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New PC Attack on the Bill of Rights10/2/2018 NEW PC ATTACK ON THE BILL OF RIGHTS AND SCIENCE
The journal Science recently published an article detailing how Dr. Francisco Ayala, the very distinguished biologist, was forced to resign his position at the University of California, Irvine, because of sexual harassment allegations. Nevertheless, the actions attributed to Dr. Ayala by Science would amount at worst to flirting. Apparently neither Science (In Depth, 7-26-18, pp. 316-17), nor UCI, nor the feminist letter writers who heaped further scorn upon Dr. Ayala are aware that the Federal courts declared decades ago that flirting does not constitute sexual harassment. He is one more tragic casualty of the relentless attack on the Bill of Rights imposed on all universities by the threat of losing Federal funding, as intimated in the unlawful 2011 Department of Education’s “Dear Colleague” letter. Often the accused are denied the right to defend themselves, the right to cross-examine their accusers (too traumatic for the “victim”), and the right for men to be treated equally to women under the law. For example, President Obama preached around the country that a female student who engages in sex when drunk is being raped because she cannot really give her consent. But when the accused male student points out that he was also drunk, he is told that such defense is not allowed to him. (e.g. Occidental College). Now, if instead of going to a man's room (at her request, no less), the female student decides to drive off in her car and kills someone, should we say that she is not responsible for that death because, being drunk, she could not really give her consent to driving? Worse, at some institutions, men may be expelled without knowing the charges against them (e.g. Bethel). Just a vague reference to Title IX violations will do. Presumably we are in a crisis and the Constitution has to give way. Why a crisis? For one thing, President Obama also helped make popular the notion that a woman who enters college has 1 in 5 chances of being raped before graduation. But his own Justice Department published in 2014 (1) a study of rape statistics of college-age women going back 18 years (in contrast to the low-return surveys of the "1 in 5"). The results: 6 in 1,000! And half of those assaults took place when away from college (e.g. on vacation). So, it is 3 in 1,000. The study, conducted by two women incidentally, also concluded that the safest place (in terms of sexual assault) for a woman of college age is a college campus (by a margin of 20%). To further minimize the chances that UCI would grant due process to Dr. Ayala, in 2011 all universities were forced to accept the extremely low “Preponderance of Evidence” standard (51%-49%), even though the U. S. Supreme Court had ruled years before that such standard is unacceptable when a person’s reputation is at stake, as it is the case with Title IX accusations. And, of course, since “victims” must be believed, the accused would be unwise to expect justice. As if that all those violations of the Constitution and the law were not enough, Title IX “investigators” have been known to distort the evidence, e.g. by leaving out all testimony favorable to the accused, as you can read in Unwanted Advances, a book written by Northwestern University feminist scholar Laura Kipnis. On the cult of victimhood that underpins the PC hysteria, see Heather Mac Donald’s The Diversity Delusion: How Race and Gender Pandering Corrupt the University and Undermine Our Culture. But to understand the tragedy -- and it is a tragedy for all of us, not just for Dr. Ayala -- you may turn to literature. I dare suggest my own Alex in Femiland: A Politically Incorrect Novel of Morals. Today, many scientific associations, including the AAAS, of which Dr. Ayala was once President, and to which he gave 40 years of service, are rushing to approve new policies to further destroy the careers of men who have been “found guilty” of sexual harassment. But I submit to you that no one can be properly said to have been “found guilty” of any offense when his rights to due process have been so grievously violated. One day we will be ashamed, just as in the 1960s male scientists became justly ashamed of the discrimination to which they had subjected women. Sincerely, Gonzalo Munevar, Ph.D. Professor Emeritus, Lawrence Technological University, Southfield, Michigan. REFERENCE
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Alex in Femiland Blog10/2/2018 Feel free to contribute to this blog about my new book, Alex in Femiland.
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