"Cheerleader must compensate school that told her to clap 'rapist'"

I would agree that the school needs to be arbiter for issues that shouldn't involve law enforcement, like petty theft between students. Sexual assault is an issue that should be addressed by law enforcement, and my opinion has been that schools should defer to law enforcement to determine whether or not a crime has been committed, and therefore whether punishment needs to be administered. In cases where schools must arbitrate a dispute not settled by law, the schools need not arbitrate to the complete satisfaction of all parties. That seems to be the problem here, and it is an unreasonable duty with which to charge a school. I agree, they should try to be fair, but "fair" doesn't mean that everyone walks away satisfied and happy. The girl's issues were most certainly addressed by the school, but not to her complete satisfaction. She insisted on remaining on the team, whose duties were abhorrent, and yet the school had already made clear what those duties were, and that the position was voluntary. I will speak further on the fairness of cutting the student shortly.

I agree with you on this, for petty crimes that are not necessarily addressed by law enforcement, especially while people are still juveniles. Sexual assault does not fall into this category.

Leaving the team was not a monstrous option for the school to offer. The duties of the cheerleading squad as an athletic squad were clearly laid out.

The school didn't prevent this girl from pursuing another athletic opportunity, such as volleyball or swimming, track or basketball.

The school would not be considered a horrendous offender against free speech if it asked a Muslim female student to wear a specific type of uniform, that revealed her legs and face, in order to play soccer, swim, or be a cheerleader.

The school would not be considered a horrendous offender against the 1st amendment if it allowed this student to tryout, told the student that it had made the team because of their athletic ability, and then cut the student when the student revealed their religious restrictions that prevented them form performing some athletic duty of theirs.

Cutting students because they can't perform their athletic duties, no matter how just the reason for the refusal, is not a horrendous offense. The school runs the team. It's not the other way around.

It's responsibility is to offer athletic opportunities to its students. There were plenty of athletic opportunities that HS could have pursued that would not have put her in conflict with Bolton.

It is not a school's responsibility to resolve this to the satisfaction of all parties. It is not a school's responsibility to rewrite the rules of their athletic squads for every student athlete who has a problem with every other student athlete.

I think it's completely fair for a school to cut an athlete who cannot perform their athletic duties, no matter how justified the reason for their refusal.

I think the religious example that I have used here is a perfect example of why schools need not bend completely to the will of every student who wants the rules rewritten for them to be allowed to participate in their sport. Is it abhorrent that devoutly Muslim women cannot swim competitively, because they cannot wear the competitive uniforms required by the sport?

Is a school abhorrent for cutting this student, despite their ability to swim competitively, if they refuse to wear the appropriate uniform because of their 1st amendment rights?

It was fair. The school didn't prevent HS from participating in any other athletic activity which would not have brought her into contact with Bolton. The school is justified to cut students from teams who refuse to perform their athletic duties.

"Being fair," is a subjective term where we seem to disagree. You haven't offered what you perceive to be a "fair" resolution to this case. Please, do.

Cutting HS from the team for refusing to perform the athletic duties of the team was not as terrible an alternative as you're all making it out to be. It's perfectly normal, and fair, for schools to cut students from teams (1) if the student refuses to perform their athletic duties, and even (2) if/when their 1st amendment rights come into conflict with their athletic duties, as in the case of the religious example I have used.

Lol. Just Lol.



http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/chains.htm
Rape & violence against intimate partners:
http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/nisvs_report2010-a.pdf#page=47
Within a 12 month period, about 6% of people in intimate relationships experience rape, physical violence, and/or stalking. One percent experience rape per year - high school lasts 4 years.

I am not going to find statistics on sexting for you, even though it certainly represents a larger percentage of this population that has committed a serious crime of a sexual nature against another student, which could result in allegations that the school would yet again have to resolve in the perfect Anon world.

These stats prove that my argument is valid, and you're going to have to address just how it is that school's should entangle themselves in these sexual relationships every time a student accuses another of rape, and yet a court finds no reason to indict or punish.

"Fair" is subjective. I argue the school was fair to cut her from the team when she made a pattern of publicly refusing to perform her athletic duties. The student felt unfairly treated, but it's not the school's responsibility to come to a resolution that is 100% satisfactory to all parties.

No. I don't see how my argument could be used to justify even the most despicable and unjust actions against an individual student. I think it is not the school's responsibility to procure extra resources to investigate, punish, or resolve if the courts (the entity sanctioned by the community for the purpose) already did this job. I don't see how it would be reasonable for a student to expect a school to resolve every issue that they ever had with every person with whom they ever had a bad sexual encounter. The school should provide counseling, yes, and referral to more expert authorities. It doesn't need to rewrite the rules of every athletic team for every student who ever had a bad experience at a party with illegal alcohol.

Please see the diagram above and links above. All and every become very relevant, when considering the statistics on how many intimate partners experience stalking, physical violence, or rape at the hands of their significant others. The schools haven't the resources to resolve every single dispute that may result from relationships between their students which, although reported, go unindicted/unpunished by the court system.

