The following is a guest post* by Laura Kipnis, professor in Northwestern University’s School of Communication. Professor Kipnis wrote an opinion piece for the Chronicle of Higher Education, “Sexual Paranoia Strikes Academe,” in which she argued against certain policies and attitudes regarding sexual relations between faculty and students. In doing so, she referred to two Title IX cases at Northwestern involving students and a philosophy professor at Northwestern. Two graduate students then filed Title IX complaints against Professor Kipnis, on grounds that her discussion of the cases appeared to constitute retaliation. The university investigated the complaint, a process Professor Kipnis described in a second article for the Chronicle, “My Title IX Inquisition.” These articles were discussed previously at Daily Nous in a post by me and a guest post by one of the complainants. In what follows, Professor Kipnis responds to these posts.
A Response to Daily Nous
by Laura Kipnis
So much has been written about the Title IX complaints against me and the recent Chronicle essay I wrote discussing them that I haven’t tried to keep up, let alone respond to inaccuracies, which have been plentiful. I also generally don’t respond to critics: people are allowed to disagree or say what they want about what I write; I’d rather think about the next article than defend the previous ones. There’s only so much you can control in the world, and what people say about what you write isn’t one of them.
But I do want to correct the misimpression created by “Anonymous” that the Title IX cases against me had to do, primarily, with factual inaccuracies. It’s irritating to read something inaccurate that’s purporting to combat inaccuracy.
I made a few small, insubstantial factual errors—of the sort corrected every day in newspapers like the New York Times—in trying to condense the publically available documents about various lawsuits involving Professor Ludlow down to two paragraphs.
These were the errors I made: I mistakenly referred to a current graduate student as a “former” graduate student, because she was referred to in the past tense in a legal filing: “was a graduate student at the time.” (I didn’t, at the time, know the name of student in question.) The Chronicle article, which was supposed to be published in March, went online a few days early, on February 27; I’d written about a legal decision as taking place “last month”—i.e. in February—thinking the issue date would be March. This was one of the inaccuracy charges. Another error was my writing that “several” lawsuits by the undergraduate in the Ludlow case had been thrown out. At the time, one suit had been thrown out, one had not been allowed to proceed, and there had also been an unsuccessful attempt to get financial restitution. Another suit was pending an outcome. Keeping track of the status of these various cases was difficult as there was no master chronology available, and I was trying to collate information from different sources. The Chronicle ran a correction stating that one suit had been thrown out, not several.
But other facts are in contention: the professor used the word “dating” to describe his relationship with a graduate student in his defamation suit; I thus used the word “dating” in my piece. The Chronicle later added this clarification: “It would be more accurate to say that he had dated her according to his complaint.” To be clear, I wasn’t trying to speak to the precise nature of the relationship between the complainant and the professor—which was and is in contention—so much as trying to use the most innocuous word available to characterize the disputed situation.
This speaks to my purpose in writing about the case of the graduate student and the professor, which is at the crux of the Title IX complaints. My intention was not to write about that case. I’ve been accused of conflating the two cases against Ludlow, that of the undergraduate and that of the graduate student. I didn’t. The undergrad’s case had been extensively written about and commented on; that was the case I chose to write about. As far as the graduate student, there were seven words about her in the essay: “a former grad student he previously dated”; this occurs when I list various parties the professor sued for defamation.
Let me explain why I didn’t say more about the case. The only account I had access to was the professor’s. Though all the information I drew on was in the public record, there was also a lot of private (and unverifiable) information about the graduate student’s life that I had no desire to comment on, or further circulate, even though the student wasn’t named. Once again, most of the facts and sexual allegations were—and are—in contention. To write about the complexities of that situation would have taken an article in itself, even if I’d been able to interview both parties involved, which I wasn’t. And I would have had to write both sides of the story, not one. But it also wasn’t my purpose to write a reported piece on this case; I was writing two paragraphs in an essay that took on many additional subjects.
The irony of the Title IX complaints is that the complainants somehow completely misread swathes of my essay that had nothing whatsoever to do with the graduate student’s case—along with a subsequent tweet—as referring to the grad student. The Title IX investigators painstakingly verified that these were misreadings, following a 72 day investigation. Their additional finding was that whatever errors I made in the piece were both minor and unintentional, and more importantly, could not be construed, by a “reasonable person,” as either retaliatory or creating a chilling effect on anyone’s ability to report sexual misconduct.
As to my refusing to correct those errors, this is simply wrong. I never refused, because I wasn’t aware of the errors until the Chronicle got emails from people speaking on behalf of “Anonymous.” Let me explain. I got hundreds of emails after the first Chronicle essay, and it took me weeks to read through them. Also, I have to confess that I simply don’t read emails from angry readers, as the ones to me on behalf of “Anonymous” looked to be. (If you publish on controversial topics you get a certain amount of angry email.) I glance at the first line, then file them—fair notice to all those who plan to email angry things to me about this post.
I understand why the complainants wish I’d written the essay from their perspective rather than my own. And I better understand, after reading through the two 60-page reports on the case—as I was permitted to do once the case was resolved—some of the negative feelings my essays may have provoked. I even understand why, once “My Title IX Inquisition” came out (to generally positive response), the complainants might now want to dial back on the specifics of their charges, which look even more extreme in retrospect. The bottom line is that bringing Title IX complaints over exceedingly minor errors in a publication you disagree with and naming them “retaliation” is an abuse of the process. To then keep on pressing a bad case in public even after it’s been arbitrated and you’ve been told you’re wrong, is worthy of a correction.
For the record, I don’t think I’m any sort of victim, and I do think the Title IX process worked, though after a massive waste of resources. (I’m guessing 75K or more in legal fees, having now seen the reports.) As far as the Ludlow cases, I think the Title IX process was even more flawed there than in my situation—in both cases, according to documents in the public record, rulings were made on the basis of policies that didn’t exist; rulings were made based on facts that weren’t in evidence. The rules of evidence were arbitrary. I can’t comment on the outcomes because I don’t have access to the complete files, but when I wrote that students have the power to derail a professor’s career these days, I meant that the vectors of power have shifted, which is patently true, not that some careers shouldn’t be derailed.
