Anti-discrimination law doesn’t guarantee justice. Anti-discrimination law guarantees that the HR department or Dean of Students will do everything in their power, both carrot and stick, to keep you from actually suing them in a court of law.
And the tort here would be that Columbia was allowing itself to be a hostile environment for its students (or, earlier, its staff), where the ultimate remedy would be fixing the problem as articulated by the complainant, i.e. not-quite-firing the faculty member involved so that the university would no longer be liable for his ongoing behavior outside of the university.
Normally universities would bribe a student long before it would get to the point of the university forcing a faculty member to resign, let alone firing that faculty member for cause, or, Heaven forbid, being so incredibly passive-aggressive as to have the student actually sue the university in a real court of law.
Now, plausibly, the students involved could file further complaints with the university’s in-house lawyers-who-get-you-to-fuck-off department, about other instances of discrimination, but the university would go through the same intransigent, passive-aggressive show of glacially bare-minimum good faith for each and every one of them. Over and over and over again until the student goes away.
So the best hope is to get the university to scrape off enough barnacles that it somehow changes the course of the ship.
I didn’t think it was possible to have an even lower opinion of Columbia University. In what world is it ok to let a male professor harass a 19 year-old girl to the point of causing severe mental distress? How could they let him menace - using their own internal university email - a grieving Christian Palestinian student, who he called a “pro-Hamas student leader” in an effort to incite others to harass and harm her? I really hope these women, and all his other victims, take legal action against him and Columbia.
Ah, so kind of *both* up and out. Like over a hedge, perhaps. Or a garden wall. The provenance chain of that letter be careful sitting on that garden wall, like Humpty Dumpty…
Our institutions of higher learning care far more about managing their own reputations, and making sure that nothing disrupts their funding, than they care about students or justice. After years of dealing with my own university and having an ongoing grievance concerning anti-palestinian racism and freedom of expression, I've learned first hand what these institutions prioritize. The lack of scrutiny and the backchannels are so normal. Institutions believe their students are equal parts stupid and dangerous, and don't deserve truth or justice. It's shameful.
Misconduct investigations on a title vi or title ix usually automatically conclude in favor the person filing the complaint if the accused repeatedly breaks a no contact order. The most likely scenario is that he agreed to resign after being informed of this. He took bad legal advice on twitter most likely. He was probably Believing a termination would be grounds for a lawsuit, but not knowing how these investigations work and that they follow federal guidelines that would be hard to dispute in court
This confirms one thing that Columbia University itself has backchannels circumventing the "official" due process channels set up for the plebs.
Anti-discrimination law doesn’t guarantee justice. Anti-discrimination law guarantees that the HR department or Dean of Students will do everything in their power, both carrot and stick, to keep you from actually suing them in a court of law.
And the tort here would be that Columbia was allowing itself to be a hostile environment for its students (or, earlier, its staff), where the ultimate remedy would be fixing the problem as articulated by the complainant, i.e. not-quite-firing the faculty member involved so that the university would no longer be liable for his ongoing behavior outside of the university.
Normally universities would bribe a student long before it would get to the point of the university forcing a faculty member to resign, let alone firing that faculty member for cause, or, Heaven forbid, being so incredibly passive-aggressive as to have the student actually sue the university in a real court of law.
Now, plausibly, the students involved could file further complaints with the university’s in-house lawyers-who-get-you-to-fuck-off department, about other instances of discrimination, but the university would go through the same intransigent, passive-aggressive show of glacially bare-minimum good faith for each and every one of them. Over and over and over again until the student goes away.
So the best hope is to get the university to scrape off enough barnacles that it somehow changes the course of the ship.
I didn’t think it was possible to have an even lower opinion of Columbia University. In what world is it ok to let a male professor harass a 19 year-old girl to the point of causing severe mental distress? How could they let him menace - using their own internal university email - a grieving Christian Palestinian student, who he called a “pro-Hamas student leader” in an effort to incite others to harass and harm her? I really hope these women, and all his other victims, take legal action against him and Columbia.
I would ask who the OIE farmed the letter out to, but sounds like it might be more accurate to ask who the OIE farmed the letter *up* to.
Agreed
Yeah, I'm still looking into who it was. My guess is a law firm, but I haven't been able to confirm.
Ah, so kind of *both* up and out. Like over a hedge, perhaps. Or a garden wall. The provenance chain of that letter be careful sitting on that garden wall, like Humpty Dumpty…
Our institutions of higher learning care far more about managing their own reputations, and making sure that nothing disrupts their funding, than they care about students or justice. After years of dealing with my own university and having an ongoing grievance concerning anti-palestinian racism and freedom of expression, I've learned first hand what these institutions prioritize. The lack of scrutiny and the backchannels are so normal. Institutions believe their students are equal parts stupid and dangerous, and don't deserve truth or justice. It's shameful.
Misconduct investigations on a title vi or title ix usually automatically conclude in favor the person filing the complaint if the accused repeatedly breaks a no contact order. The most likely scenario is that he agreed to resign after being informed of this. He took bad legal advice on twitter most likely. He was probably Believing a termination would be grounds for a lawsuit, but not knowing how these investigations work and that they follow federal guidelines that would be hard to dispute in court