The football team has a bulls eye on them since they have so many football players. There may be factions in the U who hear the football teams' reputation and are on a crusade to change things. I don't know. The accused are all black. It makes one wonder about the racial justice that the Fire Claeys people are talking about. Their attorney Lee Hutton can probably argue that the deck appears stacked against the football players:
"If the players lose the SSMS appeal they can ask for appellate officer review. The appellate officer is Provost Karen Hanson. Ms. Hanson spearheaded the effort to bring the affirmative consent rule to the U last year.
In short, the appeal is a stacked deck, and the appellate officer defines silence during sex as rape.
If Hutton can pull this off he's a miracle worker.
From a Strib article on the U adopting affirmative consent:
"But Karen Hanson, the U’s provost, said she thinks the fears are overblown.
“We’ve still got tons of due process about these issues,” she said, including the right to appeal. “I actually don’t think there’s any shifting of the burden of proof.”
Hanson, who serves on the presidential policy committee that endorsed the new approach, said she sees it mainly as a teaching tool. “We’re in the education business,” she said. “What this is trying to get students to understand is that silence doesn’t equal consent.”
A teaching tool? Ruining a kids life appearing before a stacked committee? What kind of lesson in life they are going to learn if a student athlete gets caught in a gray area of silent consent?
There are some bad apples. Don't get me wrong. What happened with the group sex with the recruit involved is real repulsive and abhorrent. I get it. At what what point did the mescalito become rape when it appears that consent was given earlier? They need to protect women from date rape which is common even in earlier decades. Expulsion of even the non athlete students is a harsh punishment if it does not fit the crime. Silent consent can be a gray area. They have such a high standard that do not require an arrest or charges.
There is the other side of the coin where women were raped or taken advantage of when they were inebriated. What about their rights? A good case in point is that Stanford swimmer who sexually assaulted a female student who was passed out. Luckily two male student saw what was going on and put a stop to it. But, this silent consent may end up as one of the cases going to the Supreme Court one day.
Lawsuits are inevitable. The four or five players whose mugshots were plastered all over the news - some of them weren't in the same apartment or room. There must be something they did that got the attention of the EOAA. Too late for any real due process. The other five who figured prominently in the gang bang escapade should have never be reinstated until the process is complete.
The circumstance are such that the county attorney twice failed to bring up any charges. However, I understand there is a student code of conduct that should apply to all students.
The wrestling team is a different matter involving drugs. How come their sentence is lighter? What about the Reggie Lynch case?
This is such a big mess that will haunt the U for a long time.