As I wrote in a letter to the Chronicle in April, I wasn’t trying to defend Ludlow’s “dating” career in the original essay. My own opinion is that any professor who dates students these days is risking professional suicide, though that doesn’t change my critique of consensual relations codes. I think there’s also a lot more to say, and say more honestly, about the allures of power and charisma in these kinds of situations. Desire isn’t only the preserve of professors; let’s not forget that students are agents too, and unequal power can be the basis of attraction. Meaning the situations that arise aren’t black and white—not melodramas, in other words (darkness vs. light is one of melodrama’s big motifs). But I actually had other targets in mind than who dates whom or this professor: I was writing about an academic culture that misunderstands power and magnifies students’ sense of vulnerability.
Nothing I’ve learned during this drawn-out process changes my mind about that culture: the effects of this style of thinking are disastrous, personally and intellectually, for students. The extravagant misreading of my original Chronicle essay, as detailed in the reports, convinces me of that more than anything.
[Note to commenters: Comments are moderated, as per the comments policy. See here.]
[Additional note to commenters: speculation as to the veracity of any of the parties involved in the cases under discussion, or about whether any of the relevant events under discussion took place, greatly increases the chances of your comment not being approved.]
What a mess. And what a slippery slope, from feminist provocateur to alleged retaliator.
I bet only very naive people would think university procedures cannot be improved. The school decided to take up the students complaints, correct? Title IX officers hear far more complaints than they pursue. That said, when you write about the joys of dating and bring up a rape accusation at the very start, you must see how the readers who knew you *must know* it was a rape allegation would get confused as to what in the world you were saying. Yes, this would be a very small percentage of readers, but I’d have to say it was an unmistakable implication for them. And then when you call all of the cases “melodrama” (in the original essay, that came right after the example where you only focused on Ludlow’s students) you can see how anyone would think the rape allegation was something you were weighing in on. To add that “dating is not rape” clarified the impression anyone who knew of the Ludlow cases would have gotten from your essay. Because you knew that there a rape allegation, and to just call that “dating” wouldn’t make sense to the MRA movement. And even with this new definition of melodrama, what you are saying about sexual harassment is still, forgive me, perfectly unclear.
And just in general– can someone lay out how they’d want due process for Title IX to work in contrast to criminal due process? Sometimes (and I’m not sure here) it can seem as if criticisms of “due process” have only criminal due process in mind.
Anonymous, the point is (as I see it) that even if you interpreted everything she wrote in the most uncharitable way possible (which a fair amount of people seemed to do), it still would not rise to the level of retaliation under Title IX — in fact, it wouldn’t even approach it. The attorneys involved came to the right decision but the fact that it was referred to them in the first place, and then took 72 days to complete, means something went profoundly wrong.
I find a lot of detail to complain about here. For example, if Kipnis is so concerned that the facts about the complaints were in dispute, why didn’t she correct the assumption that the relationship between Ludlow and the grad student was consensual right away? Why did the Chronicle have to do it almost a month later (and only after the complaints were filed)? But the main motivating issue that seems to divide people on the two sides seems to be this (as pointed out also by various people in the other thread): whether it is important that your relationship to person you have accused of raping you is presupposed to have been established as consensual and romantic. My sympathies are with those who regard this as important — not “small” and “insubstantial”. I have no doubt that these errors are the sort that are “corrected every day” in the New York Times. But in Kipnis’ case, it was not in fact corrected — again — until a month later, even though, as Kipnis herself notes, she was made aware of the problem after the Chronicle received the relevant emails. I don’t know how to reconcile differences with people who do not regard this assumption as important to avoid, especially given that Kipnis keeps thinking that this case indicates something important about faculty/student dating, that she keeps saying that she doesn’t want to judge Ludlow’s “dating” career, etc. — all of which assumes that it’s Ludlow’s dating career that anyone is complaining about. Whether this all amounts to something worthy of a Title IX complaint is not something I can judge, but the repeated claim that it’s a very small point that Ludlow’s relationship with the graduate student shouldn’t be just presupposed as romantic and consensual is bizarre to me. This is especially so since it is clearly one of Ludlow’s primary talking points in his lawsuit that there existed a romantic, consensual dating relationship. I feel bad even writing this, since I would imagine the graduate student is sick of people discussing the “relationship” at all.
DC: I agree it was not retaliation, I’m sorry if I was unclear myself. But it isn’t clear to me that the students who report to Title IX officers are ever asked to decide that. Schools request (and try to require) that complaints be taken to Title IX officers, no matter how minor. What Kipnis first wrote seems far more likely a libel issue, to me.
I’m just passing this along: Will Kipnis next explore the vast and misunderstood power that the lowest paid employees at corporations have against the suits, given that they can file EEO complaints? Who can we count on to overturn all those myths we so foolishly take to be true about power?
@Anonymous@5:
” whether it is important that your relationship to person you have accused of raping you is presupposed to have been established as consensual and romantic”
No, that’s not really characterizing the debate accurately; the question is whether accepting as fact a claim made by one party to the alleged relationship constitutes retaliation under Title IX. Nobody that I’ve seen has judged the existence or non-existence of the relationship as unimportant generally, but rather for the narrow purpose of constituting an element of retaliation under Title IX.
@Anonymous@6:
Well, I agree in this case you’re right, but I think as a general rule most people would agree that a student should at some level know what’s a legitimate complaint or not. To use a somewhat silly example, I don’t think any reasonable student would expect that they could file a Title IX complaint against a professor for sexual harassment, then file a second Title IX complaint against the same professor for retaliation for denying that harassment occurred. Yes, denying a charge could, in theory, dissuade others from coming forward in the future but no reasonable person of any age or experience should think that the second complaint was a reasonable one. Now obviously this current case is not like that, but I do think generally we can expect a minimum amount of critical evaluation on the part of the student for bringing their own charges. There seems to me to be a continuum of credibility of: (patently unreasonable to everyone)->(patently unreasonable to someone with more experience than a student)->(patently unreasonable to a Title IX coordinator)->(patently unreasonable to a practicing attorney). This wasn’t the first category, but was arguably the second, and definitely the third and fourth. In that regard I’ve changed my mind from thinking the students should have known that there was no reasonable basis for a Title IX investigation; I thought so before but as a lawyer I sometimes (unfairly) assume others know more about my field than I should legitimately expect. The fact that so many professional academics don’t seem to understand it changed my mind on that score.
