tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673382.post8512292205622507345..comments2024-03-27T08:33:11.834-07:00Comments on There is some truth in that: Retroactively Withdrawing ConsentJonathan Jenkins Ichikawahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05260245860017778409noreply@blogger.comBlogger78125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673382.post-79824161875310279552019-04-06T03:07:50.986-07:002019-04-06T03:07:50.986-07:00I know I'm about 18 months late to the discuss...I know I'm about 18 months late to the discussion, but I would like you to expand on what you mean by "coerced into a nonconsensual relationship by a manipulator." You seem to take this possibility as self-evident, and it is nothing but to me.<br /><br />First, I would like to note that it is almost tautological that if you are being (emotionally) coerced or manipulated into giving consent, then you ARE giving consent. But I can accept the principle that it might be a bad and invalid kind of consent.<br /><br />But when exactly does manipulating or emotionally coercing someone to have sex constitutes sexual assault (or even sexual harassment)? Consider a few cases.<br /><br />1. A male professor threatens his student that if she doesn't have sex with him, he will thwart her career. The student decides to have sex with the professor, even though she was unwilling. (I assume you would consider this rape.)<br />2. A male student threatens his colleague that if she doesn't give him oral sex (to keep it concrete with the example above), he will tell everyone they know she is a tease. The colleague decides to give him oral sex, even though she was unwilling. (This seems much less clear-cut. Calling someone a tease is not remotely illegal or abuse of power, and arguably not even anti-ethical, if the student believes her action would make her a tease.)<br /><br />Now, if you decided that 1. is rape and 2. is not, I ask: what is the objective difference between 1 and 2 that decides one is rape and the other is not? But we can go further:<br /><br />3. A male student tells his colleague that if she doesn't give him oral sex, he will break up with her. She decides to give him oral sex, even though she was unwilling. (I don't think even the most radical feminist would deny that a person has the right to stop dating another whenever, AND for whatever reason. Is this rape? Is this sexual assault? Is this emotional coercion?)<br /><br />In the unlikely case that you still find 3. sexual assault, what if instead of threatening to break up with her, he merely stated "I'll be disappointed"?<br /><br />And if so far we have walked at baby steps, let's try to go to a limit case:<br />5. A man uses a ear-phone and repeats from it a conversation with a woman. The woman gets seduced by this conversation, and decides to have sex with the man. The next day, she discovers that she was manipulated, that the man wasn't the real one saying those words, and regrets the sex. Was the sex nonconsensual? Was this rape?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673382.post-61017777150081867432017-11-23T15:17:23.305-08:002017-11-23T15:17:23.305-08:00I actually respect D. Ghirlandaio for trying here....I actually respect D. Ghirlandaio for trying here. His post ended up as a disaster, but he really poured his heart and soul into this! And at least it was a memorable disaster. Jake Reddinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07112803224036727871noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673382.post-27644364619203007342017-05-27T11:11:58.989-07:002017-05-27T11:11:58.989-07:00You are not an intelligent individual. You are not an intelligent individual. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673382.post-69068048583794757572017-05-17T13:11:55.470-07:002017-05-17T13:11:55.470-07:00If people aren responsible what's the result?
...If people aren responsible what's the result?<br /><br />http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/05/17/lavinia-woodward-cant-avoid-prison-just-clever/D. Ghirlandaiohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06283931383770759507noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673382.post-66364074260749699472017-05-17T11:35:23.126-07:002017-05-17T11:35:23.126-07:00Obvious typo at the end: "undermined" no...Obvious typo at the end: "undermined" not underlined. <br />And fyi, Kipnis came out of art school. You want to talk about fun. The old days were fun. Another answer to Tuvel, and to you. <br />https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ehoomjQjfID. Ghirlandaiohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06283931383770759507noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673382.post-47571954194617392522017-05-17T11:23:39.824-07:002017-05-17T11:23:39.824-07:00You either have agency or you don't. You eithe...You either have agency or you don't. You either accept the responsibilities of citizenship in the community governed by laws, or you don't. <br /><br />That's the simple way to describe it. The complex way to describe it is to accept that democracy and self-government are based on illusions, that people are rulers and ruled, dom and sub, slave and master, that love takes many forms and "moral responsibility" deserves to be subject of mockery.