criminal prosecution. Can still have, say, your children taken away without ever facing your accuser. In fact the law keeps you from ever finding out who made the complaint. I believe another case ruled it's fine for police etc to make retaliatory civil complaints for your speech, or call CPS, code enforcement etc.
dragonwriter 4y ago
> In all criminal prosecutions, ...not in non-criminal government actions, or in private contexts.
- viscanti 4y ago
  It appears the argument is that was included for a good reason for criminal cases and shows a precedent for it. The argument isn't that civil cases are currently covered, but that they should be.
  - uoaei 4y ago
    Are these accusations being made to civil courts, or just in the public sphere? It doesn't sound like it's the former, so the 6th Amendment doesn't apply. If we want to play the textualist game, there's nothing in the 1st Amendment about free speech only for people who identify themselves unambiguously. The 1st Amendment applies to anonymous speech, too (especially).
    - moronicQ 4y ago
      [dead]
  - freejazz 4y ago
    Under the 6th amd? That's a fundamental misunderstanding regarding what the constitution is, which is a document addressing the powers the gov't is entitled over its citizens, it has nothing to do with civil law. Civil law has had its own standards for as long as either of them have existed. Civil law always has a lower standard than criminal law does. Maybe a better avenue, rather than wielding your obtuse misunderstanding of civics, is to make an affirmative argument as to why civil law should adopt a similar standard to the 6th amd (despite never having done so since around the year ~1000).
    - viscanti 4y ago
      No. The argument isn't that the 6th amendment applies. It's that the rationale made sense for criminal cases, and because it makes sense there, it should be included by others (say an HR department coming up with a policy on how to do something with anonymous reports).
anigbrowl 4y ago
But anonymous posters are also exercising their free speech. Sometimes this is out of a genuine fear of political persecution, sometimes it's hateful trolling or spamming (a problem not helped by anonymous domain registration, for example). A prohibition on anonymity has very negative implications for privacy. I's weird that a rational person like yourself conflates all anonymous speech with criminal prosecutions, a very narrow subset of public communications. Can you clarify what your broader position on anonymity is?
- WalterBright 4y ago
  "All three said they wouldn’t discuss their views publicly on campus for fear of being reported to the school’s bias-response team for harassing students who disagree with them." Anonymous complaints are ok and are important to allow. Providing an official method for "name and shame" based on anonymous complaints are not. Having a "bias-response team" come after you based on anonymous complaints is not acceptable.
  - anigbrowl 4y ago
    But police operate anonymous tiplines and investigate separately. Some people reporting crimes have a fear of retaliation, and sometimes that retaliation might even be rooted in corruption within the police force. The Supreme Court has ruled (as recently as 2014) that anonymity of report is not a barrier to an investigative stop by police, if the report includes sufficient detail to seem credible (Navarette v. California, 572 U.S. 393, 397 (2014)). That's why I don't think this issue is as simple as you originally presented it to be, notwithstanding the Constitutional language on the topic.
    - prepend 4y ago
      Anonymous tips cannot be used as evidence at trial.
      - anigbrowl 4y ago
        Nobody is asserting that they can. What I am saying is that they can be a valid basis for a police investigation, and the Supreme Court says this is Constitutional. It's possible that this shaped the design of Stanford's complaint handling process.
freejazz 4y ago
Key word: criminal prosecutions
- tengbretson 4y ago
  "It's a private institution - They can quarter soldiers wherever they want."
  - freejazz 4y ago
    I wish people would just make their points instead of making statements like this as if I'm a mindreader. I don't know what you know. I don't know what you don't understand. Reading this post, I would assume you don't understand a lot about the constitution, so I ask that you make your point clearly.
    - db48x 4y ago
      The third amendment states that no soldier may be quartered in any house without the consent of the owner, but since that only applies to the government it is ok for McDonalds, the RIAA, Microsoft, or Elsevier to quarter their soldiers in your house even without asking for permission. This was a pretty common tactic of oppression back before the war; it’s harder to plot a rebellion if a squad of Redcoats is camped out in your living room. I understand that China is fond of it as well.
      - freejazz 4y ago
        McDonald's doesn't have soldiers, but if they did and you allowed them to stay, what exactly would be the problem? > it is ok for McDonalds, the RIAA, Microsoft, or Elsevier to quarter their soldiers in your house even without asking for permission. really? trespass and private property are not a thing, or just not in your hypothetical because it would obviously be stupid then? like, are you seriously argue that because the constitution doesn't prohibit people from coming into your homes, people can come into your homes? did you think that through?
Nifty3929 4y ago
Yes, exactly. And I understand that you are not suggesting that Stanford is violating the 6th amendment, since this is not a criminal prosecution. What you're saying is that Stanford should adopt the same line of reasoning embodied in the 6th amendment, to the extent that being accused in this fashion is a very high cost, and that the accuser should not be able to escape accountability for making false or misleading accusations. If the accuser thinks you did something wrong, they should stand up in public and say so.
- brigandish 4y ago
  I wonder if the same thing would work on social networks?
- WalterBright 4y ago
  Yes, exactly.
- version_five 4y ago
  This is a good clarification - there are so many "it's not the government, constitution doesn't apply" comments that ignore that fact that the constitution is generally good advice for large institutions and it's a valid criticism when their policies differ, even of there is no legal requirement
