56 CommentsThis morning the New York Post published a piece in regard to multiple female students’ allegations of having been raped and assaulted by a current Columbia University athlete, and Columbia’s lack of judicial response in both cases. The Post article reports that in the cases of both women, Columbia dragged out the case for months; one woman was denied a hearing, and another eventually lost her hearing and had her appeal dropped after several months.
Columbia’s lack of action in regard to the allegations has resulted in uproar from students groups on campus. A petition was created by the Columbia Democrats in October asking for the university to release more information on reported sex crimes. According to the article, Columbia only has to release the number of reported sex crime incidents once a year, not including any results in terms of discipline. 2012’s sexual assault report cited 16 “forcible” assault incidents, about quadruple the number from the previous year.
From the Post article:
“I [still] see him everywhere, and he can come into my residence hall — he has access to all of the facilities that I do,” said one of the two other women still at the Morningside Heights school.
This situation leaves the victims a single option to seek justice outside of Columbia–go to the police and report the incident. The victims in these cases were not encouraged to go to the police, and when they did, one was told she lacked “sufficient evidence” for the rape. Up until this day, the reported rapist has not been punished in any way and continues to attend Columbia.
If the New York Post makes a post about this, maybe it’s time to clean up the act and get some shit done, Columbia.
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56 Comments
@I know who this is He is a creepy and terrible scumbag
@no just no @Anonymous: you really crossed the line. wow. i have nothing to say.
@Alum The statute and the article you linked to say a university can release this information only if the accused loses his case. But the accused athlete apparently won both of these cases. According the Post article cited by Bwog, he won one of the cases after a hearing, and the other case didn’t even get that far due to lack of evidence.
@Anonymous @Alum, you keep posting in two places :|
He won two and lost the gender-misconduct one, for which he got a slap on the wrist. Columbia couldn’t correlate that it was the same individual, but they could release that information. Although at this point it might mean the same thing since everyone knows the other facts – I don’t know if that affects whether it’s legal or not.
And as for the aggregate numbers, it is legal for them to give those numbers, even though they said otherwise, which was my original point.
(Also, it is definitely a he as per one of the quotes)
@Anon Can you stop exclusively referring to the accused as an “athlete”? He’s a student here like any other; his involvement in athletics has nothing to do with it. Your implication that it does is totally unwarranted.
@Anonymous athletes, especially in football and basketball, have far easier admissions standards. using “athlete” lets me maintain hope that the type of person who could get in here properly would not be like this.
@Shah @Anonymous: What does “the type of person who could get in here properly” even mean? Asian Americans have the toughest standards (for literally no good reason). Does that mean that nobody else got in here “properly”?
@Wow To the person “who could get in here properly…”
Believe it or not, everyone is here because they are very good at what they do, or very good at the many things they do. Student athletes are both good students and very good athletes. No comment necessary on the reputation of our sports, CU presents a difficult situation for the success of our teams, it being in NYC and all. Student athletes dedicated the majority of their lives to being the best at what they did, be it tennis, football, fencing, you name it, and that is a substantial part of why they are here. They are very good at something that you are not good at, and it’s very closed minded of you to look past that. Very few people are more committed to making themselves better than they are, and it’s shameful to call them out as lesser human beings, or more suitable rapists. People like you, “who could get in here properly,” embarrass me, not the student athletes, who are also here because they deserve to be. Please stop treating this student as innately more villainess because he is also an athlete.
@Are You Serious? ….people on Dean’s List with 2400 SATs can still be rapists, and it’s really fucked up to somehow think otherwise? Like being “smart” or powerful or well-accomplished or rich doesn’t mean you’re going to have good consent practices. Super done with this comments section. If you ever wonder why so few survivors come forward and report, look at the number of gross things in this comments section and the weird number of rape jokes in response to the alleged assault of three different women on our campus. How do you think they would feel right now? People are way more concerned about jacking off about the possibilities of a false rape accusation / whether or not athletes should get in than they are concerned about there probably being multiple rapes on campus with horrible administrative response.
@Anonymous y’all need to get on your comment moderation
@Anonymous Why do people post jokes about a topic that is not in any way a joke. There is nothing funny about rape. There are no jokes to be made.
@truth of course, the rapist was an athlete.
@Athlete who was a victim once How about we not stereotype athletes in case there are some who have actually been victims of sexual assault.
@Anonymous Columbia doesn’t want to get involved with the personal legal problems of students. Unfortunately, many people see Columbia as an institution that has more authority to investigate and prosecute more than it actually does. Instead of expecting Columbia to contact the police and investigate, there need to be resources available to aid students through the legal matters that a criminal case entails.
