From Jim
Geraghty in the National Review, wondering how a general indictment of the toxic sex culture at Yale Law School plays out to its logical conclusion:
If, in an effort to get Kavanaugh, the left wants to retroactively declare that Yale University and its law school are and always were some sort of teeming cesspool of abuse and exploitation and elitist unaccountability . . . go ahead, fellas. Of course, a declaration like that spurs some questions about what the likes of Booker and Blumenthal saw and did when they were there. If this “institutional culture” of harassment and protecting the powerful was so deeply ingrained and so pervasive in the school for so long, how could those men somehow emerge with clear consciences? How could they themselves remain silent about it for so long?
There are a lot of Yale Law School graduates in the highest ranks of the progressive legal world — no doubt all of them should face the same suspicions. Were they complicit in continuing or even promoting and strengthening an exploitational culture?
If the aftermath of this whole angry mess is that Yale Law School has a permanent cloud over it, and everyone who went there is regarded with newfound suspicion . . . which side of the political divide do you think is going to pay the higher price?
When you try to indict a man by indicting the culture around him, you end up indicting a lot of other people in the process.
Every time I'm in a jury pool, I see people struggling with the need to abide by difficult evidentiary rules designed to keep verdicts from depending on the kind of thinking that runs: "I don't know if there's any actual proof, but that's less important than the fact that this seems like the kind of thing a guy from his kind of neighborhood would do."
7 comments:
I agree that people are having trouble distinguishing between the general justice questions in the current case, and the specific justice question. The general justice questions are things like "How can we make elite rich boys who go to prep schools stop feeling entitled to sex?" and "How can we shift our society to a presumption that women who allege sexual harassment or assault must be taken seriously?" Those are important questions, to be sure.
But there remains the specific justice question of making sure not to punish this specific individual unless the claims against him are proven. And as you note, that's exactly the same problem we face in trying to overcome other prejudices in the courtroom that may bias a jury against a defendant whom they take as a token of a type of which they disapprove.
Of course, Eric Schneiderman was a Harvard boy, so Yale's in the clear.
On the other hand, as those Left icons Feinstein, Hirono, and Gillibrand have already shown, Kavanaugh is guilty because a woman has accused him. How does that saying go--accuse, hang, go to trial? And in some cases, because we already know the character of the man, we can skip the accusation step.
Which brings me to your second general question. We can't move there until two separate things occur: all women's accusations must be taken seriously by all--vis., Karen Monahan and Juanita Broaddrick, just to name a couple--and those accusations must be legitimate, and not just character smears, like Deborah Ramirez' seems to be.
Regarding your first general justice question, that paints with too broad a brush. I went to an elitist college, although I was far from the elite social class, and many of my college classmates were products of elite prep schools--both boys' and girls' (one of the girls was a national-class badminton player). None of them felt entitled to sex.
Regarding T99's observed jury struggles to stick to the actual evidence and not convict because "he must have done something," that's actually an indication that us unwashed irredeemably deplorables haven't drunk the Left's Kool-Aid. We still try to work from hard evidence and not feelz.
Eric Hines
...We can't move there until two separate things occur....
It is true that the refusal to take seriously the accusations of women if they are assaulted by prominent Democrats makes the whole thing look bad. But I'll allow that level of cynicism isn't universal; and anyway, I'm more interested in getting to a just principle than in a tu quoque.
My sense is that "believe all women" is too strong (especially when given as "believe all survivors," as often whether or not they are in fact a survivor is just what needs to be established). But "take all accusations seriously" is not too strong.
Now, taking an accusation seriously might mean different things in different contexts. The Ramirez accusation, even taken seriously, is a claim about something that might be true, but she can't really be sure by her own admission because she was super intoxicated (as was everyone else). But it sounds like the NYT took it seriously enough to ask literally dozens of people about it, and found nothing to substantiate the claim (and several people who asserted it couldn't possibly be true). That's a serious treatment. I think the NYT did the right thing by not publishing the story, but I don't resent them looking into it carefully. The New Yorker, by contrast, covered itself with dishonor here.
Similarly the Ford allegations. They're plausible as a type; Brock Turner is a token of the type. Kavanaugh shares elite status, athleticism, and a presumption that he'd have been treated gently by the courts if the event occurred and Ford had in fact brought charges. (His mother was a sitting Federal judge; he was from a good family; he was on the way up in the world; I think it's all but certain he'd have been handled with kid gloves in the hypothetical in which he was both guilty and charged.)
So Judiciary did the right thing in looking into the case carefully. But it now looks like it just didn't happen; the hypothesis that this is a false memory looks to me more likely than not at this point.
I am not sure what 'taking the accusation seriously' looks like in the case supposedly being brought by the creepy porn lawyer. I'm predisposed to disbelieve anything he says, because he's often lied in the past, but that isn't dispositive.
I do think there are plenty of cases in which women have proven to be deceptive, but also plenty in which women who should have been believed were not. (For example this one). I think we as a culture should be sensitive to that, and presume that there's something to look at rather than that the allegation should be disbelieved prima facie; but not to the point of blinding ourselves to the possibility that a woman could be lying, or having a false memory, or other such things that demonstrably do happen.