  - HarryHirsch 4y ago
    Well, yes, and if one continues that line of inquiry further one might argue that things like due process and informal conflict resolution mechanisms are a good idea in employer-employee relationships, just because of the outsize power differential.
  - serverholic 4y ago
    Politics is just decision making in groups of people. Similar analyses can be used whether you're talking about government, schools, your workplace, open-source projects, your household, etc. As a general rule I tend to always interpret these discussions as "how humans interact with each other" unless the discussion itself is about the law.
m463 4y ago
how does that work with speed cameras?
- IncRnd 4y ago
  I don't know of a camera that can write a ticket. My understanding is that the accuser is normally the officer of the court who signed the ticket, after making a determination based upon the camera's recorded video. If you are told that the People of the <State Name> are the accuser, it doesn't seem as if you can be charged criminally, unless all the People of the State are brought into court. IANAL (I am not a lawyer), so maybe one could respond?
- rcpt 4y ago
  The person operating the camera is the witness in the trial. Same deal as security camera in a bank
908B64B197 4y ago
> Anonymous accusations are a fine way to harass and intimidate anyone you disagree with or have a grudge against. As the article points out, it's a fine tool for oppression. That's exactly what happened to Stallman, who was cancelled by a mob citing... an anonymous blog post! > A fundamental right we have in the US is the right to face our accusers, for good reason. Here's the text of it: That's the beauty of all these "ethics committees" or "institutional boards" : they don't have to adhere to the much stricter standards of a real court of law. This is, of course, by design.
pvaldes 4y ago
> A fundamental right we have in the US is the right to face our accusers I'm not so optimistic, there is an increasing pressure to erode this right slowly but surely. We had seen several cases of sexual harassment claims by groups of anonymous people that can avoid the right by the simple process of retracting in the last second and refusing to sue or show proofs. This is basically free for the accuser tagged instantly as "the victim" but very efficient destroying lives and careers of the targeted people.
- wolverine876 4y ago
  Which cases? Is there evidence that it's different than before? And how do we protect victims from retribution?
  - pvaldes 4y ago
    For example. Sylvester Stallone: Accused of raping a minor in the 90's. The complainant's name has never been publicly released. Dismissed by lack of evidence. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/not-enough-evidence-charge-sylvester-stallone-after-sexual-assault-allegation-n926686 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/not-enough-evidence-cha... Ian Cole: https://www.cbssports.com/nhl/news/nhl-finds-no-evidence-for-sexual-abuse-allegations-against-lightnings-ian-cole-closes-investigation/ https://www.cbssports.com/nhl/news/nhl-finds-no-evidence-for... And there was also the (particularly outrageous) Shitty Media Men list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shitty_Media_Men https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shitty_Media_Men
msla 4y ago
The best way to get those protections is from a union, which I acknowledge different people hate for different reasons, but any competent union will give its membership effective due process rights by turning at-will employment into employment governed by a bargaining agreement. The power of these "mere accusation" campaigns rests on the ability of the employer to fire based on a mere accusation, which goes away if there's a bargaining agreement in place which mandates actual hearings.
wolverine876 4y ago
It's an important principle and like anything it can't be dogma. Like anything, we need to take into account other important principles and also the higher purpose it serves - let's say 'liberty and justice for all'. Powerful people often threaten those who are less powerful when they abuse them: If you tell anyone, I will ... ruin your career, kill you, hurt your family, prosecute you; harass, humiliate and persecute you (e.g., rape survivors), etc. That's why we have some anonymous reporting in some situations, to provide liberty and justice for all, not just for the powerful. It's the same reason anonymous speech seems an essential civil right to many at HN. These days, a common reactionary rhetorical technique is to frame the desires of the powerful as if they are the vulnerable and powerless. What about their plight? ;) At the same time, insisting that anonymous reports - journalism, accusations, etc. - are invalid or violate their rights have long been a tool of the powerful: Make the vulnerable person expose themself to retribution, which also intimidates future victims from speaking. There are no easy answers, but one approach is differentiating a report and a prosecution. For example, anyone can make an anonymous police report; if the subject of the report is to be tried and convicted, then the accuser needs to come forward. How else do we protect the vulnerable without anonymity? How do we stop the powerful from running roughshod over them, unchecked? > Anonymous accusations are a fine way to harass and intimidate anyone you disagree with or have a grudge against. As discussed, that is not at all the only use for it. Do you have evidence about how common that is, for example at Stanford?
- adharmad 4y ago
  How does one balance the rights of the vulnerable, who sometimes do need to be anonymous for fear of retribution and the people who use anonymous accusations as a harassment strategy or for political purposes or for a witch hunt? The only way seems to be to have a more-or-less independent panel who would look at the anonymous accusations and make an impartial decision on the same. The legal system, as it exists, seems to be such a body, definitely much more impartial and unbiased than a random administrator in Stanford.
  - wolverine876 4y ago
    > The legal system, as it exists, seems to be such a body, definitely much more impartial and unbiased than a random administrator in Stanford. How does Stanford process these reports? Also, the legal system is designed to handle prosecutions; I'd guess that only a small number of reports become any sort of prosecution.