The students should set up a fund to help cover the legal costs. It isn’t the university’s place to favor one student over the other until the other has been proven guilty, but the students can favor the victims of sexual assault over the perpetrator before the perpetrator has been found guilty. Once a student has been found guilty, there need to be punishment in place. The government will provide most of the punishments for these actions.
Additionally, given that the cases must leave Columbia and go to the police, it is hard for them to know how many students get prosecuted. These statistics should be public, but I don’t know if they exist. We also need to do more to prevent rape and promote respect and understanding.
@I hate Columbia but am with them on this Are there even criminal proceedings in motion? What sort of proof/ evidence is there? There’s definitely some yellow journalism going on here (both the Post and Bwog).
The article assumes a priori that the individual involved got away with it.
If Columbia did not find enough to even warrant a hearing, they probably have a very good reason. If they did not think they could “prove” his guilt (by preponderance of evidence —a pretty easy burden of proof when even hear say is allowed), there probably was very little to go on. Columbia handled this more than appropriately. When our society already has laws in place, it is not Columbia’s place to be judge, jury, and executioner. If the police also are not pursuing this case (they would jump on this opportunity if there were even the slightest chance of winning), then it looks like there’s a lot more to the story. Unfortunately, a lot of this looks like rumor and innuendo, which are by no means grounds to kick someone out/ remove any of their privileges let alone throw them in jail and subject them to prison violence as the first commenter and 25 lost individuals assert.
One more thought. What is Columbia’s policy concerning false accusations? I would surely hope the one trumping up charges should be subject to the same penalties since such actions hurt the efforts of real survivors.
@agreed.... I very much agree. I hope to god that CU is wary of false accusations. I know the administration isn’t soulless; every one of them is a human. If someone approaches them with rape, let alone 3 people accusing the same person, they are all ears. As far as I know, this student has gone through several rounds of administration hearings on top of a report to the police, and he is still innocent…. False accusations ruin lives too.
@It really creeps me out that I share campus with a rapist…
@prolly multiple rapists
@Recent Victim Well, like a moth to the trigger-ing flame, I read the comment section. Oh why oh why did I read the comment section? I’m sad now.
@I find it even more offensive That I share a whole world with rapists? Thanks for your logic. Amirite? #EndtheWorld.
@Finally... I can’t believe that it has taken this long for an article like this to surface. I Think it is a little embarrassing for Columbia as a community that it took a fairly bland and non aggressive article in the Post for there to be a reaction here. From this point on we need to make sure that as a community we are far more vocal about allowing unacceptable issues, such as that of sexual assault on our campus, to be quietly swept under the rug. It seems most likely that the unfortunate members of our community who have been attacked felt the need of going to the media as the reaction here was far too minimal.
@MGTOW I don’t know if the accused party actually sexually assaulted anybody, but I don’t think that was his first mistake. His first mistake was trying to derive pleasure from putting a stick in a hole. What was the point of that? The heat death of the universe means that your line will not exist forever. There is no point in bothering to pursue relationships, folks! All it does is expose you to STDs, make you lose your money, expose you to emotional drain, and a variety of other problems. You become liable for everything! Work hard, get onto Wall Street, make some cash, and enjoy the rest of your life. Do not get married. The divorce courts will take away all of your money, make you homeless, and force you to pay for another man’s kid!
MGTOW forever!
Throw the rapist in jail!
@inb4 It turns our to be Ched or #BANGBANG
@Anonymous where are benson and stabler when you need them?
@Anonymous This is what he gets for not texting or calling her back
@Anonymous SHOTS FIRED!
@Anonymous There are certain things that are almost always lies when said by a big institution. “We can’t do that because of HIPAA/Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act/Other law” is one of them.
(They cited it when they refused to give statistics. Also the number of expulsions is clearly zero.)
@Alum If you believe the law doesn’t really say that, quote the law and explain why. “It’s probably false because Columbia says it” is not a valid argument.