With respect to who can or can't perform the athletic duties -- With respect to who will or who won't -- Then yes, the school can do as it pleases, and it's perfectly fair.

Firing people who couldn't or wouldn't perform the duties of their job would be a good way to keep the school running, if you ask me

She could have left the team privately, instead of being asked to leave publicly. This could have happened after the 1st protest and before the 2nd.

They did fulfill their responsibility to ensure that such a situation did not arise by reminding her the position was voluntary, and advising her to leave the team.

Far less responsibility lies with the school than with the court to protect HS. If HS alleged that she was a victim of a crime, then we should expect the court to do something about it. Not her school. If the court didn't do something about it, I might expect the school to offer HS counseling (like many schools have counselors), but I wouldn't expect the school to rewrite the rules of athletic squads to accommodate HS and all other students who allege that they are victims of crimes.

Godforbid they should defer to the decision of a court of law in the determination of whether a crime has been committed.

The school did a pretty fair job of it by removing Bolton from classes and athletics for 4 months, until the court dropped charges.

How was it poor judgement to ask a student who was refusing to perform their athletic duties to leave the team? I understand that the refusal was justified. However, plenty of students have justifiable reasons for refusing to perform their athletic duties, and schools are not monstrous for cutting those students from teams.

Vol, you make an argument that avoids the very real possibility that this girl had perhaps a great talent in this sport (puke) that may have seen university scholarships follow and then possibly career path. Talents in this field do not nessasarily translate to substantive talent in track and field, basketball, or any other. The school was within its rights to decide in her rapists favour over her interests. However their decision was not bordeline, it was morally fail.

Not what was said, nice try though.

The school did not favour the attacker (he was not convicted of rape so you cannot use the term rapist for dramatic effect) at all, The school was only dealing with the victim, the victim was refusing to carry out her required duties so the school had to make a decision, the attacker (who the courts had decided no case at that time, by the way) was doing his required duties so was not part of the equasion.

The stubenville syndrome of the attacker knowing the prosecutor and getting off TWICE doesn't seem to be bothering you one iota, but fuck! The school is really pissing you off big time! Have a bad time at school did we by any chance?

Regulated cheerleading keeps us from CHEERLEADING chaos, same as every job, every sport, life, physics the universe you name it, they all have rules sparky!

You must be kidding. When a guy from the other department tried to blame the missed deadline on me, I went to the beach for the afternoon. Everybody was looking for me. And I'm not fired. And he wasn't accused or convicted of anything. Worse than that. You are treating cheerleader rules like the constitution. If you don't exercise the silly rules, nobody will sue you.

Yeah, fuck the rules, let's all do what we damn well feel like and fuck the world.

I could be convinced that the school, ideally, would have given her the option of being excused from cheering at basketball games, while continuing to cheer at other athletic events. I was the one who suggested the idea, remember?

If someone can show, for the record, that this option was not presented to HS, then I might find a smidgeon of fault in the school for that. However, it's not the line between "reasonable" and "unreasonable" for me. For me, it's the line between "reasonable" and "ideal." As in, in a perfect world, the school would have done this, but we only live in a reasonable world.

The school was still acting reasonably when it asked this athlete who was refusing to perform her athletic duties to leave the team.

OK!

Voluntarily, you argue that 'fair' is a subjective notion. Without getting too bogged down in semantics and metaphysics, a reasonable test of what is fair is when the parties involved agree that it is so.

Here, we know that one party did not agree that it was fair. But you insist it was fair, nevertheless. By what, or by whose measure are you judging it to be fair?

Your whole argument simply ignores, or is blind to the specific circumstances from the perspective of the victim. In the specific circumstances here, where the principal and superintendent watched the match, and insisted that the girl cheer her attacker or leave the team, you simply quote the rules, and you dismiss possible exceptions, whether justified or not. But you still insist that that is fair. By what measure?

You say that it is fair, 'perfectly fair' even, to remove the victim from the team because she could not perform their duties. Note that the reasons she could not were that she was being asked to cheer someone who molested her, and that the school had arranged matters so that this situation arose, or had done nothing to prevent it.

In fact it would be outrageous to expect someone to follow the rules in such circumstances. But the rules, you say, must be followed, whatever the circumstances.

You say that 'fair' does not mean that everyone is 100% satisifed. Let's agree on that. But here, the molester is 100% satisfied, the school is 100% satisfied, and the victim is, what? Zero percent, would you say?

That doesn't seem to me to be a balanced argument at all. It makes a nonsense of the whole concept of fairness, and that should be telling you something.

When you strip away the verbiage, what you are saying is that what is fair is what you say is fair, or what the school says is fair, but without taking the specific circumstances or the victim's interests into account.

Unfair nonsense is unfair, and nonsense.

do you know what. Fuck You! Read again cockend, I never said I was not pissed as fuck at the prosecutors on this matter they are beyond the pale. y point if you read it was at this time I was not willing to give the school a free pass on their moral fail. Ok get it yet.

A reasonable test of what is fair is what an independent party says is fair.

