The Vassar case - right or wrong?

[Rhea]

Do you think the Vassar rape case was correctly decided or a miscarriage of justice? I am curious if all of the people accused of supporting that case exist....

Feel free to post links of case details as well as your reason for your vote.

Here are two that I found that I have not yet read through
http://www.mindingthecampus.com/2013/08/the_dubious_rape_trial_at_vass/
http://reason.com/archives/2013/12/17/guilty-until-proven-innocent

 

[ksen]

I don't know what this is.

Was derec happy with the result? That will tell me all I need to know.

 

[Rhea]

I don't know much about it myself, but what I have seen seems to imply this (from the first link)

The two students consumed alcohol at a team party in February 2012; one of Walker’s friends seems to have thought she was very drunk. After the party ended, Walker accompanied Yu back to his room. They started to have intercourse, but Yu’s roommate entered the room and interrupted them; Walker then said she didn’t want to go any further, and she left. The complaint quotes numerous, seemingly cordial Facebook exchanges between Walker and Yu over the next year, before Walker–on last day she could under Vassar procedures, a fact that is critical in retrospect–made a campus claim of sexual assault. She never filed a criminal complaint, nor did she, it seems, obtain a medical exam after her evening with Yu.

the article implies that her reason for waiting until the last day was to prevent him from filing the same claim about her in response.

and

the Yu complaint suggests that Vassar essentially dismissed numerous Facebook messages between Walker and Yu in which Walker discussed the evening, apologized to Yu, and at one point invited him to dinner at her home. The complaint notes that Walker testified that she sent messages out of fear of Yu.

 

[Starr]

Do you think the Vassar rape case was correctly decided or a miscarriage of justice? I am curious if all of the people accused of supporting that case exist....

Feel free to post links of case details as well as your reason for your vote.

Here are two that I found that I have not yet read through
http://www.mindingthecampus.com/2013/08/the_dubious_rape_trial_at_vass/
http://reason.com/archives/2013/12/17/guilty-until-proven-innocent

When you say supporting the case do you mean supporting the university or Yu?

Given what is known through articles like the ones you provided, I would have to land on the side of Yu.

At the very least the university should have to apply their rules equitably: the fact that the girl was also in violation of the rules should have equally resulted in her own expulsion. And no, it shouldn't matter that he didn't file a complaint, just like it doesn't matter if you "press charges" on someone if the police find out they did something illegal to you, that is up to the police. In the same way, if the facts of the case against Yu equally "incriminate" Walker, then the administration must take action on that. However, ideally, based on the facts we know, neither of their actions should have resulted in disciplinary action.

Of course there could always be facts we don't know about the case. My position is based purely on what I've read (primarily from that first link, which I'd seen before).

 

[AthenaAwakened]

http://frdb.talkfreethought.org/thearchives/showthread.php?t=326511&highlight=vassar

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

Of course there could always be facts we don't know about the case. My position is based purely on what I've read (primarily from that first link, which I'd seen before).

I agree with this. On the face of it this case looks ridiculous and I can see why Derec points at it as an example of how things have gone horribly skewed against men. But I also know I don't know all the facts of the case, and there may be something in there that would change my mind.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

http://nypost.com/2013/06/26/row-ov...legedly-false-rape-accusation-by-team-member/

http://www.courthousenews.com/2013/06/27/58882.htm

 

[Starr]

Of course there could always be facts we don't know about the case. My position is based purely on what I've read (primarily from that first link, which I'd seen before).

I agree with this. On the face of it this case looks ridiculous and I can see why Derec points at it as an example of how things have gone horribly skewed against men. But I also know I don't know all the facts of the case, and there may be something in there that would change my mind.

I've always felt this is an important point that gets missed in threads like this. When I am posting my position, it is based on the facts as I know them. If new facts are revealed to me that should force my position on an issue to change, I like to think I will change it (with the deep seated fear that my all too human ego might get in the way of course). I often see in threads like this (threads about rape involving a lot of he said/she said), people trying to change people's minds through speculation on what could have happened, not the things we know but the things we don't know that might be true.