<br />That's the logic of De Sade and the sexual political underground.<br /><br />"The color is black, the material is leather, the seduction is beauty, the justification is honesty, the aim is ecstasy, the fantasy is death."<br /><br />If politics is a discussion of shared public life, this is anti-politics, nihilism in the name of moral honesty, against the moralism of lies. But beware: if no one is responsible for anything it's left for the strong to rule as they will. The strong may be puritan- "No one is responsible for anything, with the exception of myself and my equally enlightened friends" - or fascist. <br /><br />It's amusingly perverse how the philosophy of the anti-bourgeois underground, reactionary, individualist, decadent, sexually wild, emotionally hot and cold, denying anything beyond intimate experience, and therefore opposed to political reforms- Genet opposed prison reforms because prison made him the man he was- has found a home in the academy, made vanilla: non-contradictory. <br /><br />The best answer to the Dolezal absurdity is an absurd film by a comedian, a man who is exactly the mixed race person Dolezal fantasized of becoming Get Out is the honest answer to Tuvel, just as DeSade and Candy Darling are the honest answers to men who want to be called women.<br /><br />De Sade:<br />"...if only you knew this fantasy's charms, if only you could understand what one experiences from the sweet illusion of being no more than a woman! incredible inconsistency I one abhors that sex, yet one wishes to imitate it! Ah! how sweet it is to succeed, ... <br /><br />Candy<br />"I've been up all night alone, wondering about my identity. Trying to look for an explanation for living this strange, stylized sexuality. Realization cuts feeling off. I try to explain my identity as being a male who has assumed the attitudes and somewhat the emotions of a female. I don't know what role to play." <br /><br />Wanting to be something is not being it. https://paisleycurrah.com/2016/04/26/feminism-gender-pluralism-and-gender-neutrality-maybe-its-time-to-bring-back-the-binary/<br /><br />Wanting people to see you as you see yourself is one thing. Demanding that people see you as you see yourself and the state putting your demands as law, is fascism. <br /><br />Tell me about transgirls and Title IX, about transwomen feminists opposed to abortion (if they don't know any you will soon enough). <br /><br />The post above like the arguments I've just mentioned are founded in the politics of fantasy. Rationalism without empiricism, founded on self-reporting. You've underlined Enlightenment humanism in the name of what you imagine is your own enlightenment. <br /><br />In the war between philosophers and comedians, comedians always win. Idealists become fascists. Comedians are empiricists. <br /><br /><br /><br /><br />D. Ghirlandaiohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06283931383770759507noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673382.post-63801798511582917762017-05-17T08:15:21.427-07:002017-05-17T08:15:21.427-07:00You make a good argument above Jonathan in your 5/...You make a good argument above Jonathan in your 5/17 comment.<br /><br />The secrecy of proceedings has both good and bad aspects. <br /><br />There are at least two sides to every story.<br /><br />The Title IX procedures are flawed and probably cannot be fixed, even with a lot of time and effort by well-meaning wise people empowered by a consensus of students, faculty, administrators, legislators, and the public. <br /><br />An incomplete but practical solution that should please everyone is to limit the number of people (accusers and accused) that enter the Title IX system. That is where Kipnis' world view holds a lot of practical wisdom: adjust behaviors in real time. Also, develop a culture that supports that adjustment to behavior.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673382.post-6105561113170054692017-05-17T03:43:35.068-07:002017-05-17T03:43:35.068-07:00PS: From the UT report's acknowledgements: &qu...PS: From the UT report's acknowledgements: "Our gratitude and appreciation goes out to UT Austin CLASE Stakeholder Group chair Associate Vice President and <b>Title IX Coordinator</b> LaToya Smith and fellow members Director J.B. Bird, Captain Charles Bonnett, Associate Vice President Chris Brownson, Chief David Carter, Chief Information Office Bradley Englert, Clinical Coordinator Leah Leeds, <b>Chief Compliance Officer</b> Paul Liebman, Pro-gram Manager Linda Millstone, Associate Director Katy Redd, Assistant Vice President Jessica Sentz, Teaching Assistant Fatma Tarlaci, Assistant Chief Don Verett, and Associate Professor Lynn West-brook for their commitment and tireless energy developing recruitment and promotional efforts that led to a successful fall survey launch.<br /><br />Chris Kaiser, <b>director of public policy for the Texas Association Against Sexual Assault</b> (TAASA) and Aaron Setliff, director of public policy for the <b>Texas Council on Family Violence</b> (TCFV), receive our immense gratitude for their superb legal prowess and guidance."