When there are two sides to an argument, it's often impossible to come to a resolution that both sides consider fair. It may also be an onerous task for the arbiter, in this case the school. You don't consider it an onerous task, but it is a crazy ridiculous onerous task when a school has to manage hundreds of students, each with their own conflicts.

This is why there are rules established ahead of time, so that there will be no disagreement on what is "fair." There is no dispute about the rules.

By the pre-established rules.

By the pre-established rules that everyone on the cheer squad agreed to ahead of time.

There was a 1st protest. There was a time between. You fail to accept the notion that the school did try to prevent this from happening in the intervening time.

You also fail to accept the notion that having her leave the team would have been a fair way to prevent it.

You also didn't address the notion that the school is within its rights to cut students who are refusing to perform their athletic duties, no matter how justified the reason.

No, they can be avoided by LEAVING THE TEAM.

I'd say the victim got her 100% satisfaction when the courts indicted Bolton, and he got expelled from the school.

What makes a nonsense of the concept of fairness is changing the rules to suit you when you have a problem with them.

What makes a nonsense of the concept of fairness is pre-requisiting that you should be satisfied with any resolution before you can label it a "fair" one.

Fair resolutions don't have to satisfy all parties. Fair resolutions need to satisfy the rules, and they should satisfy independent, unbiased people who look at the dispute from all sides. Like a court of law, perhaps, which was involved in settling this particular dispute.

It's not in the victim's interest to remove her from the circumstances that are causing her psychological distress? Maybe it's the therapist who told her to stay in cheerleading who should have been sued.

Indeed. Your standard of fairness, that all parties agree that the resolution is "fair," is no standard at all. It may never result in the resolution of a dispute, since parties may be too far from one another to come to a resolution that both sides think is fair.

In these cases, you go back to the rules that parties agreed to prior to entering into their respective contracts. You may need an independent arbiter for that.

The courts served that purpose. In this case, the courts agreed with the school, not HS.

Furthermore, I would not characterize Bolton's 4 month removal from school and athletics as being a 100% satisfactory outcome for him, nor is it a 0% satisfactory outcome for the victim. The school did remove Bolton from the time of his arrest to the time of the initial dismissal of charges - which was punishing to Bolton, and protecting the victim. It's not black and white as you make it out to be.

Victim satisfaction level reaches 100% when Bolton is expelled the following summer.

At the time of the decision it was not morally fail. It was a fair decision with the circumstances as they were (way before the third trial and conviction. Do you get it yet? No didn't think so, just hate the school because..........well, just because eh!


Ps U Mad bro?

Mad yes, at the prosecutor, most of all. As to the schools response, there should always be room in rules for latitude. The school had to have known the girls complaint had substance, what with the witnesses and all.

Morally speaking the school should have used the latitude that human decency demands to cut the girl as much slack as she needed and find a way of allowing her to continue with her chosen sport, in desperately unhappy circumstances.

As it was they made a polarising decision that saw a victim, albeit an alleged victim at that time, penalised and removed from her sport. A spectacularly bad decision that delivered a morally fail outcome. To have given her the benefit of the doubt and find a suitable get around is what normal decent people would/should have done (note: no suggestion here of penalising him and his career, in the interim.)

Instead they/you spout utter shit about the rules this, the rules that. Cowardly. It takes a brave person to take the rules and tweek them to serve the higher purpose of human decency and dignity.

The law is an ass, but its a nessasary ass. The school enjoys a little more room for latitude and morally guided decision making. They should have employed some.

So, you didn't like my rule-of-thumb test. OK, let's look at what you're proposing.

The school and the girl are both parties to the dispute. Right? School insists on their rules. Girl disagrees. According to you, the school is the arbiter between itself and the girl, where, by your definition, what is fair is what an independent party says is fair.

However, the school had no obligation to seek an independent party to arbitrate, so they didn't need to be fair by your test. And they were not fair - according to your own definition - because they are not an independent party. When you are both a party to a dispute, and the arbiter to that dispute, there is an obvious danger of unfairness, at the least, wouldn't you agree?


I do consider disputes as difficult as this one to be onerous, and have said so, in so many words, don't you recall? But I don't accept that this kind of situation is commonplace. It is the very specific, unusual and perverse circumstances of being asked to cheer someone who molested you that makes this an onerous situation to resolve.

Yes, that is what I think the rules are intended for, but with the caveat that they cannot cover all possible circumstances. There must be exceptions. That is a meta-rule - "For every rule, there are exceptions to that rule". Relying on the rules in any and all circumstances makes one sound like a zealot.

No-one agreed to clap their own molester, and no-one thought to put that in the rules ahead of time. It is utterly outrageous to rely on that rule in those circumstances, when no-one in their right mind would agree to such a rule ahead of time.

I'm not 'failing', Vol. I'm not accepting the notion that it was fair to ask the cheerleader to cheer her molester or leave the team.

You claim that the school can do as it pleases and when they do so, that this is fair. I don't agree, for the reasons I have given. The school arbitrates a dispute in which it is a party in its own favour, and you say that is fair. I disagree, for the reasons I gave.

