Category: reason

Should continuing to assert your innocence be seen as a sign of guilt? After issuing a three-semester suspension to football player “John Doe” for sexual assault, Carleton College in Minnesota gave him the option of appealing the verdict. He did so, to no avail.

Then the dean of students wrote to Doe that “the fact you continue to assert that it was okay to engage in sexual activity with a person in [Jane Doe’s] condition is deeply troubling.” John’s suspension was upgraded to a permanent expulsion.

That’s just one of many troubling claims made in Doe’s lawsuit against Carleton College, which was filed in U.S. District Court earlier this month. John alleges that investigators violated his due process rights, ignored evidence that undercut his accuser’s claims, and evinced bias against him at all stages of the process.

The lawsuit stems from the events of April 28, 2017, when John, Jane, and many other students received invitations to join a secret society. They were told to meet at a specific place on campus at 2:00 a.m., where the members of the society instructed them to consume copious amounts of alcohol and then cover the president’s house in toilet paper. On the way to the house, the lawsuit claims, Jane stopped John, whom she had just met, and began kissing him and then touching him below the belt. According to John’s lawsuit, he eventually grew uncomfortable with the public nature of their contact, and suggested they go back to his dorm.

What followed was a sloppy drunken hookup—John vomited both before and after they had sex, and Jane vomited after. But in John’s telling, Jane repeatedly, verbally consented to it—indeed, the whole thing had been her idea. If Jane was an incapacitated victim, then so was John.

By 6:00 a.m., John had to go to football practice. He told Jane she could sleep in his dorm room, and wear any of his clothes. A few minutes after he left, Jane stumbled out of the dorm room wearing nothing but John’s T-shirt and her underwear. She encountered a random male student, and asked to sleep in his bed. Eventually, the authorities were called out of concern for Jane’s well-being, according to John’s lawsuit.

Campus security escorted Jane back to her dorm but decided to call her an ambulance. According to the lawsuit, security personnel “found her alert and oriented” but unable to correctly answer certain questions. She claimed to be a member of a secret society, “like a frat,” which confused the officers, since Carleton doesn’t have any fraternities. Jane vomited on the way to the hospital and “seemed remorseful.”

As Jane sobered up, she became concerned that she had been raped, according to the lawsuit. Later that day, after receiving assurances that she would not face sanctions for reckless underage drinking, she filed a sexual misconduct complaint against John.

County prosecutors also filed criminal charges against John, but these were eventually dropped. The Carleton proceedings were adjudicated under the auspices of Title IX, the gender equality statute that looms large in campus sexual misconduct trials thanks to aggressive guidance from the Obama-era Education Department. John’s lawsuit argues that he had no shot at a fair hearing, since the entire matter was handled by just two administrators: one who produced a report based on the evidence she had gathered, and another who passed judgment.

John was found responsible, and he was given five days to appeal the verdict to the Community Board on Sexual Misconduct. He did so. Prior to the hearing, he was finally allowed to review the administration’s report on the dispute, which contained the Title IX officer’s characterization of interviews with witnesses but not the transcripts of the actual interviews. John was also concerned that key text messages, which portrayed him in a favorable light, were not included in the report.

At the actual hearing, John was told that he could not introduce questions to be asked of Jane, who was questioned separately. He was also told that “witnesses would not be necessary at the hearing, as he would not be allowed to present any.” Unsurprisingly, the committee confirmed that he was responsible for sexual misconduct. After it suspended him, John appealed the decision—as did Jane, who considered it too lenient.

In his appeal, John argued that the committee had not had access to all relevant evidence when making its decision and that “the sanction is inconsistent with the seriousness of the offense based upon the facts alleged.” This apparently irked Dean of Students Carolyn Livingston, who denied John’s appeal. She went so far as to agree with Jane that the punishment was too lenient in light of the fact that John had persisted in asserting his innocence. As a result, John was expelled.

The lawsuit demands that Carleton College pay John $75,000 in damages stemming from mental anguish, deprivation of due process and education opportunities, and loss of future career prospects. It will be interesting to watch the college’s response to these charges.

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In Johnson County, Kansas, a 5-year-old student hid inside a bookshelf in the Bluejacket-Flint Elementary School library. A teacher named Crystal Smith found the girl, angrily pulled her out, waited for another adult who was present to turn away, and, video footage shows, kicked the student in the back.

Former Iowa Department of Human Services social worker Chelsie Gray has been charged with three counts of felony perjury for giving false testimony while recommending to a judge that he remove four children from their mother and father and terminate the couple’s parental rights.

A Ladue, Missouri, police officer has been charged with second-degree assault for shooting an alleged shoplifter who was attempting to flee the scene. An attorney for Officer Julie Crews said she thought she was drawing a Taser, not her gun.