blindriver 4y ago

This should all be looked upon through the lens of power structures. If you're talking about an a student launching a complaint against another student, it should be non-anonymous because they are at the same power level. If you're talking about a complaint against a faculty member or the school itself, or the government, anonymity should be allowed. In this case, anonymity should be removed when it's a student complaining about another student.

lliamander 4y ago
I think we are in basic agreement. > If you're talking about a complaint against a faculty member or the school itself, or the government, anonymity should be allowed. I would just nuance this by saying yes, but so long as such anonymous complaints are only the beginning of the investigation, rather than the end.
- blindriver 4y ago
  Agreed. As I mention above, anonymity should be revealed once the investigation has reached a certain point, because now the power balance has shifted and the faculty member or whatnot has lost significant power.
yodon 4y ago
When an anonymous accusation has the potential to be career ending for the accused, the simplistic assessment of relative power between parties ceases to be correct. This is why the constitution (which doesn't apply here but was very thoughtfully designed) requires that defendants be given the right to face their accusers. Valid accusations and false accusations happen in all forms of law. There are commonly power or status differentials in the context of accusations. The constitution and 200+ years of case law have left our legal system far from perfect but far better than the ad hoc, administrator-defined, corporate insurance rate protecting pretend legal systems put in place by universities and the like. The right to face your accuser is a critical right that exists to facilitate legal systems arriving at the truly best right answer.
- 4y ago

Animats 4y ago

At least there's a public incident list: https://protectedidentityharm.stanford.edu/news https://protectedidentityharm.stanford.edu/news

prepend 4y ago
> What happened: On the morning of Monday, November 29 a student reported seeing two long cords that may represent nooses in a tree near the intersection of Campus Drive and Junipero Serra Boulevard, along the Lake Lagunita walking trail. What is being done:Updated as of 5/10/22 Based on statements from staff and students, and photos showing the scene at Lake Lagunita, it was determined the cords in the tree had been in that location for several years prior to it being reported to DPS. Photos showed the cords in the tree dating back to at least June 2017. Separately, a former student reached out reporting their recollection that a rope swing used to be in that location. DPS closed the case on December 6, 2021, and the incident was not classified as a crime. It took a year of investigation to determine that two ropes hanging from a tree were the remains of a swing rather than the work of the world’s laziest lynch mob.
- hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
  Wow - I think this highlights the point that is so aggravating. Many people are now searching for any way to be offended, even when an innocuous explanation is much more likely. It's like the "somebody called me 'G'" example: oh no, he's not using that as a term of endearment, but he must think I'm an actual gangster, and heck, I'm Chicano, what a racist! For example, people use the term "OG" all over the internet, and I think 99% of folks don't even make the connection to "gangster" at all - I think a lot of people just think it's some shorthand for "original" or something. And I don't think I've ever seen "OG" used in any context where it wasn't meant as praise.