No, they can be avoided by LEAVING THE TEAM.

Again, you are mangling the argument by including the perp's court case and its consequences, when the dispute, and the test I proposed to decide what was fair in that dispute, excludes this.

Bear in mind that you insist that the school was being fair at the time of the incident in question, not because it was an independent arbiter (which was your test), but because of the rules, and because they could do as they pleased - which implies that they didn't even have to follow their own rules unless it suited them.

Agreed (with the exception of that bit about satisfying the rules, of course). But, just as in the perp's case, even the law may not yet have said its final word (despite the Supreme Court judgment). I haven't commented on the court docs, because I wanted to limit the discussion to the actions of the school and the girl.

There are several ways the school could have achieved that purpose, if that was their aim. We are discussing the specific way they did it.

Many disputes are settled on terms that the parties agree are fair. Some are not, as you say, and need to be imposed. This is the option of last resort, when compromise, negotiation and mediation have failed. I haven't seen much evidence of compromise, negotiation or mediation on the part of the school. I have seen evidence of their lack of sensitivity and their inflexibility.

Agreed. I confess to not understanding fully all the First Amendment arguments HS' lawyers chose to put forward, and the case they lost might have had a different outcome had they limited their causes of action to the issues we have discussed.


But thankfully, we are free to quibble even about Supreme Court decisions.

I was speaking in the context of a general dispute between two students which was not addressed by law. In this case, I can accept the idea that the school may (stress, may) be asked to be an independent arbiter, although I can't accept the idea that the school would have a responsibility to resolve the situation to everyone's complete satisfaction.

HS had a problem with the way the dispute was settled, so the dispute became one between HS and the school. This dispute (between HS and the school) was settled by an independent third party, the court, in the school's favor.

By your own arguments, schools should be arbiters - or their superintendents or principals should be. You had said something about a duty to arbitrate with scrupulous fairness to HS. Now you're saying they're not independent parties, so they can't be fair arbiters? What are you saying, exactly? You want to charge the school with being the arbiter of this matter, and fault the school for not resolving this to HS's satisfaction, or at least you did a page ago, but now you're saying the school wasn't independent enough to arbitrate? I am having a tough time here with your train of thought.

The school was in fact obliged to go to an independent party to arbitrate when it was sued. This is why they went to court. The court agreed with the school. While there may have been a danger of unfairness, the court (the independent arbiter we can both agree on) decided that what the school did was not unfair.

So, you suggested that the school had a responsibility to arbitrate this scrupulously fairly, but now you argue that the school was not independent, so it could not arbitrate with scrupulous fairness. What are you trying to argue? How is the school at fault? It is at fault because it should have arbitrated this fairly, but it was not capable of it, by your own argument? You are faulting the school for not doing something that you claim it was not capable of anyway, and that is no basis for fault.

If you're going to ignore the statistics I posted, then I will just have to cite them again. Students, cheerleaders and athletes sometimes date one another. I know, it's shocking. In addition to this, 6% of those in intimate relationships experience rape, stalking, and/or physical violence from their significant others in the space of 1 year. Students are asked to give individual presentations, and to applaud for one another, all the time. Students are asked to work in mandatory teamwork projects all of the time. The situation at hand may be unique, but it is not unlike the situation of many students. This was not the first time nor will it be the last time that sexual misconduct has been alleged between students, or between a cheerleader and an athlete, which then affected a school sponsored activity. HS's circumstances were not all that unique or perverse; other cheerleaders and athletes will inevitably have conflicts about allegations of sexual misconduct that affect their ability to perform their athletic duties; other students will inevitably have conflicts about allegations of sexual misconduct that affect their ability to perform their academic duties.

This is probably why the specific rule is in the cheerleader constitution requiring cheerleaders to cheer all athletes equally - although I speculate.

It would be an onerous, perhaps impossible duty for a school to resolve each one of these conflicts to everyone's complete satisfaction, or to isolate each of these students from contact with one another, especially when both students insist on participating in a school activity. When faced with such an impossible task, I can hardly fault the school for relying on pre-established rules for participants in school activities to settle the dispute more easily.

Relying on the school to make an exception to its rules, and using this as the basis for finding serious fault with the school, is a shaky premise at best. It's getting nit-picky when you have to demand that the school find an exception to its rules, and fault the school for not finagling a loophole for each and every situation.

For whom else should the school make exceptions? Should it field an athlete who refuses to wear the uniform on religious grounds? Should it field an athlete who was made disabled as a result of a crime? Should it field an overweight kid who was made overweight as a result of a crime?

This is why it is perfectly normal and fair for a school to cut a student when the student can not or will not perform their athletic duties. It's not monstrous, nor is it a horrendous offense against decency or the 1st amendment.

Agreed, but it's not utterly outrageous to be asked to leave a team if you cannot or will not perform the athletic duties of that team.

It was fair to ask her to leave the team. It was a way to remove the situation that was causing her psychological stress, in fact.