A new law in New South Wales, Australia, could force the Lithgow Small Arms Factory Museum to destroy or sell 70 percent of its collection. The law requires all pistols and many other types of firearms to be rendered permanently inoperable. That would require parts to be welded together or a steel rod to be inserted into the barrel of a gun and welded in place. Museum officials say that if they cannot get the law overturned, they will sell the collection overseas.

When Jesus Reyes and his family arrived at the pavilion at a Bexar County, Texas, park that they’d reserved for Easter Sunday, they found Precinct 2 Constable Michelle Barrientes Vela there, in uniform, claiming she had reserved the pavilion. After a park manager confirmed that she had not, Vela and her group moved to a nearby barbecue pit. She then insisted that Reyes pay her $300 for security, which he did.

A judge in British Columbia, Canada, has found Patrick Henry Grzelak guilty of violating the province’s “hands free” driving law, even though Grzelak wasn’t holding his phone. In fact, the phone was properly stored and had a dead battery. But Grzelak had his earbuds in, and they were plugged into the phone. Justice Brent Adair said that makes them part of the phone and that Grzelak was therefore in violation of the law.

An 80-year-old woman in Bootle, England, was handed a 50-pound ($65) fine by code enforcement for walking her dog on a leash that was too long. The officers who cited her warned her the fine would increase to 2,500 pounds ($3,200) if she did not pay it within two weeks. After local media picked up the story, the local council dropped the charge.

Starting in January, the state of Washington will require booster seats for all children until they reach 4 feet, 9 inches in height when they are traveling in vehicles. That will cover many kids until they are around age 12.

Officials with the Pearland, Texas, Independent School District say an administrator has been placed on leave for mishandling a disciplinary action. A student showed up at Berry Miller Junior High School with an M shaved into his hair, a violation of the school dress code. The administrator told the boy he had three options: call his mother, receive disciplinary action, or color it in. The boy ended up with the M colored in with a marker. School officials say that shouldn’t have happened.

More than 3 million Californians may have to go back to the Department of Motor Vehicles to get new driver’s licenses. The federal Department of Homeland Security sent a letter to Gov. Gavin Newsom telling him the new licenses do not comply with Real ID requirements because the state did not adequately verify the residences of applicants.

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A disagreement over a busted taillight fine ended with an Oklahoma police officer tasing a 65-year-old woman.

Body camera footage shows an unnamed officer interacting with the woman, Debra Hamil, during the July 16 traffic stop. The officer presents Hamil with an $80 ticket and asks her to sign it. Hamil protests: “I don’t think that I deserve to pay $80 for something that is fixable—and I can fix it, if that’s all you want me to do.”

The officer tells Hamil that she is under arrest for refusing the ticket and asks her to step out of the vehicle. Hamil says “no,” rolls her windows up, and locks the doors before the officer can open them. Hamil briefly rolls her window down to tell the officer that he’s “full of shit,” then tells him to hand the ticket over so she can sign it. The officer says they’re “beyond that.” She drives off. The officer enters his vehicle.

The footage cuts to the officer approaching Hamil’s truck. He’s eventually able to pull her out of the truck and down the ground. After she refuses to put her hands behind her back and kicks the officer away, he deploys his taser.

Hamil is eventually handcuffed and placed in the back seat.

Hamil was later charged with assaulting an officer (felony) and resisting (misdemeanor).

When KOCO posted the video on Facebook, some of the comments supported the woman and some supported the officer. But one thing is certain: This situation was avoidable.

Traffic stops for busted taillights and other minor infractions just aren’t worth the risks they generate, both for motorists and police officers. Often, the stops are really being used to generate revenue or as a pretense to search for contraband, such as drugs or guns, when an officer otherwise lacks probable cause. Even then, Berkeley law professor Christopher Kutz has argued, the few times police successfully find something “don’t justify the enormous social costs of widespread police interventions.” In the worst-case scenario, a traffic stop could result in death, as the surviving families of Philando Castile and Sandra Bland know well.

If police truly wish to continue to go after low-level crimes, they can cut down on interactions like the one seen in the video by reserving traffic stops for accidents and impaired drivers while using cameras and other technology to enforce minor violations. Though it’s also worth asking how many of those minor violations are worth prohibiting in the first place. Such fines often amount to the criminalization of poverty, especially given that poorer Americans are more likely to drive older cars, which are at a higher risk for finable offenses.

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At the second round of Democratic debates, entrepreneur Andrew Yang criticized Amazon, accusing the online retail giant of “closing 30 percent of American malls and stores.” Yang has a plan to protect dying malls, proposing to direct $6 billion to prop up struggling shopping centers.

But one company is already repurposing many of those suburban behemoths: Amazon. 