You say you were raped. Chris, in a position that embodies power and authority in your organization, says you two were dating. Someone with similar power and authority in the organization writes an article in a nationally highly respected professional journal that complains about people like you who whine about sexual encounters with the powerful. She also uses Chris’s description.
As I understand it, this is retaliation if the writer’s actions would deter a reasonable person from making a similar complaint. Would it? That may depend on background knowledge. Can we assume that the reasonable person would recognize the overly familiar trope? What you thought was a horrific and life altering experience is treated like a locker room mistake. Honestly, it was just a shower. (Everyone gets this reference?). The adult gets to describe the situation.
Genuinely little kids often keep their mouths shut because, presumably, they don’t think they have any recourse, and if they do speak out they often are not believed. People in organizations often think they can just invoke the mechanisms of an organization, and they can secure some justice. But, as many people at the recent Hypatia/CSW conference were emphasizing, that’s not true. Complainers who go up against power can suffer still more injuries. A lot of people who have seen altogether too much of this sort of damage being done to very vulnerable people could see in Kipnis’s letter this agreement: “of course it was just a shower!”
To Anonymous (5): The answer to your question is very clearly stated in the post so it isn’t clear why you insisted that its absence is something to complain about. Please read the following paragraph from the OP:
“As to my refusing to correct those errors, this is simply wrong. I never refused, because I wasn’t aware of the errors until the Chronicle got emails from people speaking on behalf of “Anonymous.” Let me explain. I got hundreds of emails after the first Chronicle essay, and it took me weeks to read through them. Also, I have to confess that I simply don’t read emails from angry readers, as the ones to me on behalf of “Anonymous” looked to be.”
In explaining why she characterized the relationship between the student and the professor as “dating” Kipnis writes “the professor used the word “dating” to describe his relationship with a graduate student in his defamation suit; I thus used the word “dating” in my piece.” This seems to just admit that she accepted the uncorroborated characterization of the professor who was found guilty of harassment about the nature of the relationship between him and the student he was found to have harassed. That is a surprising choice and not good journalism. Kipnis also explains that she “wasn’t trying to speak to the precise nature of the relationship between the complainant and the professor—which was and is in contention—so much as trying to use the most innocuous word available to characterize the disputed situation.” But surely it is far from innocuous to just accept the characterization of the relationship based solely on the testimony of the man found guilty of sexual harassment. More innocuous, obviously, would have been to say that he claimed that they had dated. If Kipnis’s goal had been to provide the most innocuous words to characterize the situation, I think the latter surely would have been chosen.
Perhaps it is true that there was no retaliation here under the law, and that those well-versed in Title IX law could have seen this. But I doubt that when a student is coming forward to report a sexual assault, and is then told that retaliation is strictly prohibited, she takes to studying case law to find out exactly what this amounts to. I also take it that having your alleged rapist portrayed as one with whom you were in a dating relationship, where this clearly calls into question your credibility, does not at all seem like a “small, insubstantial factual error” when it is about you. When people reached out to Kipnis to point this out, the decent thing would have been to correct the record. We see that Title IX clearly cannot protect students from morally despicable behavior.
It is also worth noting that though Kipnis is trying to distance herself from the extent to which she relied on this particular case now, there is a clear reason it was included in the article in the first place: without it, where are all of these cases of the purported sexual paranoia she wants to draw our attention to? But if she corrected the record and let readers know that there was a professor on Northwestern’s campus found to have sexually harassed two different students, this would go a long way toward undermining her thesis that students are sexually paranoid. It was, then, clearly to Kipnis’s advantage to let the so-called “small, insubstantial factual errors” remain.
DC: Some people seem to reason the way you’re saying. But many seem to be taking the supposed unimportance or triviality of the errors as part of an argument that a Title IX complain wasn’t justified. Here are some of the relevant quotes:
Leiter: “which the complainant believes were significant and harmful, but which seem to Kipnis (and many other readers, myself included) minor and largely beside the point”
Andy Metz (on the previous thread): “Kipnis not presenting both… characterization(s) was careless”
Ligurio: “I am confused. Kipnis’ factual errors seem to be 1. she wrote ‘dated’ instead of ‘claims to have dated’ with respect to the graduate student… Is that right?”
nybearfan: “There is absolutely no evidence, real or imagined, of any tangible harm Kipnis’s article, errors and all, has or could plausibly have caused… And of course the errors themselves barely register as errors at all.”
If you can interpret these claims (and others like them) as really saying, “Kipnis’ errors were appalling and extremely important to correct, but still not grounds for a Title IX complaint because not retaliatory” then your adherence to the principle of charity is more robust than mine.
Anon33: other errors were corrected. This was the important one. The error was described in multiple public letters, in addition to the emails to the Chronicle. Given Kipnis’ continued references to Ludlow’s “dating life,” I reserve the right to be skeptical of Kipnis’ defense, here.
Prof. Kipnis, the students who filed complaints should apologize for filing frivolous complaints. I don’t expect that will happen.
The sad thing is that when frivolous claims are made (such as what happened with Prof. Kipnis), or false allegations (such as “Jackie” at UVa and Emma Sulkowicz at Columbia), it does nothing to help survivors of sexual crimes on campus — in fact, it may very well hurt.
Anonymous — If you are going to quote me, please quote the entire line, not “cherry pick” as you did here.
My apologies, Andy Metz. So you do think Kipnis’ errors were egregious and harmful, even though not quite of the sort to warrant a Title IX claim? It sounds like Kipnis should at least apologize, then.