If you don't accept the notion that it was fair to ask her to leave the team, please elaborate on why. Please address the contention that schools are acting fairly when they cut athletes on the basis of who can or can't, who will or won't, perform athletic duties.

I claim that the school can do as it pleases with respect to whom it allows to participate in athletic activities, when it bases these decisions on who will or won't, who can or can't perform the athletic duties of the team. I claim that the school is acting perfectly normally and fairly with respect to whom it cuts from athletic teams when it makes its decisions on this basis.

I claim that the school arbitrated the dispute between Bolton and HS, and when HS thought the resolution was unfair, and sued the school, the truly independent arbiter - the court - sided with the school. This indicates that the school was not acting unfairly.

I was speaking generally about disputes between students with respect to the school being "independent arbiter," and with respect to disputes not settled by law - not specifically about HS and Bolton's case.

I'm not sure whether you're arguing that the school should be independent arbiter or not, so I'm not entirely sure how you want me to address this. At first, it seemed like you were arguing that the school (its superintendent or principal) needed to be scrupulously fair to HS in the arbitration of this dispute. Now you are claiming that the school was not in fact independent, so it could not be fair. If the school is not independent, and cannot be fair, it kind of defeats the purpose of charging them with this responsibility; it kind of defeats the purpose of blaming them for failing HS.

It would seem, therefore, that you think the school should have paid an independent mediator to resolve this before it became a lawsuit, which again seems like a needless and frivolous expense.

The test for fairness you proposed to decide what was fair was no test at all, and might never result in a resolution, since parties may be too far from one another to ever find a resolution that both sides think is fair.

The test for fairness I proposed was that an independent arbiter, in this case a court of law, would look at all sides of the issue, along with pre-established rules, before deciding on what it considered a fair resolution. That arbiter sided with the school, not HS. Multiple times, through multiple appeals.

The school was supposed to be an independent arbiter according to your argument, not mine. I was the one arguing that it was onerous to expect the school to be the independent arbiter of all student disputes to the 100% satisfaction of all students.

I think the school was being fair at the time of the incident in question specifically because of the school's discretion with respect to athletes who can not or will not perform their athletic duties. I never said the school didn't have to follow its own rules, nor did I say the school could do as it pleased, cutting any athlete for any reason.

Compromise, negotiation, and mediation are costly, time-consuming efforts that cannot be undertaken for every student, to the complete satisfaction of every student.

Lack of sensitivity and inflexibility are not institutionalized crimes against humanity or decency. They are a part of life, and of dealing with organizations that represent larger communities.

They are certainly not as significant a crime as the dereliction of the duties of a prosecutor.

Entire thread tl;dr

This is an insult to WWP. CoS wasn't guilty of all the crimes they did, so they can continue to operate freely, and we are still here. The justice system is not perfect and that's why you can discuss whatever about the DA and the school's action shouldn't depend totally on the law. Many morally repulsive actions are not illegal, such as filming somebody falling onto the rail rather than trying to help. If you talk to a school teacher why they let YHRI (an obviously scn front) into the school, they will say "innocent until proven guilty". If the three stooges don't force HS to cheer, probably nothing will happen and nobody will complain. If they do what they did, they became the most hated school internationally on the internet, as the local paper says at the time. You consider the consequence for any action. Cheerleader rules have discretion, unlike the law. Criminal case and civil have different standards of proof. Clearly the rapist was naked and escaped when people broke the door to help. You can insult the president but if you insult the principle I'm sure you can be expelled. So they rely on the court only and not to expel the rapist. To justify their decision, they have to pretend the rapists did nothing wrong, and so HS have to cheer him. It's their decision and they have to take the consequences. Wiki is a sort of sex offence register, child abuse register for life, longer than the legal register.

I accept that you were speaking about a general dispute between students. I was speaking about the school and the girl in their dispute (at school, not at court). I already agreed that arbiters need not necessarily resolve things to everyone's complete satisfaction.

But, just as you quite rightly pointed out the limitations of my 'reasonable test' (though you went a bit far in trying to rubbish it entirely, beyond what I thought was...fair), I was pointing out the limitations of yours in the situation we were discussing, ie where the school are parties to the dispute (since they were the ones imposing courses of action that were unacceptable to the victim) and they are also arbiters of the dispute. I said 'OK let's look at it using your test', in the context of that dispute, and I hoped to show that it didn't quite work.

You mean that the original dispute was between victim and perp? OK. I was focussing on the dispute between the victim and the school, and I'm puzzled if you thought otherwise. The dispute we were discussing was the school enforcing the rules and the victim standing her ground/refusing to comply. In that dispute, there was no other arbiter - because that is how schools are run - so it was inevitable they would find themselves in the dual role of being both a party and arbiter (at least initially, before it went to court) to the dispute. Something went horribly wrong for such a dispute to end up in the courts - the final arbiter - and the school needs to take some blame for that, IMO.

Yes, I do believe that schools should be arbiters, because they are the responsible adults in disputes both between themselves and students, as well as disputes between students. They have, it seems to me, a duty to be scrupulously fair in the former, because of the dangers inherent in the dual role I mentioned.