I would hope it would go without saying that my opinion is always provisional based on the facts at hand, but my experience in the past with threads like this says it really doesn't.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Based on the facts presented in the article, the expulsion decision seems to be crap and the university owes Yu a significant amount of money. Even given the preponderence of evidence standard, I don't see how they found it credible to that level.

The only way I can see it being even slightly viable is if the rationale was that Yu had sex with someone who had been drinking and the university classifies that as sexual assault in and of itself and doesn't care about her blatant lies regarding the matter afterwards. If that is the case, then the girl needs to be expelled as well, since he did nothing that she did not also do. The fact that nobody filed a charge against her should be irrelevant. If one student is accused of cheating on a test and their investigation finds other instances of cheating then all the cheaters should be punished and it doesn't matter if anyone made an accusation against them for cheating.

 

[Toni]

There is this (second link) which I think is one salient piece of information:

The next day, according to documents in an unusual complaint that Yu filed against Vassar last June, Yu's resident adviser told him some students had seen him and the young woman on their way to the dorm. They had been so concerned by Walker's apparently inebriated state that they called campus security.

We have ONLY Yu's version (and that of his supporters) to tell us what really happened. The truth is that we do not know what happened. We don't even know what Walker thinks happened. Just what Yu thinks happened, from his point of view.

At least some people were quite concerned about how drunk Walker appeared. As far as I know, no one was concerned about Yu's state of drunkenness. Was Yu similarly incapacitated? Did no one notice or was it not deemed important? We don't know. We only know they had a few drinks together--'a few' not being quantified that I am aware of. No BAC was done at the time. We have only witnesses who expressed strong concern about Walker's drunken state. That is a known.

Why would Walker exchange texts with him after and remain 'friendly?' if it was assault? I remained 'friendly' to a certain extent with the person who repeated assaulted me, attempted to rape me and attempted to kill me. Because he was family and as absurd as it sounds/is: I didn't want to get him into trouble. My friend is still married to the husband who raped her and who, I suspect, is responsible for at least one of the trips to the ER for which I provided transport. And so on. It is not uncommon when the assailant is an acquaintance, a family member, a spouse, a friend.

There is also the question of what Walker remembers about the night and when she remembered it. Did she remember the next morning? Did it come back to her in bits and pieces? Was she traumatized, confided in friends who were only slowly able to convince her to bring charges?

Yu's version is that he was unable to 'fully question' Walker because she kept breaking down and crying. This could be evidence of trauma because of assault. Or it could be evidence of her crying because she has found herself in a situation she did not know how to stop.

There is no way that we can actually know what happened from the information linked or from what I have read elsewhere.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Walker doesn't know. She was allegedly very drunk, so she can't say. If she can't say, you need another source to justify a claim, unless the argument is she was too drunk to consent.

 

[Toni]

Walker doesn't know. She was allegedly very drunk, so she can't say. If she can't say, you need another source to justify a claim, unless the argument is she was too drunk to consent.

In fact, that is the basis for the university's expulsion of Yu.

Since no BAC was done at the time, it seems the university relied upon the fact that other students who saw Yu and Walker that night were so concerned about Walker's state of drunkenness that they called campus security.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Walker doesn't know. She was allegedly very drunk, so she can't say. If she can't say, you need another source to justify a claim, unless the argument is she was too drunk to consent.

In fact, that is the basis for the university's expulsion of Yu.

Since no BAC was done at the time, it seems the university relied upon the fact that other students who saw Yu and Walker that night were so concerned about Walker's state of drunkenness that they called campus security.

Well, there you go. Too bad security didn't do anything about it.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

In fact, that is the basis for the university's expulsion of Yu.

Since no BAC was done at the time, it seems the university relied upon the fact that other students who saw Yu and Walker that night were so concerned about Walker's state of drunkenness that they called campus security.

Well, there you go. Too bad security didn't do anything about it.