Anonymous — You have COMPLETELY MISREPRESENTED what I said. Here is the full text:
“My observation is that Prof. Kipnis would have been better served had she not referenced a controversy at her school. I don’t say that because she lacks a First Amendment right to comment on the Ludlow case. It’s just that 1) people in her community would read it and could approach her words subjectively rather than objectively; and 2) administrators really hate it when their institutions are seen in the least bit of a negative or controversial light. That being said, I am hard-pressed to see anything so upsetting in either of her essays to warrant a Title IX investigation to begin with, let alone any sanctions (which, fortunately did not happen at this point). I have seen far more misrepresentations of things she wrote (as her opining in her second essay that she “didn’t know” if the graduate students’ essay in the Huffington Post hurting their job prospects) Kipnis threatened their job prospects) than examples in her essays that could be construed as upsetting.
My concern is that the actions Northwestern’s administration are going to lead to further controversies unless they start being more balanced here. I have no problems with the students filing the complaints (though it appears that only one really even had standing to do so). But, the complaints should have been dismissed based on their lack of merit.
Of more concern, though, is how Northwestern has been dealing with student protests over Ludlow and Kipnis. Having a protest is a protected speech. If students wanted to protest outside the classroom buildings where Ludlow and Kipnis teach, fine. But, if the protest was to happen in the classroom where an instructor is to teach, that protest becomes disruptive behavior and can be sanctioned — and should. The protesters should not have the right to deprive the students of the instruction that they have paid for. The fact that Northwestern did not prohibit — or really even discourage such behavior — is really troublesome.
I’d like to say that all’s well that ends well, but given the trouble that Prof. Kipnis was put through, that statement would not be true.”
I find taking quotes way out of context to be highly offensive. This happened too many times to Prof. Kipnis, as well as her defenders, such as myself.
You lied about what I said, Anonymous. I deserve an apology, though, based on your behavior here, I am not holding my breath.
This letter seems to confuse “Anonymous” who wrote the previous letter published here with the other student, who the emails Kipnis received were on behalf of. “Anonymous” said in their letter that they were not one of the women involved in the underlying situation.
The situation between Ludlow and the grad student is as far from clear as anything can get. So absolute statements that Kipnis was factually incorrect are on unsteady ground. It would have been much better in terms of journalistic practice for Kipnis to put in the “claimed to” from the start, but that still doesn’t clear up whether it was “inaccurate’ or, if so, how serious it was.
Even if we go all in and say that Kipnis was “factually inaccurate” in saying that the two once dated (despite us not knowing if that is the case), how does that constitute retaliation? A factual inaccuracy is not retaliation. Choosing to believe another version of contested events is not retalation. Kipnis never stated a conclusion over whether the graduate student had been sexually assaulted. (Contra the Anonymous letter a few days ago, it perfectly possible for a relationship to start as consensual and then become abusive, so even assuming a previous dating history does not rule out sexual harassment or assault). This whole mess has really only accomplished one thing: it has damaged Title IX by stretching it past any reasonable reading.
I share David Sobel’s reaction to this piece: total befuddlement as to how Kipnis could claim that she was following good journalistic (or moral!) practice. I did three years of J-School, and in my department, reporting a defendant’s descriptions as factual information would have been an instant F on an assignment. There is no question that is was bad journalism: I’m fairly confident that any journalism professor who has taught legal reporting will back me up on this one.
Imagine: LA TIMES, Sep 4, 1994: “Today, OJ Simpson was arrested for Murder. O.J., who did not even own a weapon or a pair of black gloves, and who loved his wife very much, will face his first court date in the new year.”
As to the moral question, this was a factual misrepresentation of the sort that triggers an instant exoneration in the minds of a huge number of people. There shouldn’t have been an IX investigation. But Kipnis deserves all the reprimands she’s getting, in particular for her extraordinary inability to see that a serious error in judgment was made.
@17 John
I don’t think she’s confusing them. Anonymous said that “multiple people” emailed Kipnis following the first article, and probably in support of Anonymous’s claim that the article was inaccurate. Sounds like a coordinated writing campaign, which is pretty par for the course when one thinks a mistake or injustice has happened.
“Let me explain why I didn’t say more about the case. The only account I had access to was the professor’s. Though all the information I drew on was in the public record, there was also a lot of private (and unverifiable) information about the graduate student’s life that I had no desire to comment on, or further circulate, even though the student wasn’t named. Once again, most of the facts and sexual allegations were—and are—in contention. To write about the complexities of that situation would have taken an article in itself, even if I’d been able to interview both parties involved, which I wasn’t. And I would have had to write both sides of the story, not one. But it also wasn’t my purpose to write a reported piece on this case; I was writing two paragraphs in an essay that took on many additional subjects.”
Dear author, I am not sure what to make of your writing. You mentioned and referred to a case that you actually didn’t want to talk about.(?!!) So why did you mention it at all in a piece that was already painfully long? Why did you choose the subjects that you chose if they didn’t serve to exemplify the culture of sexual paranoia on NU campus (or other campuses)?
” [..] a lot of private (and unverifiable) information about the graduate student’s life that I had no desire to comment on.” – I’m glad you have no desire to comment on it. Maybe you should even stop mentioning it as well. Or is finding out about graduate student’s life something that cultural critics do for fun?
I’ve just reread your first opinion piece in CHE. Almost all of your “subjects” are presented in less than a flattering light (from your oversensitive undergrads, to other cases made available to us by Google, to people who compose emails about Title IX, and people who play with change in their pockets). Complexities aside, the only person who is above and beyond this infant-like behaviour, the only one who can pierce through the melodrama with her Freudian lenses and see the depth (and reality?) of human relationships is yourself. I am not sure what your writing says about your ego- but in all honesty, I don’t want to know.
Andy Metz, that wasn’t the comment I was quoting from. I was quoting from this paragraph: “In the case of the graduate student, Kipnis not presenting both Ludlow’s characterization of the relationship and the graduate student’s was careless. But, it should also be pointed out that this careless was barely mentioned, and certainly had far less prominence than the discussion of the undergraduate’s case. Again, the university did not find that Ludlow had assaulted the graduate student, but had crossed the lines of what was appropriate between individuals of differing levels of power.” I don’t see how my quote constitutes a “lie” about what you said.
