humanrefutation wrote:I have not been paying attention to the details in the Cephus story other than the original reporting which did not at all paint a flattering portrait of him or Danny Davis, so I won't make any judgments on him or his actions. But I do know that women have been sexually harassed and assaulted by prominent UW athletes without consequence on more than one occasion, and were afraid to come forward because they knew the chances of prosecution were slim (as these cases are very hard to prove) and they didn't want to face backlash from campus as a whole.
There are no winners in these situations. Cephus was acquitted, but that does not mean he was innocent. The only people who know that for sure are Cephus and the young women he was with.
Rebecca Blank, having seen the tremendous backlash against MSU/Baylor and other universities that covered up sexual assaults, decided to err on the side of expelling Cephus on the front end instead of letting the process play out. Was that the right decision? If I was in that position, I would have pulled him off the football team but let him continue his studies until due process ran its course, and then acted. But it's a very tough choice for anyone in that position, and credit to the administration, they did the only thing they legally could in this situation, which was to reinstate him. Otherwise, Cephus would have likely litigated this issue and UW very well could have lost (with damages).
I am inclined to believe that it is in the best interest of Cephus to transfer elsewhere and get a fresh start, but that is his call.
Pretty much 100% with you except it's not even necessarily an athletics thing with suspension/expulsion.
Suspending him from football takes the national spotlight away (mostly)...as you say, this is a hard thing to do and there are no winners but the school is also forced for its own reputation and potential other forms of litigation to keep its students safe. It sucks in cases like this if we are to believe that Cephus was innocent for sure as his life was **** up from this, but generally I'd say you maybe have to expel the student or at least suspend from school pending the trial.
Say there's another case where the man was guilty in the court of law or at the very least it was an OJ thing...everyone knows he was. Now imagine that student allowed to walk your campus and attend classes for 1-2 years during trial. Hell, imagine if that student committed another alleged rape while allowed to be on campus.
It's a no-win situation because someone that may be completely innocent may be expelled/life messed with on the flipside of my above example with false accusations. The whole thing sucks. Men have to be better on the whole but there's always the false accusation. However, it's a college campus and people hook up. You just hope to see as few of these as possible while also holding men accountable as much as possible.