korroziya 4y ago

I understand how Stanford is a proper univeristy, but given how the college industry as a whole has done nothing but abuse students with predatory tactics aimed to squeeze every last drop of money out of them, I'm hard-pressed to shed a tear for professors. Not their fault per se, but still.

neonate 4y ago

https://archive.ph/aP6Im https://archive.ph/aP6Im

my_usernam3 4y ago

> Senior Christian Sanchez, executive vice president of the Associated Students of Stanford University, the student-government group, said the system is necessary and important. Mr. Sanchez, who describes himself as Chicano, said he has bristled in the past when another student has addressed him as “G,” short for gangster. Is he implying this is a reportable offense? I've never heard "G" used in a derogatory sense, rather always endearing. Do we not allow language to evolve?

pas 4y ago
how are dialect and speech mannerisms not protected parts of one's identity? :) but of course if someone consequently ignores others' request to call them by their name instead of various nicknames that might be where said identity has to adapt to be able to integrate into the group.
erosenbe0 4y ago
If the accused uses "G" universally as his version of "dude" or "bro," then that isn't bias, just maybe a lack of tactfulness. If he uses "G" for guys who wear nice clothes, "dude" for surfer-looking guys, and "bro" for guys with muscles, it is also not racial or ethnic bias. It would seem that a [legitimate] investigator would need at least some kind of information on that before having cause to investigate. Perhaps the reporter didn't give us all the info from Mr. Sanchez, and there is more evidence of bias then we were informed of.
hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
I'm so done with this performative outrage. Yesterday somebody called me "dude". According to Wikipedia, dude was a replacement for "dandy" in the late 1800s. I'm gay. How dare thee??!! Where's my check?
- didericis 4y ago
  > Where’s my check? That right there is the real problem. I’m convinced a huge motivation for a lot of the current performative outrage is a combination of conscious and unconscious anxiety about having very little to no real skill based leverage or ownership/stewardship of things that anchor you to society, like housing and kids. That’s the sympathetic angle. The unsympathetic angle is laziness and greed. Both are applicable. Everything is so damn complicated and fast paced and fewer and fewer people seem to know how anything actually works. That means fewer and fewer people know what a reliable career track will be. A lot of people can’t pivot their skillset nearly as fast as tech is demanding and they’re worried they’re going to be made obsolete and left without any viable alternative path if the one they’re on dries up. I think a lot of the performative outrage would disappear if the middle class regained stability and people felt like they owned something rather than felt like a replaceable cog in an unintelligible bureaucratic machine.

malshe 4y ago

“Anonymous student bias reporting” sounds mouthful. How about we succinctly call the system “compliance “?

kneebonian 4y ago

So reading the article this is about a student reporting system that allows students to snitch on other students, which seems even worse. Still I get a very "The Crucible" vibes from the whole thing.

IncRnd 4y ago

https://archive.is/cKToO https://archive.is/cKToO

sys32768 4y ago

>The system is designed to help students get along with one another, said Dee Mostofi, a Stanford spokeswoman. So instead of asking a student reading "Mein Kampf" what they are studying and what they have learned thus far from Adolf Hitler's autobiography, we can get along better by reporting them anonymously as a possible Nazi.

dokem 4y ago
It's a funny example you highlight. Traditional, you would think of Stanford or Harvard as specifically being a place where someone could read Mein Kampf out in the open and everyone would assume that they are just learning about Hitler and Nazism because these are the institutions of some of the most curious and learned people. It's now the last place you would want to be caught reading such material.

0xdeadbeefbabe 4y ago

Can threaten more than speech https://petermaguire.substack.com/p/the-red-queens-rules https://petermaguire.substack.com/p/the-red-queens-rules tldr the administration used anonymous reviews to play politics and get rid of the good professor, and he died.

lapcat 4y ago

> The reports are stored in a platform operated by a third party called Maxient, a Charlottesville, Va.-based company that has contracts with 1,300 schools I'm sure this "anonymous" information will never get out, because of course third parties are extremely secure, and there are never leaks or data breaches.

opisthenar84 4y ago

Anybody who has gone to college knows that students say dumb stuff - it's a part of the learning process. So long as it's not physically or psychological harmful, I think folks should let it play out. Healthy normalization is better than forced normalization.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

imgabe 4y ago

> Mr. Sanchez, who describes himself as Chicano, said he has bristled in the past when another student has addressed him as “G,” short for gangster. He has let it roll off his back, he said, but less thick-skinned students should have a path for redress. Maybe less thick-skinned students should just develop thicker skins. Break the system. Flood it with bogus complaints until the people in charge learn why anonymous accusations are a bad idea.

