News.com.au complains that Courts and Universities aren't taking "disciplinary action" against students accused of rape...in the absence of any kind of investigation, trial or conviction. True guilt upon accusation.

babno · 2016-07-06T14:11:42+00:00

Seems like they're complaining that they're not referred to the police, which imho I think is the way it should be. Police should handle criminal conduct, not universities.

ThirdTurnip · 2016-07-06T20:46:53+00:00

Complete garbage article.

Australian Universities already completely screw up sexual harassment complaints. Woman threatens man in writing for refusing to date her. Man refuses again. Woman lodges transparently false accusation of sexual harassment against man in retaliation. Man's guilt assumed and he is instructed to apologise without even being told what he's been accused of.

Woman is advised that man is gay. Instantly drops complaint against him and makes a full written confession. Confession ignored by university investigation. Instead they falsely claim the man confessed in writing - a non-existent document - and find him partially guilty.

Could you imagine what they'd do with rape investigations?

This article's author seems utterly clueless about AVO's too. They certainly cannot be taken as any indication of guilt because they're handed out like candy. My harasser and stalker created a hotmail account with my name and sent herself a series of death and rape threat emails, which the police later proved and she confessed to. But she was transparently stalking me and that's all it took to for me to be on the receiving end of an AVO.

Even if the magistrate who granted the AVO clearly shouldn't have, it costs a small fortune to get one overturned.

Tedesche · 2016-07-06T19:10:13+00:00

Eh...some of what this article asserts is troubling from a men's rights perspective, but the general point is not. It's a valid complaint that the university isn't referring the cases that do get reported to the police.

However, the statistics the article cites about people who claim they experienced sexual assault, but didn't report it, and then the contention that this means one instance is occurring a day is overblown and hysteria-fueling. Many people experience what they would consider to be "technically" or "borderline" sexual assault in the form of mild unwanted touching (e.g. on the arm or shoulder), but don't feel the issue serious enough to make a big deal out of it by making an official complaint. A lot of what the news hubbub around this issue fails to appreciate is that regular people often appreciate the social complexities and contexts of these incidents far more than do politicians, politically-motivated researchers, and activists.

Nonetheless, if universities are not referring the complaints that are made to police, then they are failing in their duty to hep these students and are likely trying to preserve their reputation by hiding such reports. I would agree with many others here that universities shouldn't be in this position to begin with, and that complainants should go to the police directly, but that is not the present state of the law, so the complaint that they're not reporting the complaints is valid. The article even mentions a male victim specifically, which I was very heartened to see, since it suggests the narrative about sexual assault being a female-only problem is changing.

So, some problems with the article, but I think the general point it's making is a valid one.

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