>> I'd like to give Sam's parents, for obvious reasons, <<
Yeah, they suck. >_<
>> as well as his university (that is a seriously dirty and coercive false choice there) and his advisor of the oh-so-unhelpful commentary swift kicks in the pants. Several swift kicks in the pants, even.<<
This is more complicated. Local-American universities handle sex crimes very badly, tending toward doing far too little or far too much. This at least has the advantage of giving students a choice -- if they're attached to the campus, they can stay; if they're attached to their educational path, they can take it somewhere else. It has a good chance of teaching young lunks a wider perspective on sex/gender dynamics.
The places where it falls down: the use of guilt by association, and the complete lack of support for someone forced to change programs in a way that disrupts graduation schedule.
>> I may well end up prompting you for a follow-up to this, because Sam deserves WAAAAYYY better than he's currently getting, hopeful ending or no.<<
I agree that he deserves better.
>> And someone should seriously take that university administration to task for their epic mishandling of the love potion mess. Bonus points if it's the quiltbag community raising the objections that get the ball rolling.<<
Well, they couldn't just ignore it, but they didn't have a way to pin down exactly who did it. They could only distinguish between more and less likely suspects. They were able to hold the fraternity, as an organization, responsible for it because it happened at their party in their house. That's better than nothing, but hardly optimal.
>> If I were in a gender and/or sexuality-related class, the last thing I'd want is to discover that a resentful dudebro with a suspected creepy history had crashed it, and didn't want to be there. <<
Point.
On the other hoof, most classes have a large number of students who don't want to be there, even in college -- and that's much worse today than when I was there. I've seen colleges that require everyone to waste the whole first two years on general prerequisites before they are permitted to declare a major and take classes they actually care about. 0_o
>> Add to that the wider issue of open, admin-lead coercion... <<
Do you think it would've been better to close the fraternity house and expel all its members? Because some colleges have done that. A few have even shut down their entire Greek system. I can't blame them for doing that when the Greek system has a tendency to rape, poison, and sometimes kill people; but I'm dubious whether expelling everyone in a house is necessarily a good route to responsible citizens. Or do you have better idea?
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dancing_serpent
Thoughts
Date: 2022-01-15 02:04 am (UTC)Yeah, they suck. >_<
>> as well as his university (that is a seriously dirty and coercive false choice there) and his advisor of the oh-so-unhelpful commentary swift kicks in the pants. Several swift kicks in the pants, even.<<
This is more complicated. Local-American universities handle sex crimes very badly, tending toward doing far too little or far too much. This at least has the advantage of giving students a choice -- if they're attached to the campus, they can stay; if they're attached to their educational path, they can take it somewhere else. It has a good chance of teaching young lunks a wider perspective on sex/gender dynamics.
The places where it falls down: the use of guilt by association, and the complete lack of support for someone forced to change programs in a way that disrupts graduation schedule.
>> I may well end up prompting you for a follow-up to this, because Sam deserves WAAAAYYY better than he's currently getting, hopeful ending or no.<<
I agree that he deserves better.
>> And someone should seriously take that university administration to task for their epic mishandling of the love potion mess. Bonus points if it's the quiltbag community raising the objections that get the ball rolling.<<
Well, they couldn't just ignore it, but they didn't have a way to pin down exactly who did it. They could only distinguish between more and less likely suspects. They were able to hold the fraternity, as an organization, responsible for it because it happened at their party in their house. That's better than nothing, but hardly optimal.
>> If I were in a gender and/or sexuality-related class, the last thing I'd want is to discover that a resentful dudebro with a suspected creepy history had crashed it, and didn't want to be there. <<
Point.
On the other hoof, most classes have a large number of students who don't want to be there, even in college -- and that's much worse today than when I was there. I've seen colleges that require everyone to waste the whole first two years on general prerequisites before they are permitted to declare a major and take classes they actually care about. 0_o
>> Add to that the wider issue of open, admin-lead coercion... <<
Do you think it would've been better to close the fraternity house and expel all its members? Because some colleges have done that. A few have even shut down their entire Greek system. I can't blame them for doing that when the Greek system has a tendency to rape, poison, and sometimes kill people; but I'm dubious whether expelling everyone in a house is necessarily a good route to responsible citizens. Or do you have better idea?