Anonymous — it was a lie because I never characterized it as egregious, and because the careless here was in terms of not taking enough care to be more specific.
You wanted to use part of my quote to make a point. You ended up misquoting me. This happened numerous times to Prof. Kipnis.
Shorter Kipnis: “I’m not guilty of retaliation! I’m guilty of massive journalistic malpractice that you MISTOOK for retaliation.”
“other facts are in contention: the professor used the word “dating” to describe his relationship with a graduate student in his defamation suit; I thus used the word “dating” in my piece. (…) [I was] trying to use the most innocuous word available to characterize the disputed situation.”
So, the facts are in contention. Among the facts in contention: whether or not the two were actually dating. It’s Ludlow’s contention the two dated, not the graduate student’s. Thus to use the term dating is for that piece of the article to endorse Ludlow’s version of what happened, something which is not innocuous in response to contention. Likewise it is contentious whether or not ‘they dated/they did not date’ is a minor matter or not.
That’s a smart reservation. Especially given her recent statement that “what is defined as assault or rape, the boundaries have really stretched and so that sexual episodes that might once have been considered ambivalent sex are now getting re-construed as assault.” That doesn’t sound like disinterest in talking about specific cases. That sounds like a claim that sexual assault, in what she thinks is a correct and non-overstretched definition of the term, did not occur. http://www.npr.org/2015/06/07/412633543/laura-kipnis-the-boundaries-of-assault-have-stretched
First, I find it very hard to believe that Kipnis thinks it’s innocuous to characterize a relationship between a person accused of sexual assault and the person accusing him of assault as a consensual romantic relationship (“dating”). Even if this is a point of contention between the parties in a lawsuit and even if it’s only briefly mentioned in her article, Kipnis should recognize this is a serious and potentially very harmful mistake. She should acknowledge that, take responsibility for her mistake, and do everything she can to correct it. It seems to me like she’s avoiding that issue rather than dealing with it.
Second, Kipnis accuses the complainants of misrepresenting their concerns. She claims that they weren’t really interested in correcting the factual mistakes she made. Is she implying they were abusing the Title IX process to punish and silence her? Does she provide any evidence of that? Kipnis suggests the investigators’ findings support her accusation, because the investigators say the complainants misinterpreted her article. Even if that were true, I don’t see how it would support Kipnis’ claim that the complainants were not primarily concerned about her factual errors. It seems to me they were concerned about the effects of her factual errors, which could be serious. And that doesn’t strike me as an unreasonable concern. (Whether a Title IX complaint is the appropriate way of addressing those concerns is a separate issue, but I don’t think it should be ruled out without an investigation).
I would like, along with Andy Metz (who I don’t know from Adam), to correct “Anonymous’” account of my comment on the original thread. I was simply asking a question. There was both a lot of criticism of Kipnis on other grounds and criticism of her factual inaccuracies. I was merely trying to make sure that I understood what all parties took these “factual” inaccuracies to be. You can believe me or not. I don’t really care. In any case, I now think there is no actual agreement even on these basic points of fact. No wonder why nobody answered my question.
Let me add, in response to Monica’s last, that it doesn’t correspond to the actual reaction large numbers of academics (including myself) had upon reading Kipnis’ piece. My response was in part “you go girl! ” and in part “holy shit she’s actually naming the thing!” I think that’s what a lot of people thought. I *know * that’s what a lot of my friends thought, and we disagree about all sorts of shit.
I think this might come down to the difference between people who think that University administrations and their procedures are ever the sort of thing that you can trust, and people who think that they are just not that sort of thing.
Ligurio, you thought “you go girl” and “she’s actually naming the thing” when she implied dating cannot involve rape? Or did you not know of the graduate student’s allegation against Ludlow? And are you also against complaints to the EEO generally or is it just complaints concerning Title IX to which you object?
Anonymous — I will not answer for Ligurio, but, as for myself, I am all for complaints, if the complaints are legitimate. These complaints amounted to finding fault with Kipnis that she dared talk about the Title IX process, and, in doing so, dared throw any doubts onto the charges brought by the students against Ludlow. Kipnis called out a process for which the only thing that counts is the seriousness of the charge, not the actual veracity of the charge itself. And, that does no one — including survivors of campus sexual assault — any good.
Ligurio, it’s not just about the trustworthiness of university administrations (though that’s clearly a problem here). It also comes down to people who think it’s okay to further damage a victim of alleged rape by intimating that her charges are false, and those who think there’s something deeply wrong with that. Or those who think that Kipnis should stick to her guns no matter what, and those who think a dose of humility and an apology might better befit a member of the faculty.
that quote still did nothing to dispel anonymous’ point that you found the errors in the article to be minuscule and unimportant, as opposed to genuinely problematic but not warranting a retaliation case.
@25:”‘Shorter Kipnis: “I’m not guilty of retaliation! I’m guilty of massive journalistic malpractice that you MISTOOK for retaliation.”
I agree she should have clarified that it was by Ludlow’s account rather than as a general statement of fact — I think Kipnis recognizes that at this point as well — but I also think people have really forgotten that it is not a piece of reporting but rather an opinion piece and Kipnis is not a journalist, and failing to clarify that one piece of information (which is not the main focus of the article) is based on the account of one person does not, in my opinion, constitute “massive journalistic malpractice” (and even if it did, “massive journalistic malpractice” is not the same thing as Title IX retaliation).
@29:”In any case, I now think there is no actual agreement even on these basic points of fact. No wonder why nobody answered my question”
It hasn’t been, though I think we should respect the student’s privacy; since I still think even if it was inaccurate it couldn’t constitute retaliation, there’s no need to ever determine whether it was true or not.
@31: “Ligurio, you thought “you go girl” and “she’s actually naming the thing” when she implied dating cannot involve rape?”
