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I sat on my university's disciplinary committee for 2 years and I did participate in a sexual assault case. It was an extremely difficult situation and the victim was very hesitant to come forward at all and did so only after being pressured by numerous sources months after the fact. After almost 10 hours of questioning/testimony and deliberation we found in favor of the accused. There was a separate case filed with the city/state on the matter and we were instructed that our decision was in no way, shape, or form going to have any bearing on that case or vice versa. And even then it wasn't a case of whether the law was violated, it was solely whether or not school policy was violated. I know the parents of the victim were very upset with our decision, but the bottom line is that until you are put in that position where you have to choose guilty or innocent you can't judge that decision. Sure we could have exhausted days more of questioning and deliberation and investigation but the bottom line is that it is really a matter for the police/legal system and not the university to decide.
Schools lack the necessary resources to fully investigate many claims, yes I feel they should create a safe place to promote learning. But it is not the school's duty to police people, they should take the necessary steps to remove obvious threats but to me its silly to think they could possibly handle serious investigations into sexual assault in the same capacity as local law enforcement.
And to comment about victim rights...Before I was contacted about joining the committee I had no idea that it existed nor the process for reporting any of the violations that came to it. I knew how to report if something was stolen etc but my first instinct would never be to contact campus security or the school, it would be to contact the freaking police!
I know none of what I said excuses the behavior but I think its unreasonable to think a school could better deal with a case of sexual assault than the local law enforcement.
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