When a Student Confides a Rape, Should a Professor Have to Report It?

[BainsBane]

136. Of course

The bill of rights REQUIRES that civil rights law be ignored, that women be made to understand that they have no right to consent, and that universities work tirelessly to ensure rapists have unfettered access to fresh victims.

I know this comes as a shock to you, but women are citizens of this country (awful, I know). To allow the kind of RAPE CULTURE that proliferates on college campuses with no regard to the safety and rights of women is a violation of title IX , made possible by the Fourteenth Amendment to the constitution. Now I'll well aware of the right-wing position that only the first ten amendments (the Bill of Rights) to the constitution count and that the the 14th amendment is particularly odious because it extends constitutional protection to the nation's undesirables, like me.

While it may seem like the ability to rape without facing any consequences is a constitutional right, given how seldom rapists are actually punished, but it actually isn't. DOJ has judged that allowing a climate of violence against women is violation of the 14th amendment, just as the failure to prosecute racially motivated hate crimes violates the 14th. Those of us who care about equal protection would like to see DOJ invoke federal law to clamp down on prosecutors offices, but as yet DOJ has sought only to use title IX for colleges and universities, which face a higher legal burden because they take federal funding.

Now I know we're only talking about students who are overwhelmingly women, whose importance is clearly less than male sexual predators. (It's not like women are real citizens covered by real constitutional rights). Naturally the idea that any rapists might have to face prosecution for a crime is unacceptable. THAT must be stopped. Rape victims must be made to understand the constitution does not apply to them. After all, Scalia was quite clear on the subject that equal rights do not extend to women. Clearly the Bill of Rights was intended to protect male felons to the exclusion of uppity women who actually have the nerve to think they have a right to decide who they have sex with. Clearly the 2% conviction rate for rape is a travesty for rapists who should know that they face absolutely zero chance (not just a 2 percent chance) of ever facing prison.

Leaving aside the sarcasm for a minute: harassment and assault are two separate issues. Assault is a criminal matter; harassment a civil one. That you insist on conflating the two would itself be objectionable, if you hadn't trumped that by making the absurd claim that DOJ was violating the Bill of Rights in seeking to enforce the 14th Amendment. Perhaps you could enlighten us as to which of the first ten amendments requires institutions of higher education to allow rape to go prosecuted? Then there is the fact you don't even seem to get that DOJ's action is against universities, not accused rapists.