The school (officials), in that dual role, are not the independent party usually required to arbitrate disputes. The courts certainly are. But it would be ludicrous if every dispute had to be decided in court, so it falls to the school to accept that role, and attempt to resolve disputes fairly by their own best efforts.

Does that make it any clearer to you?

Agreed.

I mean, whatever it decided, as party to the dispute, it could not be independent, as with a dispute between students. That's not the school's fault, it just means they have that duty to be scrupulously fair, which is especially onerous when you have a horse in the race, so to speak.

Vol, I apologise for not addressing your statistics and the excellent diagram you brought to the table. Perhaps I am wrong in thinking this an extremely unusual occurence. Perhaps I cannot allow myself to believe the truth, that young girls are frequently put in the position of applauding people who have molested them.

There is something so nauseating about that, perhaps I push it from my mind.

I know, the rape/molestation is worse, but being made to applaud adds an extra element of sadism.

Well, I might agree, except that I don't believe it is an impossible task to avoid such a calamitous outcome as in this case.

Not at all. That's what arbiters do - finagle loopholes, offer dubious compromises, invent subterfuges to get around impasses, on and on. You are getting to the heart of the matter - the 'ways' I referred to earlier - when you consider such alternatives to using the rules as a battering-ram to enforce compliance. I have witnessed these things, often - perhaps you have, too?

Ways, Vol. It should not be beyond the wit of experienced and highly-paid officials to find solutions that do not offend against decency.

In this situation, I think it is an offence against decency to insist upon the rules.

Hoping my clarifications and other points above make it unnecessary to address all the above points - at least for now.

Well, when you said that coaches could remove students 'basically at will', I took that to mean the same as that they could do as they pleased, which implies what I said it implies.

Again, you're talking in absolutes, overstating the magnitude of the problem, when the skills of experienced adults dealing with adolescents is (or should be) in using their ingenuity to finesse difficult situations with elegant/devious/pragmatic solutions. Probably cheaper than law court, too.

Well, they might be, depending on the degree of inflexibility or lack of sensitivity.

OK, Vol. Have it your way. Tomorrow, we start the the debate on the DA's performance. Deal?

One question, why would you want to partake in events where you would be watching your attacker play in a school team sport? I can understand the notion of not wanting to cheer your attacker but that would probably be only 5%, if that, of the time spent. Also every time you cheer for the team you are basically cheering your attacker as he is part of the team. You would be at games with your attacker right there in front of you centre stage, being cheered by others and events that take quite a long time too, it seems a little bizarre to put yourself through this. I would seriously question my daughters desire to put herself through this. Maybe it was a misguided attempt by the victim and her family to force the school to take some sort of action against the attacker, maybe they thought the attacker would be dropped from the team. I just don't understand the victims reason for taking part in this kind of thing, even if you take the individual cheering of the attacker out of the equasion, it's strange to say the least.

Why should she have to modify her behavior when she isn't the rapist?

She should have dropped out of school so she didn't have to see him in the halls. Maybe her family should have moved to avoid any unpleasantness with the attacker. Wouldn't want to embarrass him...or interfere with the game.

hahaha. sarcasm noted.

Yeah, I get that bit, but why would you put yourself through it?

cower or stand up
which one..which one

Thanks for clarifying. Just as parents can't be perfect arbiters, schools can't either, because they're not independent of disputes with their charges.

Unfortunately for HS, the real independent arbiter here sided with the school, multiple times.

Being a party to a dispute doesn't mean you're incapable of suggesting a fair resolution, either. In this case, the fair resolution, at the time, was to have the athlete not performing their athletic duties leave the team. The courts agreed, so the school must have been doing something right.

Families are run in the same way, but Anon wouldn't call the dogs of war if a rape victim's parents chose to take that victim (assume she's a minor) out of cheerleading, or out of athletics, or out of school, against the victim's wishes.

Why do you hold the school to a higher standard of care & delicacy for the victim than the victim's own parents? The minor victim's own parents could have insisted that the minor quit the team, and Anon wouldn't care ONE WHIT about this result, even if the victim herself still wanted to be a cheerleader.

If the school is acting in loco parentis, then the school really should have the discretion here to remove the child, both for the child's own good, and for the good of the rest of the children in the activity.

The school is acting completely normally, and completely fairly, when it chooses to remove a student from athletics for refusing to perform their athletic duties, no matter how justified that student's refusal.

A parent would not be given any stress about removing their child from athletics against that child's wishes - the parent would not even need a good reason.

The school, however, had 2 good reasons to act to remove HS from the basketball game. First, they are acting completely fairly when they cut athletes who are refusing to perform their athletic duties. Second, they may have viewed asking HS to remove herself from the situation that was causing her psychological distress to be in HS's best interests.

I don't know if it's that something went "horribly wrong," and the school needs to take some blame for the fact of the lawsuit, or if it's that HS's father just likes to sue people. There are cranks and crackpots out there who simply like to file lawsuits, frivolously. A quick read of the coverage will show you that they have sued just about everyone they could, seemingly trigger-happy. They've mostly lost, too.

