Demonstration, Petition, Alum Letter Focus on Handling of Allegations at La Sierra University
May 5, 2016: Tuesday hundreds of students demonstrated on the campus of La Sierra University (LSU), the Adventist institution in Riverside (California), and more than 600 individuals have signed a petition expressing concern about the handling of a case of alleged rape and sexual harassment. Dr. Donna L. Carlson, an alumna of LSU who served as a member of the board of trustees from 1990 to 1996, has circulated a letter expressing her concerns about the same topic.
Laws that protect the privacy of students, even those who may be guilty of misconduct, mean “the University is not permitted to provide any information regarding the case [and] is also prevented from correcting misinformation,” LSU officials told Adventist Today last week when an anonymous Email prompted an inquiry. Adventist colleges and universities have also been criticized by a very conservative, independent ministry for attempting to follow the United States law prohibiting sexual discrimination and harassment known as “Title IX.”
Title IX refers to a section of Public Law 92-318 voted by the U.S. Congress in 1972 which prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender in any educational institution where students are eligible for Federal government financial assistance. This includes student loans and grants which are part of student finances at all accredited colleges and universities in the nation. It requires that institutions take appropriate steps to protect students from sexual predators and sexual harassment.
Sources on campus have told Adventist Today a story similar to the allegations in the anonymous Email. In the fall of last year a young woman student accused another student, a boyfriend at the time, of rape and battery. An attorney with appropriate experience was brought in to investigate the accusations and it was discovered that over a period of three years the young man had been the focus of complaints from other women students and LSU officials had admonished him to change his behavior. He had continued to approach the young woman and taunt her, “creating a hostile environment” in legal terms.
The LSU Student Life Judicial Council evidently had some difficulty sorting out the stories given by the students as to what occurred between them. It recommended that the young man sign a promise that he would stop sexually harassing women on campus and for him to meet with the dean of students once a quarter. It also recommended that the young woman get counseling. There have been delays in the process with periods when no information was forthcoming to the students involved despite their concerns and appeals.
Sources have pointed out to Adventist Today that asking the young man to sign a statement of the kind recommended seemed like a lack of discipline because all students are required to sign a statement accepting precisely the same rule, among others, in the student handbook. The focus of the anonymous Email last week and of the petition and demonstration this week, as well as the letter from Carlson, is to ask why there has been so much delay in the adjudication of this case and why the response of the student life officials has been so weak compared to the serious nature of the accusations.
“It is not clear in this case whether or not Student Life accepted the disciplinary recommendations of the Title IX investigative team,” Carlson wrote. “Moreover, the University declines to enforce even the stated penalties (suspension or expulsion) of the simple ‘no contact’ order it issued to the male student months ago. … In direct violation of this order, the male student has approached the reporting student at campus events and regularly loiters around an area where the female student has to pass after her class.”
The statement that LSU gave to Adventist Today last week says the University “retained a former criminal prosecutor and veteran trial attorney with experience as a Title IX investigator to investigate the case. … The Student Life Judicial Council received and reviewed the investigatory findings and issued disciplinary sanctions. … The complainant filed an appeal [and] the appeal will be reviewed by the Student Life Committee and then by the Provost or his designee before a final determination is issued.”
After the demonstration and petition this week, yesterday (May 4) the University suspended the young man, according to sources on campus. Dr. Randall Wisbey, the president of LSU, met with concerned students yesterday and this evening there was a “Town Hall meeting” on the topic.
“Parents send their children to La Sierra University expecting they will be safer there than at institutions that do not share their religious values,” Carlson wrote. “They rely upon administrators to uphold higher-than-average standards of student conduct.” And, “women in the twenty-first century no longer suffer sexual aggression and harassment in silence, and … they have the right to expect protection and justice from their University.” She has degrees both as a medical doctor and an attorney, as well as in public health.
The critique published by Fulcrum 7, a very conservative, independent group of Adventists who do not live in California, has a different focus. It appears to be concerned that if Adventist colleges and universities adhere to the Federal law against gender discrimination they may be forced to ignore the denomination’s teachings on homosexuality.
Political correctness has struck again! The issue of sexual harassment has been one of the issues the Obama administration has been fanning to rewrite rules and legal definitions, create suspicion, create social chaos and trample on both logic and constitutional rights. As a result, a simple accusation has the effect of a legal conviction and a person can be marked as a sexual predator for the rest of their life just because of a claim that can neither be tested or proven. Making it worse, university leaders are under threat of civil or even criminal penalties if they say anything to quell rumoring.
While I have never heard of “Fulcrum 7,” they are at least partly correct in their critique because the objective of the political correctness is to tear-down the moral standards taught by religions so they will no longer be a force opposing complete social control by liberal-socialists. Their plan is to convince the public that anyone of any ideology potentially or actually opposed to their objectives is evil and deserving to be the objects of public scorn and violence along with severe criminal penalties.
