Both the military and college administrators are being asked to deal with criminal behavior and crimes, sexual assault is a crime, without the training, ability, and preparation to investigate and adjudicate these cases properly. School disciplinary boards were originally created to handle honor-code violations like plagiarism and underage drinking not serious criminal cases like sexual assaults.
College and university administrations under pressure from many quarters are following the advice of the Association for Student Conduct Administration and developing procedures that assume and assign guilt without protecting the civil rights of all parties. That only creates more victims and is not supportive of a clean clear process of accountability in sexual assault cases.
In the overall we are not doing very well in uncovering sexual predators, ending the culture of abuse toward women in our military or on our college campuses, and we are not succeeding in doing better investigations of these cases culminating with full accountability. Victims are still being re-victimized and perpetrators are still being protected and permitted to continue with their criminal behavior.
Sarah L. Blum is a decorated nurse Vietnam Veteran, nurse psychotherapist and the author of the Women Under Fire: Abuse in the Military http://womenunderfire.net
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