@Anonymous Sorry, I’m just a bit bitter. Perhaps lie was a strong word, I doubt the person who gave the statement about privacy law has read it, and federal law is kind of unreadable, as you’ll soon see. It’s just that it’s usually a bullshit code word for “fuck off.” On to the law…
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/20/1232g
( I don’t know how to index these things, I think it’s (b)(6)(B) )
“Nothing in this section shall be construed to prohibit an institution of postsecondary education from disclosing the final results of any disciplinary proceeding conducted by such institution against a student who is an alleged perpetrator of any crime of violence (as that term is defined in section 16 of title 18), or a nonforcible sex offense, if the institution determines as a result of that disciplinary proceeding that the student committed a violation of the institution’s rules or policies with respect to such crime or offense”
If you’re found guilty, they can release all information. Since they can release everything about everyone found guilty, and a reasonable person can count the number of people on a list, then the count of guilty verdicts isn’t protected.
And since I’m not a lawyer, here’s a lawyer from the Southern Poverty Law Center saying exactly the same thing when USC made the same claim about expulsions being private: http://ferpafact.tumblr.com/post/57181336471/usc-claims-number-of-rape-expulsions-is-private
@Alum The statute and the article you linked to say a university can release this information only if the accused loses his case. But the accused athlete apparently won both of these cases. According the Post article cited by Bwog, he won one of the cases after a hearing, and the other case didn’t even get that far due to lack of evidence.
@Anonymous @Alum, you keep posting in two places :|
He won two and lost the gender-misconduct one, for which he got a slap on the wrist. Columbia couldn’t correlate that it was the same individual, but they could release that information. Although at this point it might mean the same thing since everyone knows the other facts – I don’t know if that affects whether it’s legal or not.
And as for the aggregate numbers, it is legal for them to give those numbers, even though they said otherwise, which was my original point.
@Alum If you want to argue that the law doesn’t really say that, then quote the law and explain your conclusion. “It must be false because Columbia said it” is not a valid argument.
@anonymous It is legal – Yale publishes those statistics. They were actually encouraged by the DOJ to do so
@anon Note to self idea for screen play: College Girl gets raped and no one will help her so she takes matters into her own hands and cuts the rapist’s dick off and rapes him in the butt with it. It shall be called “The raping of the rapist”(TM)
@Confused... Perhaps someone from the Rape and Sexual Violence Response Crisis Center can answer this…. I’m genuinely curious about the role that the center plays in all this. Back when I was thinking about joining the center, I knew a huge part of the job was providing advocates that go to the hospital with the victim for emotional support. But I was also told that a large part of the job was to educate the victims on their legal options….sooo why aren’t victims being encouraged to go to the police? Like…pero? Someone is really dropping the ball and it’s sickening.
@CC The job of Rape Crisis Center advocates is to perform crisis intervention, to accompany survivors to the hospital if need be, to provide survivors with information about on and off campus resources, and to be a person with whom the survivor can discuss their feelings and concerns. Advocates’ primary role is to empower the survivor and to support their safety and personal well-being. This means letting the survivor know about all of their options – including the police – but leaving the decision ultimately up to them. It is entirely up to a survivor whether or not they want to take legal action or any kind of action at all.
@It should be public knowledge What is the name of the rapist? As a community, don’t we deserve to know? 3 victims and still this guy is freely walking around campus? Like…is safety/security even a thing anymore? If Columbia had done the right thing (ie. turning its rape/sexual violence cases over to the police instead of relying on a sketchy “internal justice system”), then there would have been public legal proceedings and we’d already know the rapist’s name..and perhaps justice could have even been served *gasp*.
@Anonymous Yeah… I sort of agree. Except he would be lynched. So that’s probably not fair… or maybe it is.
@anon i mean, he assaulted three separate people. if that’s not grounds for some public shaming i don’t know what is. the guy should be in prison.
@Anonymous so
@Reminder The man is innocent until proven guilty. If or when he is proven guilty, spread the word. But innocent? Please don’t publish someone as a rapist if he hasn’t been proven a rapist.
@Anonymous @anon: Allegedy assaulted three people. Normally I would be all on board for putting the blame on the administration, but in this case I am not sure there is enough evidence to prove that they mishandled these cases. More transparency would certainly settle the issue, but if the ‘rapist’ (as so many people have already taken to calling this guy) deserves a certain degree of privacy and protection up until he is found guilty.
@Anon The article isn’t giving us much to go on in terms of evidence other than several accusations. The NY post also isn’t exactly noted for its high level of journalistic integrity, but you’ll notice that even the post refuses to identify the student accused of being a rapist. That’s because if it turned out the accused were innocent, he could turn around and sue the post for defamation. Standard journalistic practice.
@Since you, the rapist, are reading this... 1) You’re not going to be at Columbia much longer. You’ve slid by so far. That’s not going to last anymore.