<br /><br />When I say the research is allied with the apparatus, this is the sort of thing I mean.Thomashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04858865501469168339noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673382.post-83185306030259336132017-05-17T03:08:24.424-07:002017-05-17T03:08:24.424-07:00Hi Kathryn. There is certainly some independent re...Hi Kathryn. There is certainly <i>some</i> independent research out there. I am familiar with Freyd's work and have been impressed so far. Not incidentally, the work of hers that I've seen (with Marina Rosenthal and Alec Smidt) has found a very low rate of faculty-on-student harassment in science (for women: 1.44 on a scale from 0 to 72).<br /><br />In the UT case, however, the research reported was released at a press conference in which the Title IX coordinator also participated. I think there is an enormous overlap of interests between social science research in this area and Title IX administration. Indeed, UT paid almost 2 million dollars to fund the project, certainly as part of its Title IX effort (and certainly something that will be reported to OCR to show how serious they are), and not as an exercise in pure social science, insulated from practical interests.<br /><br />As a critic of Title IX, I of course acknowledge (and never forget) that institutions have been given certain responsibilities. I simply disagree that it is wise to interpret those responsibilities the way they are currently being interpreted.<br /><br />I don't believe that college campuses are generally populated by pervasively, and severely sexist students. I think Joe, Jim and Bob are probably ordinary assholes and Jane (and her friends) can probably handle them. Or maybe there's something about Jane other than her gender that is triggering these men to call her bad names or make clumsy moves on her. Who knows? I don't think our default go-to explanation for why she's getting this treatment should be "systemic" sexism that the institutions are responsible for (by, for example, "training" <i>all</i> men in the appropriate treatment of women.)<br /><br />Fortunately, not everyone is getting expelled, as you point out. But I would hope that a Title IX investigation that concludes that someone is <i>rapist</i> would in fact expel that student. That's why it's important to keep words like that precise in their meaning.Thomashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04858865501469168339noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673382.post-50609375720248228202017-05-17T02:39:10.175-07:002017-05-17T02:39:10.175-07:00We don't have secret trials in this country, w...<i>We don't have secret trials in this country, with secret evidence.</i><br /><br />So I want to say a couple of things about this. First—and I'd thought this was obvious—Peter Ludlow was not being tried for any crime. He was investigated by his private employer for violating his professional obligations. It is true that some of the things he was accused of were in fact illegal, but this wasn't a law enforcement investigation.<br /><br />Second, relatedly, the idea you suggest, Anonymous—that in cases like these, the evidence should be made public—is I think more radical than you think it is. Consider an analogy. Suppose I make a serious plagiarism allegation against one of my students; a university disciplinary process ensues, and we each present relevant evidence to the university's investigators. They conclude that yes, this was a serious case of plagiarism, and sanction the student, perhaps by expelling them.<br /><br />Do you think in such a case it would be proper for the evidence I presented to the university panel to be made public? I don't. Much of it remains protected by privacy law; we can imagine versions of the case where much of it is embarrassing and personal to me or to the student.<br /><br />You may have seen that Doe, the graduate student Kipnis discusses at length filed a lawsuit yesterday against Kipnis and her publisher. I wrote about it here: http://blog.jichikawa.net/2017/05/laura-kipnis-and-harper-collins-have.html<br /><br />The lawsuit includes a summary of the Doe's description of her relationship with Peter Ludlow. According to her version of the story, he fixated on her before she even became a student, cultivating an inappropriately personal relationship, and exerted persistent sexual pressure on her, despite her stated preference to keep their relationship professional. She also alleges that he raped her and that she declined to file a formal complaint for fear of negative professional consequences, but that she was finally convinced to do so when she heard about other allegations against him.<br /><br />Suppose for the purpose of argument that Doe's allegations are true. If so, her complaint was appropriate, and a genuine service to the profession. She did not think—nor should she have thought—that her complaint would or should have resulted in having intimate details of her relationship and her life history being aired and debated by strangers in her professional orbit. If she had, she'd've been, one assumes, less likely to come forward. And if other people in similar situations come to think that this is what happens to people who speak out when they've been victimized, then they will be much likelier to keep quiet when they have been victims of sexual misconduct.