Couldnt agree more with the above comments…..without the full details this looks like a politically correct stitch up and a publicity stunt to desperately show the world that LSU is on target to valuing it feminist LGBT leanings……giving in to the socialist students and their rabid causes is the first step to showing they have been infected with socialism…..
Mr. Bell, I would gently remind you that Jesus himself was a Socialist: you know, protect the children, take care of the widows, support our elders and the sick, assist the poor and the powerless, help those in need, be kind and gentle and “love one another.” Stuff like that. You inexplicably equate these loving acts as “publicity stunts,” “politically correct stitch ups,” “feminist LGBT leanings,” and criticize giving in to “socialist students and their rabid causes.” One cannot help but wonder what might be “infecting” someone that would feel the need to use such spiteful words?
I agree with your comment but shy away from giving a political label, socialist or other, to the work of Jesus Christ. Some strongly suggest His works were communist in nature too.
The behavior of the male student as stated in the article, was stated to be repetitive, so there must have been a bases for the two or more witnesses to act on. Of course rules often are not acted upon because justice is not truly blind. Rules often are enforced or not according to whom the offender/s may be in social standing. So as the world turns this very day, Christian standards are fast being compromised and will become unlawful to the godless in a short time from now.
Socialism – Communism – Democratic – Republican – Whatever Labels; and any human intellectual mingling and mixing of what these labels suggest, at best, as imperfect humans we can find plenty fault in the exercises of each.
Many willfully ignore the significance of Christ’s ministry so as to pursue worldly goals and serve self to the hilt…
Your contention that Jesus was a Socialist is so far out of the ballpark it is hardly worth refuting. Are you feeling the Berne?
What is the problem with socialism? Jesus threw the money-changers out of the temple—they were our first capitalists of record (I believe), building accounts by usury. That’s what capitalism is: “private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit.” No common wealth, no workers’ control of their compensation, the value of outcomes determined by profit. Right now, a good share of our government is run on socialist principles, already—the Interstate, the FCC, social security, the military, FEMA, for example. What’s the problem with that?
What’s the problem with that?????? i could redirect your attention to Stalinist Russia, where it is estimated that 50 million citizens of the Union of Soviet Socialists Republics, were annihilated or disappeared in his Gulags (FEMA, USA Version).
Jesus was not a socialist…he wasnt a coward so couldnt possibly be one….
William Noel,
You state that a simple accusation has the effect of a legal conviction.
You clearly did not read the article clearly:
It states. ” Over the space of THREE YEARS, the student had been the focus of complaints by other female students”.
Come on William, there is no smoke without fire, as the old proverb goes.
That is why “crooked Hillary” is under such mistrust from the voting population.
In my day, at Helderberg College, the SDA college in South Africa, one could be expelled if one attended a film in the local bioscope. ( cinema).
That minimal action was taken against this perpetrator after multiple complaints, tells me that the heinous, heretical headship dogma is alive and well on the La Sirra campus.
Women pastor friends tell me that spousal physical, emotional, and sexual abuse is a ENDEMIC in Adventist congregations, so mistreatment of women on our SDA college campuses is to be expected with this pernicious dogma pervasive at every level of out denomination!
“Political Correctness,” does not have an objective any more than one can locate objective of “social correctness.” In both cases, we have accepted understandings of the social contract. “Political Correctness” came about as an attempt not to be hurtful in our language or damage the self-identity of others. “Political Correctness” also identifies the bad manners in calling people “retards,” “red-necks,” “rubes,” or “cripples.” We don’t do that—and never did, really, any more often than we wiped our knives on our napkins or forks on our sleeves. We don’t call professional women (or any adult woman, at all), “girls.” We don’t light crosses on people’s front (or back) lawns, or mock Walmart shoppers in the spirit of political correctness, nor do we try to outlaw the bad behavior of parents in those stores in the spirit of political correctness, or assume that the economically disadvantaged have bad taste or large families “because they can’t help it.” If being nice to people and not embarrassing them in public is the objective of “political correctness,” we still have a way to go. All of us.
This news story leaves a lot of unanswered questions. I would be interested in whether the protesters know any verified facts about the case and what they think should happen.
It’s not at all clear to me that any of the allegations have been found true. And I have problems with the notion that, in the absence of findings, attended by due process, that a violation of the student handbook occurred, a student can be subjected to counseling mandates because…well because maybe the accusations are suggestive of bad character.
I attended Adventist educational institutions where there were definitely “higher” standards of safety and student conduct. Female students were kept”imprisoned” in the dorm. Segregation of male and female students at religious events was just ending. PDAs (public displays of affection) were strictly verboten. But we pretty well knew what the rules were, and we had a good idea of what the consequences for violation would be.
Now that the Left has imposed quasi-judicial processes on faculty and student governance, it is finding that sometimes that process makes the achievement of a desired result quite difficult.
Often the call for “higher standards” can be a euphemism for lowering the burden of proof and dispensing with strict adherence to the rules that have been set up to protect against witch hunts.
I have no factual basis on the merits. But mob pressure seldom paves the path to justice.