Is the anger over Kipnis’ essay really based on the completely inaccurate belief that she implied dating cannot involve rape? From a feminist scholar who has explicitly written in her academic work about how state recognizance of both marital rape and date rape was a hugely beneficial thing to women?
As I understand it, there were two charges of sexual assault against Ludlow. One was from an undergraduate, whom he allegedly fondled, and one was from a graduate student whom, according to her, he raped.
Above, Kipnis writes:
“I’ve been accused of conflating the two cases against Ludlow, that of the undergraduate and that of the graduate student. I didn’t. The undergrad’s case had been extensively written about and commented on; that was the case I chose to write about. As far as the graduate student, there were seven words about her in the essay: “a former grad student he previously dated”; this occurs when I list various parties the professor sued for defamation”
In her original piece, Kipnis wrote:
“The professor sued for defamation various colleagues, administrators, and a former grad student whom, according to his complaint, he had previously dated; a judge dismissed those suits this month. He sued local media outlets for using the word “rape” as a synonym for sexual assault—a complaint thrown out by a different judge who said rape was an accurate enough summary of the charges, even though the assault was confined to fondling, which the professor denies occurred…. What a mess. And what a slippery slope, from alleged fondler to rapist. ”
Perhaps the media outlets and the judge were allowing ‘rape’ to be used as a synonym exclusively for the first accusation rather than the second. And perhaps they should be questioned for doing this. But Ludlow was accused of rape, by anyone’s definition, by a person mentioned just above. For all I know, the media outlets and the judge may have been referring to this second case. If that’s the case, then Kipnis is clearly conflating the two cases so as to accuse the media and the judge as overreaching with their terms. If they were only referring to the first case, then I don’t see why mentioning the graduate student and her alleged relationship with Ludlow, whatever it may be, is relevant at all. People unaware of the second charge would be in no danger of conflating those cases, but anyone aware of them would have to read quite closely to avoid the impression that Kipnis was trying to dismiss the graduate student’s charge of rape by bringing up the alleged consensual relationship.
Anonymous — “It also comes down to people who think it’s okay to further damage a victim of alleged rape by intimating that her charges are false, and those who think there’s something deeply wrong with that.” Nothing like an ad hominem attack.
How about it comes down to those who believe in freedom of speech, and those who do not?
Kipnis has nothing to apologize for, though the students who filed the Title IX complaints certainly do.
As for you, Anonymous (not willing to back up opinions under your own name), your misquoting folks and using tortured analogies is not exactly helping the discussion here.
BTW, for those interested, from the Chronicle:
“Laura Kipnis, whose essay “Sexual Paranoia Strikes Academe” sparked two Title IX complaints against her, will be hosting a live Q&A on our Facebook page today at 2 p.m., Eastern time. Visit our page (and like us while you’re there!) this afternoon to submit questions for the hourlong chat.”
Academics in action –which I presume most of the commentators on this matter to be — can be quite an interesting lot to behold. Where else can you observe such intolerance parading as high minded moral sanctimony? Where else can you observe such an utter lack of intellectual seriousness and honesty being disguised as the very opposite of itself?It’s a spectacle worthy of the best propagandist. Just like the best propaganda it parades as rational discourse, when it’s really nothing of the kind.
Such unintended irony on display here. I say this because many of the critics of Kipnis actually lend unexpected weight to her central claim. Let’s just take one example. Several people upthread castigate Kipnis for making the “egregious and harmful” error of using the world ‘date’ in describing the relationship between Ludlow and his victim. No doubt a good journalist would have said ‘allegedly date” instead of the flat out ‘date.’ Maybe there is some standard by which that error counts as “egregious” but, frankly, as “harmful” go, this one seems to me, quite frankly, small potatoes.
Call me callously indifferent to the alleged victims alleged suffering, but even taken in the least charitable way possible, this supposedly egregious error seems to me to signify almost nothing. Contrary to Anonymous # 33 who says “It also comes down to people who think it’s okay to further damage a victim of alleged rape by intimating that her charges are false” — though by the way #33 if the rape is alleged shouldn’t the victim be alleged to? — the use that terribly damaging word ‘date’ does not tend to either prejudice the case against the alleged victim’s claim that she was raped by Ludlow nor to prejudice the case for that claim. Since we all know — don’t we — that a date can turn to rape in an instant. (My boyfriend raped me! But how could he since he was your boyfriend? Who doesn’t regard that as laughable argument these days?)
Isn’t what is at issue between Ludlow and his accuser the question whether he raped her not the question whether they dated each other? But if that’s the question at issue between them, what assignable “harm” has been done by the use of the word ‘date’ rather than the use of the phrase ‘allegedly date’. Call me obtuse, call me callous, but I frankly don’t get it. The alleged victim is harmed because …. because …. somebody with “power” wrote something that in no way prejudiced the issue in contention between herself and her adversary . that did what exactly …. piss her off? But why did it piss her off so much …. She felt she was being taken lightly, she felt rape was being taken lightly? Really?
How can you be so oblivious, I can hear someone saying. It’s the very thought– or at least the expression of the thought — that she might have actually been dating the perpetrator of the alleged rape did the damage. That sort of thought is intrinsically damaging? Don’t you see? After all, everybody knows that if you’ve been dating a guy, he can’t possibly have raped you. Nah, that can’t be it. No intellectually serious person believes that anymore, if they ever did. Do they?
Ah but you forget that it used to be enshrined in law in certain countries that a wife could not be raped by her husband, that consent once is consent always. Perhaps Kipnis was harkening back to such times and such places. Perhaps she is some sort of reactionary, that only parades as a feminist. Yeah, right! Exactly!
Seriously, when I try to see into the opaque mind set beneath the sanctimonious, intellectually dishonest “thinking” that drives the blather that’s been written about Kipnis, the best I can come up with is that she actually got elements of the mindset pretty much right. Students are being infantilized and denied agency by the current let’s call it representational culture on campus — a representational culture promoted by no doubt well meaning faculty and administrators who are out to protect them from power asymmetries. Not that she doesn’t appreciate the good intentions. But she sees unintended effects. Whether she’s right or wrong is worth serious debate — of which I have heard exactly zero.