<br /><br />I am sure that that's the result that some people want. But I am not among them.Jonathan Jenkins Ichikawahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05260245860017778409noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673382.post-36458958246155803842017-05-16T20:17:12.249-07:002017-05-16T20:17:12.249-07:00Thanks for the reminder Anonymous -- I referred to...Thanks for the reminder Anonymous -- I referred to the welcomeness standard elsewhere below, but spoke imprecisely above. <br /><br />Thomas, you seem to be conflating a number of things. Social science research on harassment is separate, of course, from "the Title IX apparatus," and so far as I can tell it's not closely allied with it in any meaningful sense that helps your case. Jennifer Freyd, for instance, is one of the more prominent social science researchers working on related areas, and of course she has been exceedingly at odds with the way Title IX is implemented in a number of cases (advocating against broad mandatory reporting policies, for instance) -- indeed, that is the very focus of her research. She's certainly not alone among social scientists, particularly those who have worked closely with student activists. <br /><br />But aside from that, and focusing on the particular study you cited, isn't the fact that the language is clarified and qualified evidence against the idea that the behaviors in that study are thereby being construed as legally actionable under Title IX? <br /><br />And further yet, of course language surrounding assault under civil rights law needs to be disambiguated from language under criminal law because in certain jurisdictions the criminal law does not match up with civil law, e.g., https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/apr/27/oral-sex-rape-ruling-tulsa-oklahoma-alcohol-consent (and in some cases, of course, rightly so! It's important to have avenues of redress for protecting equal rights and it's also important to be extraordinarily cautious in exercising state power in a manner that can result in imprisonment). <br /><br />And lastly, don't forget that institutions are responsible under Title IX for maintaining environments in which students are not subject to sex discrimination. A university community might maintain a culture of pervasive sexism such that students are repeatedly subject to demeaning treatment on the basis of sex without any particular individual harassing anyone (say, Joe calls Jane a sexist slur, then in her next class, Jim tries and fails to grope Jane, then in her next class, Bob yells sexist insults at her -- it might very well be that none of that on it's own is tantamount to harassment, but that doesn't entail the university isn't on the hook for the collective impact). To that extent, it is valuable for social science research to look at patterns of behavior that can give rise to hostile environments even when the behavior is not harassment per se. <br /><br />But also, I think the best information we have is that students are not broadly being expelled for sexual assault even when found responsible for it (most get suspensions, less than a third it seems are expelled), e.g., http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/29/campus-sexual-assault_n_5888742.htmlKathryn Poginnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673382.post-14207737642649200632017-05-16T18:22:43.883-07:002017-05-16T18:22:43.883-07:00Anonymous, I get the impression from the tone of v...Anonymous, I get the impression from the tone of voice I feel like you'd read that comment in that you think you're making some kind of clever tu quoque point or something, but if so it is lost on me. Are you under the impression that Title IX investigations rely on evidence provided by only one party and don't seek out competing accounts? Do you think that's what happened in Ludlow's Title IX hearing? Do you think that's what happened in Kipnis's Title IX hearing?Jonathan Jenkins Ichikawahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05260245860017778409noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673382.post-32447181481011299102017-05-16T12:43:57.742-07:002017-05-16T12:43:57.742-07:00So she relies on evidence provided only by one par...So she relies on evidence provided only by one party, and doesn't seek out accounts of others, or give them an opportunity to rebut the evidence she's been provided?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673382.post-5422758935273971832017-05-16T11:13:12.980-07:002017-05-16T11:13:12.980-07:00Yes, and these records were part of the case recor...Yes, and these records were part of the case record of NU's termination proceeding. They are rebuttal evidence against the charges. If the charges are public, the rebuttal evidence should be also. That's the way fair proceedings work. We don't have secret trials in this country, with secret evidence. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673382.post-66299461820405824442017-05-16T11:10:54.881-07:002017-05-16T11:10:54.881-07:00Exactly right, Thomas. Exactly right, Thomas. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673382.post-5288088967886826052017-05-16T07:53:31.893-07:002017-05-16T07:53:31.893-07:00If this is about cases at Northwestern, then Kipni...<i>If this is about cases at Northwestern, then Kipnis could only write and surmise based on the information available in the public record. If other details were private and off-limits, she had no way of writing about them or even knowing about them.</i><br /><br />You obviously haven't read the book. As Kipnis says, she relies extensively on documents that have not been made public, but instead were given to her privately by Peter Ludlow.Jonathan Jenkins Ichikawahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05260245860017778409noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673382.post-60444530196121317302017-05-16T04:53:41.267-07:002017-05-16T04:53:41.267-07:00I don't know what to say to above anonymous...I don't know what to say to above anonymous' comments. They seem like very compelling points.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673382.post-52554489132789415762017-05-16T04:52:56.990-07:002017-05-16T04:52:56.990-07:00That doesn't convince me. If this is about ca...That doesn't convince me. If this is about cases at Northwestern, then Kipnis could only write and surmise based on the information available in the public record. If other details were private and off-limits, she had no way of writing about them or even knowing about them.<br /><br />What seems more pernicious is that nit-picking details and errors in Kipnis' book seems like a way to keep the focus on her and her "unethical" or "pernicious" behavior, to prevent us from questioning whether the Title IX enforcement and machinations might themselves be unethical or pernicious. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673382.post-23138274002854363172017-05-16T04:51:12.070-07:002017-05-16T04:51:12.070-07:00First of all, universities are only setting these ...First of all, universities are only setting these policies because they've been "blackmailed" by OCR and feel forced to comply. It's a quasi-public, quasi-private grey area.<br /><br />Beyond that, even if organizations are allowed to go 'beyond' the law, that doesn't mean we should encourage the setting of policies that are unrealistic, dishonest, or unfair.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673382.post-12928040676766030912017-05-15T22:26:25.057-07:002017-05-15T22:26:25.057-07:00I'm not sure where I left that impression. I g...I'm not sure where I left that impression. I generally insist on the "severe and pervasive" standard. The criticism of the Title IX regime is precisely that it enforces a much lower one. This has also affected the social science of harassment, especially the study of harassment in college and STEM. What is counted as harassment in surveys is often far short of severe; and each case is counted regardless of frequency.<br /><br />The most radical case of this is the recent study of the climate at the University of Texas. The report says: "The terms employed in this study are used in the context of social science research, and not in their legal context. They are not intended to indicate that the responses of results of the survey constitute or evidence a violation of any federal, state, or local law or policy." Within this "social science" framework, it is able to conclude that 15% of the female undergraduates at UT Austin have been raped.<br /><br />The researchers are of course part of the Title IX apparatus, closely allied with it. The worry here is that the behaviors that these women experienced can become the basis of Title IX proceedings by which the "perpetrators" are then expelled as, indeed, "rapists". But what they did was not rape by any legal or commonsense standard.<br /><br />The same would go for still milder behavior for which they might be expelled for "assault" or "harassment". I believe the legal standard gets it right. And it's on that standard that Title IX gets it wrong.Thomashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04858865501469168339noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673382.post-21982554986686738712017-05-15T18:37:39.850-07:002017-05-15T18:37:39.850-07:00Kathryn Pogin - from your posts you seem to be kno...Kathryn Pogin - from your posts you seem to be knowledgeable beyond most in Title IX. So I am surprised that you write "unwanted" instead of "unwelcome" which Title IX and VII use. Many popular posters use "unwanted" but it is imprecise and inaccurate to do so. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673382.post-2181069529945470822017-05-15T14:56:54.890-07:002017-05-15T14:56:54.890-07:00Thomas, you seem to think that per Title IX, matte...Thomas, you seem to think that per Title IX, matters of mere offense are thereby legally codified as harassment. But nothing in Title IX makes it such that matters of mere discomfort are thereby matters of sexual harassment. That's just not what the standard is under the law. Unwanted conduct of a sexual nature (i.e., sexual conduct which causes discomfort in that it is unwanted) does not rise to the level of harassment unless it is sufficiently severe and pervasive to create a hostile environment, or reasonable interferes with equal access to educational programs. You can read about the standard here: https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/docs/shguide.pdf <br /><br />It seems pretty important to me to get clear on this because everyone agrees there are problems with how Title IX is implemented, but that's an entirely different question from what the law says, or does, and unless you know what the law says, it's hard to get clear on where the folks on the other side of this actually stand on various issues (like how harassment ought to be responded to). Kathryn Poginnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673382.post-34755388644815813082017-05-15T11:09:06.089-07:002017-05-15T11:09:06.089-07:00What a cheap evasion. I know Kipnis is wrong, but ...What a cheap evasion. I know Kipnis is wrong, but I can't tell you why in any detail. You just have to trust me. But we don't trust you. Trust me, we don't.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673382.post-82613566612342980372017-05-15T10:19:53.078-07:002017-05-15T10:19:53.078-07:00Kipnis has the facts wrong. One example, but not t...Kipnis has the facts wrong. One example, but not the only one, is that she thinks that one person did a, b, c, when in fact no one did a and different people did b and c. Given how much significance Kipnis places on many of the events she gets wrong, these mistakes matter. But because explaining in detail everything she has wrong would require a massive violation of privacy, its not going to happen. Which means that all the *anonymous* posters can come along and claim that people "wrongly think it to be taken from their experience", or that mistakes happen but that doesn't mean the overall narrative is false.<br /><br />This is what's so pernicious about Kipnis's book. She has behaved unethically, but no one can demonstrate that to all these people who desperately want to believe her without behaving equally unethically.<br /><br />Jonathan is doing a fine job showing that even if we take the facts to be as stipulated Kipnis's interpretations don't hold water, and so this is really a distraction anyway. I'm making this my last comment on the matter.Nicole Wyatthttp://nicolewyatt.netnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673382.post-75397915935974497212017-05-15T07:30:40.505-07:002017-05-15T07:30:40.505-07:00Re: Anonymous 5/14/2017 12:00:00 AM
That list is ...Re: Anonymous 5/14/2017 12:00:00 AM<br /><br />That list is absurd, it's way too libertine. If you're hot-tubbing with students no older than 22, you know, eye roll. <br /><br />I agree that if one made a regular habit of all of these behaviors, that would be libertine, and quite possibly too libertine. (Let's be clear: I am not advocating the more libertine list for one-on-one interactions.)<br /><br />But these activities can and do happen without incident. At conference hotels there is often a pool and hot tub: is a faculty member to leave the hot tub if a student enters? How about the exercise room? or locker room? If the conference is held at a scenic locale and the graduate students ask a faculty member if he or she would like to come along to the beach on the free afternoon, must the faculty member decline the invitation? <br /><br />Is it wrong for a faculty member to invite students to his or her home for a dinner party? Or do go together on a skiing weekend?<br /><br />Especially for research fields in which field work is essential: Is it wrong for faculty and graduate students to backpack together? If they are at a remote hot spring, must they take turns according to academic development and/or by gender? <br /><br />For everything: does it matter whether we are imagining graduate students or undergraduates? I think it does, but only in the sense of "good manners" not in terms of "good defensible policy." The benefits of such experiences to the graduate students are greater than for the undergraduates.<br /><br />Thanks for linking to the SNL video. Will Farrel's character asks midway through, "Whose hand is on my cul de sac?" This is the response Kipnis (and Thomas here) argue for: solve it in the moment and move on. Waiting years to file a Title IX complaint is no good. <br /><br />Leaving the hot tub much earlier would have been better, but he was kept there by his romantic tension with his girl friend. Again, Kipnis' point is that sex is complicated. <br /><br />If he had left the hot tub at his first discomfort (at the moment the other couple entered the water apparently without the first couple's consent), and filed a report with the conference organizers, then what do we wish for their response to be? <br /><br />A) "I'm sorry you were offended. Now grow up and handle these things yourself..."<br />B) "Thank you for reporting this behavior. We will open a case, interview everyone involved, bully the conference hotel to provide surveillance video (because we cannot subpoena it), and also make some discrete inquiries of others at the conference if they had any uncomfortable interactions with the accused. We are also reviewing our hotel selections for future conferences."Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com