And too bad Yu wasn't concerned enough about the possibility of that that he asked Walker specifically about it and she explicitly said that it wasn't a problem and repeated that claim over the course of the year.

Oh wait ...

 

[Underseer]

I agree with this. On the face of it this case looks ridiculous and I can see why Derec points at it as an example of how things have gone horribly skewed against men. But I also know I don't know all the facts of the case, and there may be something in there that would change my mind.

I've always felt this is an important point that gets missed in threads like this. When I am posting my position, it is based on the facts as I know them. If new facts are revealed to me that should force my position on an issue to change, I like to think I will change it (with the deep seated fear that my all too human ego might get in the way of course). I often see in threads like this (threads about rape involving a lot of he said/she said), people trying to change people's minds through speculation on what could have happened, not the things we know but the things we don't know that might be true.

I would hope it would go without saying that my opinion is always provisional based on the facts at hand, but my experience in the past with threads like this says it really doesn't.

Unfortunately, certain people feel the need to use just-so stories (ad hoc fallacies) to reflexively justify sexual assault.

If they used their just-so stories to defend one side half the time and the other side half the time, it might be understandable (if still based on flawed reasoning), but what could possibly compel people to always side against the victim in these cases?

It's almost as if they have some sort of ulterior motive here. Nah, couldn't be. I'm sure everything's on the up and up.

 

[Toni]

Well, there you go. Too bad security didn't do anything about it.

And too bad Yu wasn't concerned enough about the possibility of that that he asked Walker specifically about it and she explicitly said that it wasn't a problem and repeated that claim over the course of the year.

Oh wait ...

Really? Have you read the transcripts of the texts and FB messages? Because I have t seen them. We have only the assurances of Yu and his supporters about their content.

Not to mention that many victims of MANY crimes tend to minimize what happened. However, Yu was not accused of a crime. He was accused of violating Vassar's student conduct code. He has not claimed a similar state of drinkenness, no one asked security to intervene on his behalf. Yu himself says he was informed of the reports. Even Yu's account of the social media exchanges do not claim that WLker specifically mentioned having a good time having sex with him. If she was as drunk as other students thought, she probably wasn't very clear about what happened.

But that's all just speculation. We honestly don't know the facts of the case.

 

[Rhea]

I just realized I was answering a question that I misunderstood. Nevermind!

And I agree completely with the assumed caveat that the pure "yes" and "no" are under the umbrella of, "based on the information that is available" and I further claim that I think it's extremely limited since there are zero statements from Walker, so it's not even "he said, she said," it's just "he said".

But so far the evidence seems to point to Yu not getting a fair chance to answer accusations or present evidence that looks pretty exculpatory. meaning it doesn't look to me like a good decision to expel him based on what's been presented so far.


Some possible scenarios that _could_ change my mind would be something like Walker just saw (the day before her filing the complaint) some video of something that happened that she did not know until then had happened.

 

[Toni]

I would like to point out that Yu did have a hearing and he was allowed to question Walker. Just not as fully as he wanted. Because she was crying too hard.

Even by Yu's account, she was drunk enough to draw the concern of others, at least one of whom knew Yu really well and called campus security out of concern for Walker.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Of course there could always be facts we don't know about the case. My position is based purely on what I've read (primarily from that first link, which I'd seen before).

I agree with this. On the face of it this case looks ridiculous and I can see why Derec points at it as an example of how things have gone horribly skewed against men. But I also know I don't know all the facts of the case, and there may be something in there that would change my mind.

This one has been tossed around in the media repeatedly. If there was something that exonerated her don't you think it would have come out by now? It's not like there's anything keeping her from talking.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I would like to point out that Yu did have a hearing and he was allowed to question Walker. Just not as fully as he wanted. Because she was crying too hard.

Crying too hard doesn't prove anything. Some people can switch it on and off.

We have a relative that's very good at manipulating her parents. She can switch the waterworks on and off at will. If you hadn't observed her over time you would have no idea her crying was fake.