Recall that her initial complaints weren’t really about Title IX itself — though she did poke fun at the fellow who conducted her sexual harassment training and did admit to being a naughty student during those sessions. Her complaints were “triggered” — to use another word she pokes fun at — by the much more recent wave of new codes, including, very recently, at her own campus, prohibiting consensual relationships between what are, after all, adults. Her central claim, as I recall, was that these new codes further infantilize students by representing them as having a sort of fragile and diminished agency. She thinks that by representing adult students as fragile and diminished in this way, we do them a disservice. We fail to prepare them for the messiness of life beyond the academy.
It’s certainly a debatable point. Not one that I necessarily agree with. I tend to want Universities to be safe places for students. And in safe places you do try to restrict forces that operate outside the safe place. Safe places are decidedly not the real world. They are not supposed to be.
But I’m willing to entertain the thought that maybe we’ve gone too far in constructing the safe place. And that’s what Kipnis was really asking us to do.
In intellectual fairness to her — which few of her critics bother with — (intellectual fairness being so last century, I guess) — she does seem to get a certain widely held view about student-professor relations more or less right. And the reaction to her claims sort of show that she’s gotten more or less right. Because right here on this thread students are being represented as so fragile, so vulnerable to the representational power of the almighty professor that they must be shielded from thoughts like the one’s Kipnis expressed. A mere passing thought of no central importance to her overall argument — that the alleged victim of a rape might have been dating her alleged rapist — becomes an assault, a piling on further violation, and an abuse of representational power.
I do not doubt that there could be a really interesting, intellectually serious discussion around the pro’s and cons of Kipnis’s ideas. That might actually be enlightening. But the sort of adolescent moral posturing backed by endlessly confused what I am tempted to call blather on the part of her critics isn’t that.
Anonymous (31) asks a rhetorical question, but in doing so seems to claim that Kipnis’s article “implied dating cannot involve rape.” Is that what you claim, Anonymous (31)?
DC (35) asks rhetorical questions in response. In case there is any doubt (no offense, DC, but misinterpretation is rife around here), let me state unequivocally that it is utterly false that Kipnis’s article implies that dating cannot involve rape.
Andy Metz, I just don’t see how the students found fault for Kipnis because “she dared talk about the Title IX process.” That is what Kipnis is just teasing that we *may find* to be the case, but the students themselves (and Kipnis above) report that the issue was over her use of rape allegations in a story about the benefits of professors and students dating. Seems like you are taking us back in time. (Furthermore, her first essay was not “about Title IX.” She admits in her second essay she didn’t even realize retaliation was a part of Title IX. She is admitting she know precious little about Title IX.)
And I worry that people who describe Title IX as requiring(? Involving?) “a process for which the only thing that counts is the seriousness of the charge, not the actual veracity of the charge itself,” need to provide some evidence for the claim and evidence that INCLUDES reference to the methods and merits of other EEO processes (they don’t differ much). Lawyers who handle these cases in and out of house would be a good resource. Otherwise, complaints like yours depend on Ludlow being innocent, don’t they?
Well said Seriously@39. This spectacle is like a performance-art project proving Kipnis’ argument.
Seems clear that it was a grave error to name the relationship in Ludlow’s terms. This is what the majority of comments thus far (here) have held, reasonably (it seems to me).
Does this constitute retaliation? I’m not a lawyer, but I think that Anne Jacobsen’s post (#8, above) needs to be pitted against justanotherprof’s (#19).
Jacobsen notes that (she understands that) it’s retaliation if a reasonable person would be deterred from filing a complaint b/c of the putative retaliatory behavior. So, would Kipnis’ article deter a reasonable person from filing a complaint? Jacobsen seems to say yes, since (by analogy) it’s kind of like how children are deterred from seeking recourse because seeking recourse is discouraged in a variety of ways. Set aside the unfortunate analogy to children (we don’t want to infantilize complainants; no doubt Jacobsen did not intend this, though). This seems plausible; those harmed see their possible complaints as being mistrusted all the time, and so are deterred. Kipnis’ article, though intended not to deter real complainants, probably does, given the situation we are in.*
Justanotherprof says “A factual inaccuracy is not retaliation. Choosing to believe another version of contested events is not retalation. Kipnis never stated a conclusion over whether the graduate student had been sexually assaulted.” But it seems to me that Just… has neglected to countenance Jacobsen’s point. Kipnis’ doing what she did inclines people not to believe future complainants OR disinclines some to complain. It’s unfortunate that this is so (again b/c Kipnis likely didn’t intend this), but it is. This, I believe, is the legacy of sexual injustice–that we are all in a very difficult position regarding how to navigate these waters as we try to improve.
Historically, reprehensible behavior has gone unpunished as well as unacknowledged. Hence it is understandable why some people trust complainants as their default and try to marshal the forces of University EEO offices. And sometimes they go too far. It is also understandable why others are poised to defend those accused (or poised to critique a culture of “infantilism” or some such); we don’t want to curb due process or simply go too far in our search for justice. Historically this too has led to some pretty nasty places. But sometimes these, also, go too far. Navigating a middle ground here is very, very hard. Still I think we need to keep trying, and keep debating. For the moment, however, it seems we need to keep momentum on the side of rooting out the injustice, since it’s so very easy to sweep under the rug and (continue to) ignore. Perhaps we should be cautious and restrain our momentum, but we should keep it up.
*-If Jacobsen and others (and myself) are correct that there is a debatable sense in which this was retaliation, does that mean Kipnis should be punished? I sincerely don’t know. While again I think she was callous and insensitive, I don’t think her retaliation (if indeed it was that) was intentional. (That is, not all cases of retaliation should be treated the same way.)
I dunno. If you can’t see how the semantic distinction between “Kipnis made an honest mistake in the use of the word “dating,” which has an implication that could obviously be harmful to the student, but does not warrant a retaliation case,” vs. “Kipnis’ errors were miniscule and unimportant, and someone claiming to be raped overreacted in a shameful way,” is problematic in a really important way, then I fail to see how you could even remotely understand why this serious error (due to its implication) is problematic for some people.