The parents wouldn't need to take any blame at all if they decided to remove their daughter from cheerleading against her wishes, so I don't see why the school needs to, either.

At the very least, parents share this duty when it comes to raising their children. However, parents aren't asked to resign, subjected to leaflet campaigns, slandered, libeled, and lampooned on the internet when they are perceived to have gotten it wrong. A parent who removed their child from athletics against their wishes wouldn't receive this level of scrutiny or scorn.

The school did no more than that - they removed HS from athletics, like many parents would when faced with this situation. The school should receive no more ire than would a parent who made this decision for their own child. Please respond.

Yes, thanks. The school made a fair call, by the standard of judging them as if they were a parent of a minor child, removing their own child from athletics, despite that child's wishes. The school even had good reason, which a parent would not need to have. A parent would not receive scorn for making this decision for their child basically at a whim, without a good reason. The school is receiving tons of scorn for making the same decision, with very good reasons.

I've addressed the fairness issue already, and the school made a fair call to remove this athlete from the team, from multiple perspectives - athletic duties, best interests, and removal contingent only on a higher standard than would be required from the student's own parents.

Perhaps it is not frequent that they are put in the position of applauding people who raped or molested them, but when you consider all of the sordid possibilities, then the frequency of occurrences that are similar, not identical, increases dramatically.

In addition to those who have raped or molested their fellow students,
How many ex-boyfriends are in the possession of child pornography of their ex-girlfriends?
How many ex-boyfriends have committed physical violence against their ex-girlfriends?
How many ex-boyfriends have stalked their ex-girlfriends, causing them terror in their homes?
Many of these are crimes that are difficult to investigate and prosecute, and their perpetrators never go indicted or punished.

The likelihood that one of those ex-girlfriends is a cheerleader, and one of those ex-boyfriends is an athlete, just keeps increasing with each sordid scenario I can name, and with each year that these kids are in high school.

It's almost guaranteed that many exes share classes, and are forced to interact at school - perhaps in teamwork, or in critique, or in praise.

Given the frequency of sexual misconduct among students, I think it's onerous to expect a school to resolve every potential dispute between a student alleging such misconduct against another student, whether it occurs in the context of cheerleading or any other school or class activity involving close interaction with the accused molester.

My comment about the cheerleader constitution was meant specifically to point out that it maintains discipline and ensures that cheerleaders won't bring ex-boyfriend disputes to athletic events - that's not to diminish the fact that crimes go unpunished. I'm glad you had fun with it, though.

The problem with what you argue is that the job titles were not "Arbiter" and "Mediator." They were instead "Principal" and "Superintendent." They are administrators and educators, who are there primarily to oversee faculty and run the school according to its protocols. It is not their primary duty to resolve disputes, nor to scramble to make exceptions for delicate students.. It may be one of their duties, but I can't see how you'd expect them to do it perfectly well on the first try given the other myriad responsibilities of the position.

They did end up expelling Bolton, and reinstating her to the cheer squad, and allowing her to try out for cheer again in the following fall. Technically, the latter 2 actions were exceptions made to SISD's rules regarding participation in cheer. Finagled loopholes, if you will.

It would not be an offense against decency if a parent removed their child from athletics against that child's wishes, and absent having any good reason to do so. That parent would simply be exercising their rights as a parent.

It is also not an offense against decency when an experienced and highly-paid official removes a child from athletics against that child's will, because they can cite good reason - the child is refusing to perform athletic duties, and the position causes psychological distress for the child.

You may consider the "basically at will," statement retracted.

Willingness and ability to perform the duties are fair standards by which a school might choose to keep or cut students from a team.

These are not the only criteria for whether a student might be fairly removed; a coach might decide he doesn't want you on the team because of your teamwork, attitude, or style of play. Willingness and ability to perform the duties of the team are not the sole fair standards upon which to cut a player.

I don't think I overstate the magnitude of the problem, given the stats. I happen to think that HS and her family were much louder about it than most students are. If the school were to have bent over backwards for HS and her family, then the school might have faced a deluge of students seeking redress for grievances against other students, and insufficient resources with which to address them all.

Start?

It's a little late. Forgive me if I am less than enthusiastic to finally have you or any worthy opponent deign to discuss my primary contention.

I might have been more excited for the debate about the DA had you and others seriously engaged in it several pages ago, before the hive's interest moved on. Go ahead and lay out your contentions, though, if you please.

Yeah yeah, is it proving anything to anyone to attend an event where your alleged attacker obviously excells, will be centre stage, will be cheered by your own teammates who will not be supporting you if you do decide to protest? The sports team, the cheerleaders and possibly half the audience will be supporting and cheering your attacker, if you decide to protest by being silent I'm sure the deafening noise from the others will make your protest futile.

Pick your battles carefully, something her parents don't seem too good at.

She didn't fall into this. She was in counseling, please read up on recovery from rape.

http://rapecrisis.org.za/information-for-survivors/phases-of-recovery/

Commence arguing about why this is wrong. Always lulzy watching the clueless argue about what they know not.