If the facts are as presented in above entry, 1. A female accused a boyfriend, a male student of rape, and battery. 2. The young man in question was also accused of some type of abuse by other female students. 3. The young man in question was accused of stalking his former girlfriend. No.2 above, the young man should have been summarily dismissed immediately from the University, and advised he would be arrested if he ventured on campus. No.3 above, the young man should have been reported to the local police, and have been summarily dismissed from the University. No.1 above, the young man should have arrested immediately, investigated, and if any abuse by him was proved, he should have been summarily dismissed by the University, and let the case be handled by the local police. Where there have supposedly been crimes committed they should immediately be reported to police authorities, for investigation. Who knows, whether a maniac or
serial killer may be on campus, as has previously occurred on other college campuses. If she says no, he has to go.
The fact that none of your recommendations occurred tells me that these girls have colluded to get this guy stitched up and the college admin have realised that.. Take a look at Gomeshi and Paul Elliot in Canada as examples of this kind of behaviour occurring in the greater society.
So Earl, as to No. 1 and No. 2, it seems to be your position that being accused, regardless of the credible evidence, is sufficient to warrant expulsion and arrest of the accused. Have I got that right? Pretty scary!
As currently written, Title IX does prohibit discrimination against LGBTQ students and employees. The University is in violation of Title IX and has not filed for an exemption.
The University claims to follow church teachings on homosexuality and has discriminated against LGBTQ people which render it in violation unless it gets an exemption.
I find this sentence from the article interesting: “After the demonstration and petition this week, yesterday (May 4) the University suspended the young man, according to sources on campus.”
So the demonstration and petition were necessary in order to get the University to do the right thing? I can only imagine the conversation they must have had with the “young man.”
LSU: Young man, you know that deal we had worked out with you where we would led you slide if you stopped being so weird around the girls?
YM: Yes. So far no complaints since I signed that paper.
LSU: Well, a small number of independent students and alumni, maybe 400 or so, signed a petition that this wasn’t quite working out, so we’re gonna have to kick you out.
YM: But I’ve been holding up my end of the bargain.
LSU: They don’t like the bargain. Sorry, you’re out.
YM: LSU sucks. You lied to me.
LSU: Tough beans. The people have spoken therefore, as a result, we must now act.
Couldnt add anything better to above comments…..
Suspended? If the female student alleged rape and battery why wasn’t he arrested?
Bro it was because it was a case of buyers remorse and she was exercising a retro-active “no”.
That is a disgusting comment!
I wonder if the young man’s parents are rich alumni and donate generously to LSU.
“Tuesday hundreds of students demonstrated on the campus of La Sierra University…” is a bit far fetched. There were less than 20. You can see the picture of ALL of the demonstrators on the article in the Spectrum here: http://spectrummagazine.org/article/2016/05/03/la-sierra-university-students-alumni-hold-public-demonstration-title-ix-reform-ca
Mandy, were you present to actually see the demonstration? We were told numbers by eyewitnesses. – Monte Sahlin, CEO, Adventist Today
I don’t see that this case has anything to do with homosexuality, and everything to do with a very troubling male student who has broken school and moral rules and rightly deserves to be expelled. Makes one wonder if he had an influential parent or something!
Wow, Carol. I don’t disagree with you that the charges should be taken seriously and investigated. But I’m really troubled with the notion that an accuser should automatically be believed. Maybe you know more about the facts uncovered by this investigation than what appears in the news report. But otherwise, don’t you need to apply facts to standards before pronouncing judgment?
Nathan, you are absolutely correct. In this era of political correctness and the lefties’ effectiveness in supporting unproven allegations it is almost frightening. I believe 60 Minutes had a segment whch demonstrated how males, once accused. i some institutions of “higher” learning are unable to have an attorney, etc. Guilty until maybe proven innocent.
I agree with Carrol as most women would. Men have no concept of these types of problems unless maybe if it’s their daughter. It’s not clear if this was a rape though that is implied. If so he would be in jail. She should be taken seriously. In my day when someone was date-raped she was so traumatized she left college for good and no one knew. Women fear going back to that kind of mentality in an extreme reaction to PC. There is something to be said for the civility promoted recently–unfortunate so many think it is political. And of course we need common sense in applying it. That’s what is missing in this whole movement.
The, ahem, young man is a son of either a SdA “banker” or a SdA “suit” who has Graham’s and Wisbey’s phone numbers on speed dial and never gets voicemail.
“Bro it was because it was a case of buyers remorse and she was exercising a retro-active “no”.”
Completely and Utterly Despicable.
Can’t wait for another Holy Spirit filled comment from Noel.
Re: Political Correctness is a process of turning light to darkness, truth to fable, right to wrong. Strength to pusssyfooting. Creating all kinds of reasons why young people can’t play dodgeball, they might get hurt. If something bad happens, call in the psychologists quickly, the kids can’t cope. A person of my era has had the world turned upside down by the demands of Political Correctness. We had WWI, Korean War, Viet Nam, the Cold War with Russia, and never did we here “the kids can’t cope!!
It is a culture changer that is a bad experience for the country.