prepend 4y ago
> Break the system. Flood it with bogus complaints until the people in charge learn why anonymous accusations are a bad idea. I’m surprised this hasn’t happened already. Since it’s anonymous I would expect 4chan to flood all these stupid policies. Maybe they selectively review and pursue.
- krapp 4y ago
  You expect 4chan to fight against anonymity?
  - mikysco 4y ago
    Not necessarily.. but they have been known to fight against (ridicule) certain forms of stupidity in the past. Which I feel many here would agree Stanford's policy is a form of.
  - prepend 4y ago
    I expect 4chan to abuse anonymous reporting systems to troll people.
- Clubber 4y ago
  Reminds me of pushback against DeBlasio's "snitch line." New York City had to shut down its social-distancing 'snitch-line' after it was flooded by trolls brandishing penis pictures and Hitler memes https://www.insider.com/new-york-city-social-distancing-snitch-line-number-de-blasio-2020-4 https://www.insider.com/new-york-city-social-distancing-snit... Americans can be really awesome from time to time. We don't suffer well, and I'm happy for it.

chaps 4y ago

You hear this from police, too and it's one of the reasons police will often require you to go to a specific station, sign an affidavit, record an interview of you, and provide maximal information to show that your complaint is valid, and now your name is stored in their systems forever. Which, you know, leads to situations where a complaint is filed, but eg there's fear of retribution. So maybe they'll fill out an affidavit but don't go downtown for an interview. Or they'll do everything by the book, but because they didn't know the badge number of the cop who physically harmed them, the complaint is dropped. This shit happens all the time. Hell, I've seen complaints get dropped -- despite videos proof attached to the complaint -- that show cops slamming a kid against a wall and threatening to beat the kid up. Because the person getting slammed against a wall didn't know the badge number. There are probably ten different ways to figure out who the thug cop was, but nope. Point is -- anonymous complaints are important because they give people with real claims of harm the comfort of reduced exposure to retaliation. Not being able to file a complaint because of genuine fear of retaliation is a threatened voice. Anonymity is important.

shockeychap 4y ago
> Hell, I've seen complaints get dropped -- despite videos proof attached to the complaint -- that show cops slamming a kid against a wall and threatening to beat the kid up. Because the person getting slammed against a wall didn't know the badge number. If there was video evidence of a cop slamming a kid against a wall, why was this not used to identify the officer? This seems like a pretty outrageous claim that demands specifics - where and when did this happen - and citation of sources. EDIT: Fixed grammar
- chaps 4y ago
  Your guess is as good as mine, man. But -- I saw the video, I saw the cop's face, I saw his partner's face, and the faces of the cops who were also dispatched, I saw the reports, I've seen the dispatch data, I've seen the assignment sheets, I've seen the car number, the GPS logs, etc etc. It should have been easy, but... Mind you, the only reason we have these docs is because a FOIA lawsuit that required their release, among about a hundred thousand other complaints, while the city's FOP was pushing to destroy those documents. Your guess is as good as mine.

jgalt212 4y ago

There is no better way to create an environment of fear and general distrust than to allow and encourage anonymous accusations. Stanford is a community. All members of the community should have a base amount of trust* in all others. If you cannot countenance such a bargain, then one should leave the community. * a reasonable criticism of the wokes, is that they have no trust in anyone and all mis-steps by members of the patriarchy or those in power are actions of an evil person or cabal; and never merely a mistake or misunderstanding.

kepair 4y ago

SUSPICION BREEDS CONFIDENCE

t0bia_s 4y ago

> A group of Stanford University professors is pushing to end a system that allows students to anonymously report classmates for exhibiting discrimination or bias.. As a citizen of post-communist country, I would never expect something like that coming from West. This system and behavior of snitching for party was something that brutally destroyed trust in society and we are still learning. After over 30 years we have still huge snitching. For example during covid, reporting a suspicion of breaking chaotic regulations, that changed every week was most common call to police. Usually by people who was locked at home with bottle of alcohol because they would otherwise sit in bar that was closed. They reported every suspect behavior observed from their windows. Like state security was doing during communist regime. Source: My friend is police operator.

Khelavaster 4y ago

Speech generally doesn't threaten free speech. Misreaction to anonymous bias reports sounds like the real issue ..