2) You’re not going to last very long in prison, at least intact. You’re going to experience some really horrible things there. Believe that when you’re sitting with your family over Christmas:
You are going to prison. This is your last holiday at home. Your last.
To the Columbia administrators who swept this under the rug:
You’ve victimized these women repeatedly. Consider that. You’ve made this experience worse for them. You’ve actually made the world worse by your actions. Much worse. There’s no prison for you, but perhaps-just perhaps-something resembling conscience will enact something resembling justice for these young ladies.
@Queer Survivor @Since you, the rapist, are reading this…: Hey commenter, I think it’s really important to be mindful that not all survivors want their rapists to go to jail (nor should they have to want this). Sometimes it’s just a case of not wanting someone who attacked you having access to your buildings/classes. It’s a matter of making sure that the administration is responsive to the needs of the survivor. That is what the petition is pushing for. Also, remember that people of all genders can assault and are assaulted. Finally, I feel really gross about the “horrible things will happen to you in prison!” thing. No one deserves to be raped, even if they’re in jail.
@Anonymous I agree that our administration should be an advocate for the needs (therapy, healthcare, legal counsel) of rape/sexual assault survivors. But you lost me on your “not all survivors want their rapists to go to jail and that’s okay ” point. I’ve always thought this line of reasoning was weak. I understand why people say this: they are trying to empower the victim by allowing them to have a say in the outcome of their situation. But, I’m sorry….I strongly believe that if you have raped someone, you need to go to jail. Period End. Simply, barring the attacker from buildings and classes is not a suitable response under any circumstance. If the perp is not in jail, that means he/she could still be a potential threat out in our community…
When I think of an administration that is “responsive to the needs of the survivor”, I think of an administration that facilitates the healing process– which includes making sure the attacker cannot strike again.
@Anonymous I hope the accusers go to the police, and I hope whatever happened is investigated, and I hope any guilty party goes to prison. Believe that. So what the hell does Columbia have to do with it? Justice is due process, not prison rape or school disciplinary processes.
@KnowyourIX @Anonymous: Columbia is actually legally bound under Title IX to handle complaints of gender based discrimination (including sexual violence), and they must take immediate action if someone has a complaint of gender based discrimination. Granted, I don’t know everything that has happened in this case, but if Columbia dragged out this process for both of the survivors and denied them hearings, it’s possible that they are breaking the law under Title IX.
http://knowyourix.org/
@Concerned While I see that your comment is coming from an emotional place and while sexual assault is clearly a plight that our society must eradicate and there should be more transparency from the University, I find your response disturbing.
You have specifically called out an accused person in this case and have made wishes for his physical and physiological harm. You, who have written your post as an outsider to this case not as one of the victims or as the accused, have decided to make claims and lay a sentenced on the accused without any information regarding the specific case while making sweeping generalizations.
The accused may be guilty, but in the event that he is innocent, which he is until proven guilty because that is how the judicial system works for all cases in the United States of America, you would feel pretty badly.
Tl;dr: Let’s not pass judgement until we are presented with all of the facts and in the meantime let’s keep an objective and civil demeanor. Please Columbia, just this once.
@reply to Concerned “I find your response disturbing.”
I find serial rapists on campus disturbing.
“You have specifically called out an accused person in this case and have made wishes for his physical and physiological harm.”
Specifically? No. I called out “the rapist.”
I made no such wishes. Read it again. Prison’s an ugly place. Bad things happen there.
“You…have decided to make claims and lay a sentenced (sic) on the accused without any information regarding the specific case while making sweeping generalizations.”
I’m not in a position to sentence anyone. Likewise, I haven’t made any claims against “the accused” other than the claim-a hope against reason, maybe-that the perpetrator of these crimes will be spending time in prison.
@Concerned K. lol
@Also concerned Holy cow… How am I supposed to take you seriously with the line if reasoning that you’re providing? Hopefully the theses on your term papers are going better.
@Anonymous keep makin comments tho im bored
@Appalled I am pretty embarrassed to go to school with someone who would say this, and the 20+ people perpetuating prison rape as justice. Yeah, I’m embarrassed to go to an institution that potentially perpetuates rape (if this case if in fact rape, i don’t know) but oh my goodness this comment breaks my heart.
@psycho alert Don’t ever reproduce. It’s people like you that are the reason six year olds are suspended for kissing a classmate on the hand and labeled as sexual harrasers.
@Is this real Jesus, how can all of you people above not understand what a serious offense raping is? In case you haven’t noticed, rape is a FELONY that is punished by jail time.