@39 let’s not be indifferent to the alleged people’s alleged suffering.
Jon Trerise,
Isn’t it a problem that Anne Jacobsen’s argument works by eliding the difference between reasonable persons and children? The whole point about “children” is that they’re *not* held to be “reasonable persons” in the legal and (often) philosophical sense of the phrase. I mean, this is why children can’t *rationally* consent to sexual acts for Chrissakes. That we are now analogizing the behavior of children to gauge the behavior of reasonable persons shows how far off the rails we’ve come.
What is the “implication that could be harmful to the student?” You think there’s a background presupposition that if x and y are dating, then x cannot rape y? How backward of you
Anonymous#33,
You write that “It also comes down to people who think it’s okay to further damage a victim of alleged rape by intimating that her charges are false, and those who think there’s something deeply wrong with that.” I have two questions for you in response.
1. Do you believe that the word “dating” intimates that “her charges are false”?
2. Why?
Still waiting for “Seriously?” and his/her ilk to tell me that my Journalism profs were all completely out to lunch and that there is nothing wrong with reporting a defendant’s disputed description of a case as fact. They appear to have a very special insight into journalistic ethics that highly-trained, practicing and teaching journalists do not have. Extraordinary.
There is, I think, a serious failure to consider the distinction between what we, in our enlightened moments, know is true and what people in general are disposed to think. A jury, or people in general, are probably less likely to think that a rape occurred in the context of an ongoing consensual romantic relationship. That this is actually false is *not* what matters with respect to journalistic ethics.
I’d love for legal experts to weigh in on the following scenario. You’re the prosecutor for this kind of case. You’re engaged in the process of jury-selection. A potential juror takes the stand and opines: “They were dating. I know they were dating.” Would you admit this juror? Would any sane judge regard this potential juror as unbiased? If a legal expert weighs in here and answers these questions in the positive, then I hereby retract all of my claims.
Then again, perhaps this deference of mine–to journalism profs on matters of journalistic ethics, and to legal experts on matters of courtroom bias–is probably just a product of my own infantilization. Some kind of inability to think FOR MYSELF. Waaaaaah!
Ligurio, see Try Harder above. No one thinks you cannot be raped when dating. No one thinks Kipnis thinks that.
People think Kipnis was talking about Ludlow’s dating life. If you remember Kipnis talking about her tweets being monitored, one that included “dating is not rape” was taken, by those who knew about the rape allegations hidden in the original Chronicle piece, to mean that Kipnis was denying *the grad student was engaging in anything about melodrama over “ambiguous” sex.* Otherwise why would she not say “I am talking about the benefits of dating in this article, and when I bring up a rape allegation and call it “dating,” I do not mean to be suggesting Ludlow is one of those “non-harassers” around which I frame this long essay.” (And this is to assume the grad was dating Ludlow!)
@48:
“”Still waiting for “Seriously?” and his/her ilk to tell me that my Journalism profs were all completely out to lunch and that there is nothing wrong with reporting a defendant’s disputed description of a case as fact.”
I don’t know if qualify as his/her “ilk” or not, but I’ll give this a shot: I don’t think most people defending Kipnis are arguing that there is “nothing wrong” with failing to qualify her statement about dating, but rather that we don’t find convincing the argument that it was so massively egregious, or that characterization casts doubt on any of the student’s claims. Do you seriously think that whether they were dating or not impacts her claims? Do you really think the readership of the Chronicle of Higher Education are going to assume that it couldn’t have been rape if they are in a relationship? And I don’t think “disputed description” is accurate; “potentially disputed description” probably is more appropriate. And finally, as I’ve mentioned before, Kipnis is not a journalist; she is an academic who wrote an opinion piece. She was not trying to report on these events; she was using them as an example of what she thought might be symptomatic of them. I really don’t understand how some of our criticisms of an ideology that sees Title IX as a tool to govern public debate is constantly construed as an absolute defense on moral or ethical grounds of everything Kipnis wrote.
“I’d love for legal experts to weigh in on the following scenario. You’re the prosecutor for this kind of case. You’re engaged in the process of jury-selection. A potential juror takes the stand and opines: “They were dating. I know they were dating.” Would you admit this juror? Would any sane judge regard this potential juror as unbiased? If a legal expert weighs in here and answers these questions in the positive, then I hereby retract all of my claims.”
I don’t know if I qualify as a “legal expert” or not, but as a lawyer I’ll give this one a shot, too: your analogy is not really apt. Kipnis is not a juror and is not being called on by the court system to decide facts. A judge can exclude a biased juror, but that juror is allowed to go out and write an opinion piece saying she knew they were dating. That’s what we’re all up in arms about. Not that Kipnis was criticized or attacked, but rather this frightening belief that Title IX provides those who disagree with what you wrote to have you possibly punished under an incredibly overbroad definition of “retaliation.”
Anonymous — The actual quote was: “Kipnis called out a process for which the only thing that counts is the seriousness of the charge, not the actual veracity of the charge itself.” The proof is this: The president of Northwestern was quoted as saying that because the students had complained, the university had no choice — no discretion — but to investigation. It did not matter that case on its face (Kipnis was retaliating against the students — that strains credulity!) was frivolous — an investigation had to move forward. So, truth did not matter here, only the charge.
And, no, complaints like mine do not depend on Ludlow being innocent. I do not know if he is innocent. I know that the whatever wrongs both the undergraduate and graduate students have suffered were allegedly caused by him, not Kipnis.
BTW, one unintended (I presume) outcome of all this is that a week ago, even after reading both of Kipnis’ Chronicle pieces, I had no idea who the graduate student was in all this mess. Now, because of all the coverage and comments and tweets, it is clear who that person is. I won’t identify because 1) there is a possibility (obviously likely not provable given prior investigations) her allegation against Ludlow is true; and 2) I really don’t want to go through a Title IX investigation for “retaliation.”