An article in LNP headed “F&M College to allow ‘advisor of choice’ in sexual misconduct hearings” reports:
“Starting Saturday, Franklin & Marshall College will no longer restrict the choice of advisors available to participants in disciplinary hearings involving allegations of sexual assault or misconduct.
“The change will bring F&M into compliance with a key provision of the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act, or VAWA.
“According to VAWA, during any ‘institutional disciplinary hearing,’ both the accuser and accused are entitled “to be accompanied to any related meeting or proceeding by an advisor of their choice.”
“That ‘clearly and unambiguously’ includes the option of an attorney, the Department of Education says.”
This is a giant step in protecting the youths who are involved, both male and female.
The limitations of our vocabulary when it comes to so called sexual offenses is that we make little if any distinction between a male jumping out of the shadows and accosting a female pedestrian and a nineteen year old and a seventeen year old in the heat of what earlier generations called “petting” and our generation called “making out.”
Then we have the classification of “sexual predator” which both describes repeated offenders and the above nineteen year old.
Perhaps Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” should be banned from the libraries because, by today’s definition, Romeo is a rapist and a predator.
Any boy or girl charged with sexual offense should be represented by knowledgeable counsel from the earliest hearing. Qualified lawyers may not be easy to find and the youngster may not be able to afford to pay. Qualifiefd counsel may need to be provided by the college or university.
There are people who need to be punished and perhaps prosecuted. But a person’s future should not hang on what took place in the heat of passion and likely under the influence of alcohol, let alone perhaps immature accusations of another youth.
As for this “yes” and “no” stuff, it sounds better than it may prove in practice. Again, in our generation, girls would often mutter “no, no, no” as they willingly engaged in sex. It had to do with propriety rather their actual wish.
When the sex is the outcome of extenuating circumstances, the charge should be ‘bad judgment’ rather than ‘rape’ , the punishment should be public service, and the record should be expunged.