Something else for a topic in the rape forum. Recovery.

Rape culture encourages high school students to bully the victim. Reeducation needed to change the culture.

If that is her picking her battle, they won handsomely. Just look at the international coverage.

The battle was picked for her when she was raped. No choice in battle, only choice in response.

That won't help the parents legal bills they have amassed.

Ok, pick your response carefully, either way the sentiment is the same.

Doesn't answer my question. Would counceling or recovery lead you to a situation where you may humiliate yourself?

The school humiliated itself, in a big way.

8. don't taunt the enemy unless you are anonymous with an A.

Agreed. Perfection not demanded.

Agreed. Not wholly surprising, either.

Agree with the first sentence. Do not agree with the second, nor the third.

But here, the child's and her parents' wishes and the school's wishes were in conflict. In other words, they didn't agree it was fair, and they are equal partners in caring for the child's interests. The school should have done more to address the parents' concerns, if not the child's alone.

We shouldn't interfere too much in other families' concerns. But schools are not private individuals, they are public bodies, and so have accountability to the people whom they serve. While they stand in the place of parents, they are not parents. That public accountability makes a difference.

Agreed. They do have such discretion. If the decision is purely for the child's best interests, there is no problem. If it also serves the good of others, there is no problem. If they put the interests of others above the child's, then there may be a problem. We are back at 'the greater good' sticking-point in that scenario.

Here is where you and I have a problem. It is not in the child's best interests to applaud her attacker, nor lose her cheerleading job. Compliance with the rules is patently not in the child's best interests, while removing her from the team may be in her best interests (your argument about saving her from distress), but removing her because she failed to comply with something that is not in her best interests is not the same thing at all. It is the lesser of two evils, and it could and should have been avoided. Re-reading the sentence just quoted, in this context, it begins to ring a little hollow. You haven't really gotten anywhere with my argument about the meta-rule, that exceptions apply to all rules, nor other possible solutions that would avoid the compliance issue.

As a result, you are reduced to sounding something like a dictator - and, once again, using absolutist terms like 'completely' fair, 'completely normally'. You have not established anything of the kind, but you continue to assert it, even after agreeing that it isn't practically achievable elsewhere in our discussion.

Yes, it's a private matter within the family.

Before leaving the subject of families, do you know of any parent who would say to their child "Yes, you must cheer for the person who molested you"? If we took a poll of the parents across the US, do you think a majority would agree with that? Do you think a majority would agree it was fair that their child, the innocent victim, would have to give up her job because she would not cheer her molester?

If not, why should the school. in loco parentis, decide otherwise?

Already addressed both parts of this earlier.

The point is that the parents and the school do share such a duty. When the parents and the school do not agree, they have a duty to try to resolve the matter to their mutual satisfaction. If the school decides against the parent's wishes, it should not be simply because they can, or because they put others' (or their own) interests above those of the child, where a parent would do otherwise.

Answered above.

I don't think we've agreed on that, have we? We discovered the limitations of some standards of judging. We agreed that the courts, as arbiters, decided against the parents' case. That's as far as we got, or did I miss something?

I did not, decidedly not, have fun with these difficult issues. As I know you are aware, other cases, more horrific than Steubenville are coming to light, in the wider context of an apparent inability to act by the authorities in general. The common denominator is sexual violence against girls, and the devastating effects of the lack of support from responsible adults. Assuming there is not a secret pact to withhold that support deliberately, we need to dig into individual cases and individual actions to discover the reasons why it happens.

The case we are discussing is arguably one of those reasons.

Let me say this: if schools are washing their hands of any responsibilty for eg the sharing images of child pornography within their premises, deferring such things to LE, while at the same time forcing victims to applaud their attackers or lose their jobs, it is hardly surprising that tragedies such as the Rehtaeh Parsons case arise.


If, as you seem to be suggesting, they are unable to deal with serious breaches of discipline such as you outlined, they are not fulfilling their duties, and it is they who should GTFO the school team.

You're not saying they don't perform those roles, are you? Because they do. I believe it is a part of their primary responsibilities. Sorry, but I take offence at the phrase 'to scramble to make exceptions for delicate students.' It is highly inappropriate to the circumstances we are discussing and is out of place with the rest of your argument.

Well, it's not too difficult to make such a decision, when the courts have already acted. You wouldn't expect anyone to applaud the school for reinstating the innocent victim, would you? It would have been better, much better, if they had finagled some loopholes before causing the girl such distress.

The words you use suggest that you do. You do not see that a word here and a word there from school officials, in the right ears, at the right time, could have prevented the situation we are discussing. That's not too much of a drag on resources, wouldn't you agree? All it requires are the skills of experienced educators and managers who can spot problems and act before they explode into crises. Apparatchiks who do no more than follow the rules to the letter won't manage it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apparatchik

But if serious sexual offences are rampant in their schools, they need to spend more of their resources on tackling that (as do the rest of us, of course).

I wasn't serious about starting another discussion, when I'm struggling to keep up with this one. Thanks for inviting me, though.