I also think that it sounds like Judiciary has a very good method for 'taking seriously' these kinds of accusations, one that is confidential and respectful of all parties. It's a shame Sen. Feinstein chose intentionally to avoid it, and instead to make a very public criminal referral followed by a press release.
it sounds like the NYT took it seriously enough to ask literally dozens of people about it, and found nothing to substantiate the claim (and several people who asserted it couldn't possibly be true).
That level of effort--going well beyond what's necessary to show something or nothing--demonstrates to me how desperate the NYT was to find something, anything, with which to pile onto the assault on Kavanaugh. The police, after all, said there was not enough there to warrant an investigation. Even after Ramirez had spent nearly a week "recovering" that memory--with a lawyer, yet, not an expert.
I think it's all but certain he'd have been handled with kid gloves....
Have I misunderstood? You're suggesting Kavanaugh would have gotten off light because another elite kid did? All elite kids will skate because some do? Where's the argument that all thugs will get off light because some, in fact, do, being at bottom simply misunderstood or badly raised through no fault of their own?
Regarding Ford's claim, based on my psych training, there is no doubt in my mind that something traumatic, likely even sexual, happened to her those decades ago. She just can't provide enough specificity to have a case against anyone, much less Kavanaugh. On the other hand, there are questions we're not allowed to ask out loud: like what role did Ford's drinking play in the event, whatever it was? In her drunken state, how complicit was she actually in that event, and how much did subsequent embarrassment or shame contribute to her creating a scenario of assault--a surprisingly common phenomenon, and done wholly innocently?
Victims' claims, regardless of the victims' gender, certainly should be taken seriously, but the Progressive-Democrats and the NLMSM have worked hard to make that impossible, even if that wasn't their...intent.
Eric Hines
You're suggesting Kavanaugh would have gotten off light because another elite kid did? All elite kids will skate because some do? Where's the argument that...
It's not an argument, but rather an estimation of how I think class privilege works with law enforcement and the courts. Just as celebrities rarely take a big hit for bad behavior (although today Bill Cosby took one, deservedly), wealth and position matter. So too does being a part of the system; police generally receive better treatment than non-police, and the minor son of a Federal Judge is likely to receive some benefit from 'professional courtesy.'
So, at least, I believe. Our system has some flaws along those lines, though no system is perfect.
Taking things "to their logical conclusion" has little meaning in tribal politics. If this happens again to a Republican from Yale Law, he will be guilty. If it happens to a Democrat, guilt or innocence will be irrelevant, because it will disappear down the memory hole. Conservatives too often convince themselves that the Democrats will rue going down a road, because they won't like this or that when the power is in other hands. No. Only if something is structurally changed, such as the filibuster rule, does it have any effect. Intellectual consistency is simply ignored. Nor do I think there will be some general awakening moment for Democrats where large numbers conclude "Maybe we really have gone too far." That will happen only on an individual basis, and I don't see it as more than a trickle until individuals feel they have somewhere else to jump.*
That is not to say that all liberals act this way, and are unable to take things one case at a time. Many do. But the PR firms can convince enough of the others to get a popular movement going, and when that happens, even the reasonable ones start to follow the crowd.
As for what happened to Ms Ford, I have worked with both predator and prey enough to neither believe nor disbelieve either at first, and to remain suspicious throughout. There is a mental jiu-jitsu one must sometimes do, of treating the victim's story as if it were true in order to provide good treatment, even if one has serious doubts. But that is treatment, not evidence. I will not even go so far as to say "something definitely happened to her." I have known occasional cases where it eventually comes out that absolutely nothing happened. Somewhat more commonly, an event that is barely recognisable has happened. Even at that, I know nothing about cases that might be made up or exaggerated for political purposes. I have seen revenge accusations, but not at a headline level. I think that is different territory.
Similarly, I have known extremely unlikely people who turned out to be guilty, folks that everyone shakes their head about and says "I would never have imagined." I don't automatically believe Kavanaugh just because he seems like a great guy and very sincere. If even professional investigators cannot uncover enough information or unfailingly tell who is lying, it is unlikely that we the public will know with any certainty.
In this case, we really only have three bits of information: 1) She tells a story that could plausibly have happened because some boys have done this to some girls. 2) False accusations have happened, but are unusual. 3) He does not show the least pattern of this in his subsequent life.
What we do have plenty of information about, however, is the behavior of everyone around them in this circus. He who has ears, let him hear.
*This would suggest that some third party of centrists, or populist-libertarians, or whatever, is now a viable possibility. I don't believe that for a moment. The Democrats would demonise them in exactly the same way. Look what they did to Joe Lieberman.
The purpose of a justice system is not to believe anyone uncritically. Obviously accusations should be taken seriously, but so should defenses. If we can get to a point where accusations are treated equally seriously regardless of whether they are made by a man or a woman (or a member of any other class you can think of), and defenses the same, we'll have got somewhere.
In the meantime, I've found all this helpful in dealing with a particularly obnoxious local troll. "Sniff--you're only disagreeing with me because I'm a woman." I'm not usually angry enough to hurl that kind of sarcasm at someone, but lately he's taken to repeating the charge that all Republicans must be racist because otherwise there is no conceivable explanation for their disagreeing with an Obama policy. This afternoon he found himself complaining that there was no effective way for him to counter my complaint if he couldn't get me to answer his questions. It does suck to be in that position, doesn't it? In response I posted the Holy Grail clip "Can't you see 'im repressin' me?"
As Jane Austen would say, he no longer deserves the compliment of a rational opposition.
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