In North Randall, Ohio, in 2017, Amazon bought an abandoned building that once had been the largest mall in the world, and repurposed it as a fulfillment center. The move brought 2,000 new jobs to the city, and it put the massive, decrepit building back to good use. As a local Ohio official told The Wall Street Journal, in a report about Amazon’s moves to repurpose old malls around Ohio, turning the dead malls into distribution hubs helps lift local property tax revenue as well. Nationwide, there have been at least 23 former brick-and-mortar retail spaces repurposed for industrial uses since 2016, the Journal reports.

As Daniel Laboe notes in Yahoo Finance, “dead malls” are particularly well-suited to become distribution centers. They’re usually located near highways, making it easy for Amazon to move products from them to the final customer’s home. The new ownership also puts the infrastructure associated with these old malls, from roads to sewage systems to electrical lines, back to work, rather than letting it rot in waste.

Malls might have some nostalgic appeal, but their replacement is just another example of creative destruction at work. The introduction of Sears’ mail-order catalogues challenged mom-and-pop businesses around the turn of the century, and the catalogues were subsequently challenged by big chain stores like Woolworth and A&P. Big box retailers in shopping malls were the villains to scrappy mom-and-pop businesses in the ’80s, and now they’re the ones looking for a bailout. 

The fact is, it doesn’t make sense to try to push consumers back to an old shopping model. At this point, more people seem to prefer shopping online. Amazon’s plan to repurpose dead shopping malls saves resources, broadens local tax bases, and creates jobs in distressed communities.

It’s not without precedent, either. The fate of these old malls is reminiscent of the fate of Sears’ old distribution centers, many of which have been transformed into offices and new retail locations. 

Yang needn’t worry. Dying malls don’t need saving, and the market can handle it. 

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Before the end of the day, a budget-busting, deficit-hiking, $2.7 trillion spending deal will probably be on its way to President Donald Trump’s desk, and he appears willing to sign it.

But you wouldn’t know about that if you watched this week’s Democratic primary debates.

The Senate is poised for a final vote on the budget deal later Thursday—the bill cleared the House with bipartisan support last week, after Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D–Calif.) and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin hammered out the details last month. The two-year, $2.7 trillion budget deal hikes federal spending by about $320 billion annually and is estimated to add about $1.7 trillion to the national debt over the next decade. It also shatters budget caps. It actually hikes spending above the pre-sequester baseline that was in place prior to the 2011 budget deal, which temporarily reduced federal spending and brought an end to trillion-dollar deficits for a few years.

That Senate vote was supposed to take place Wednesday, but was postponed a day amid rumors that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R–Ky.) was having a difficult time getting a majority of his caucus to back the plan, Politico reported yesterday. Under longstanding unwritten Senate rules, a so-called “majority of the majority” must approve of legislation in behind-closed-doors meetings before it will be brought to the floor.

So there’s a sliver a hope for fiscal sanity in Washington, D.C., today, with some prominent conservatives openly opposing the deal. Sen. Mitt Romney (R–Utah) says he will vote against the plan because it “perpetuates fiscal recklessness.” Both senators from Florida, Marco Rubio and Rick Scott, are on the record in opposition. So are Sen. Mike Lee (R–Utah) and Sen. Pat Toomey (R–Penn.), both well-known as fiscal conservatives.

It’s more likely that the eventual vote will be, as Sen. Rand Paul (R–Ky.) said Wednesday on the Senate floor,  “the last nail in the coffin” of the Tea Party—the grassroots conservative movement that sprung up a decade ago to oppose higher spending and bigger deficits, only to be largely subsumed into the Trump takeover of the GOP. Paul also plans to vote against the plan.

If Republicans can’t muster enough opposition to stop the deficit-increasing budget deal from passing, it’s unlikely that Democrats will. Even with the $2.7 trillion budget deal hanging in the balance, Democratic candidates for president did not utter a single word about the national debt or federal deficit during the debates in Detroit this week.

There was some robust discussion of health care spending—which accounts for about 40 percent of federal outlays—but only in the context of debating how much more of Americans heath care costs the government should cover. Questions focusing on how Democrats would pay for Medicare for All and other health care proposals were mostly brushed off by candidates as “Republican talking points”—a barb that actually gives Republicans far more credit than they deserve, given their recent budgetary track record.

Maybe CNN should take most of the blame for this. Its debate moderators spent more than four hours over two nights grilling 20 presidential hopefuls, yet they did not see fit to ask a single question about the $22 trillion (and growing) national debt—and the candidates, unsurprisingly, did not bring it up on their own.

Considering that several of the candidates on the state are current members of the U.S. Senate, the very legislative body that will vote on the budget deal Thursday, CNN missed an important and obvious opportunity for voters to draw distinctions among the 20-member debate field.

Would any of the candidates have offered even the slightest suggestion that adding trillions more to the $22 trillion national debt might be an error we’ll regret later? Maybe we’ll find out at the next debate in September, but don’t hold your breath.

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