Woman admits false rape claim

Rebecca Howard of Prince of Wales Terrace, Deal, pleaded guilty to a charge of wasting police time for a false claim of rapem she made in February.

At that time, Howard reported that she had been abducted by two men and taken to Walmer where one of them raped her. Acting Detective Inspector Matt Banks said: "This allegation caused heightened concern within the Deal community and involved considerable time and resources to investigate.  Kent Police is [sic] totally committed to the investigation of rape and we take every allegation seriously.  It takes considerable bravery for a rape victim to come forward to report a crime and we will always sensitively and thoroughly investigate all reported rapes. Our priority is always the victim. Therefore, it is extremely disappointing when rape is reported and it is established that the victim has in fact lied.



No mention was made of the possible consequences to any men who might have fit the description she gave. Howard has been bailed until September 15th for pre-sentencing reports.



Link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-14595656

Alleged False Rape Reported

DUBOIS, CLEARFIELD COUNTY - State Police report charges are pending for a 17 year old girl accused of filing a false report to police.



She was checked at DuBois Regional Medical Center and reports say the 17 year old allegedly lied about being raped.



Link: http://wearecentralpa.com/wtaj-news-fulltext/?nxd_id=300697

Woman admits false rape claim

Rebecca Howard of Prince of Wales Terrace, Deal, pleaded guilty to a charge of wasting police time for a false claim of rapem she made in February.

At that time, Howard reported that she had been abducted by two men and taken to Walmer where one of them raped her. Acting Detective Inspector Matt Banks said: "This allegation caused heightened concern within the Deal community and involved considerable time and resources to investigate.  Kent Police is [sic] totally committed to the investigation of rape and we take every allegation seriously.  It takes considerable bravery for a rape victim to come forward to report a crime and we will always sensitively and thoroughly investigate all reported rapes. Our priority is always the victim. Therefore, it is extremely disappointing when rape is reported and it is established that the victim has in fact lied.



No mention was made of the possible consequences to any men who might have fit the description she gave. Howard has been bailed until September 15th for pre-sentencing reports.



Link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-14595656

Alleged False Rape Reported

DUBOIS, CLEARFIELD COUNTY - State Police report charges are pending for a 17 year old girl accused of filing a false report to police.



She was checked at DuBois Regional Medical Center and reports say the 17 year old allegedly lied about being raped.



Link: http://wearecentralpa.com/wtaj-news-fulltext/?nxd_id=300697

Another astute piece on why the preponderance of the evidence is unjust for college rape cases

Great article by Adam Kissel: Standing Up for Due Process on Campus = "Sticking Up for Penises Everywhere?"



Excerpt: "We're talking about expelling people for one of the most heinous crimes and quite possibly ruining the rest of their lives. We'd better be darn sure before we do that to somebody by branding them as a rapist."



Again, why is this not even part of the public discourse among the people who rammed the "Dear Colleague" letter down the throats of America's colleges?



And see our latest here: http://goldenstatesociety.blogspot.com/2011/08/college-men-at-risk-morally-grotesque.html

Another astute piece on why the preponderance of the evidence is unjust for college rape cases

Great article by Adam Kissel: Standing Up for Due Process on Campus = "Sticking Up for Penises Everywhere?"



Excerpt: "We're talking about expelling people for one of the most heinous crimes and quite possibly ruining the rest of their lives. We'd better be darn sure before we do that to somebody by branding them as a rapist."



Again, why is this not even part of the public discourse among the people who rammed the "Dear Colleague" letter down the throats of America's colleges?



And see our latest here: http://goldenstatesociety.blogspot.com/2011/08/college-men-at-risk-morally-grotesque.html

College men at risk: A morally grotesque defense of the new preponderance of the evidence standard at the University of Virginia

The University of Virginia Cavalier Daily applauds the university's new "preponderance of the evidence" standard dictated by the Department of Education's April 4 "Dear Colleague" letter, and has some advice to men to avoid false rape claims:



"This addresses a glaring shortcoming in the current policy, which fails to acknowledge that few cases of rape or sexual assault feature 'clear and convincing' facts. 'The self doubt and confusion a survivor feels after experiencing an assault combined with a lack of knowledge of what to do and where to go in the hours after an assault makes hard evidence difficult to come by in some cases,' Andrea Mousouris, a fourth-year College student and external chair of the Sexual Assault Leadership Council, said in an email. 'For example, date rape drugs leave the system relatively quickly, so if you do not go to the hospital soon after, all evidence is lost.' Although some might claim that this standard is too harsh, there are simple ways for individuals to avoid compromising situations that could lead to false accusations of sexual misconduct. Drinking responsibly at parties and respecting personal boundaries when communicating digitally, for example, would be a good start." (Emphasis added.) http://www.cavalierdaily.com/2011/08/24/exemplary-conduct/



As with all the discussions lately touting and defending the new "preponderance of the evidence" standard of proof, there is an almost breathtaking, and willful, ignorance about the potential harm to men accused of sexual assault they didn't commit. It is perplexing in the extreme that there is no discussion whatsoever of the delicate and critical balance between the need to punish the guilty and the need to insure that the innocent are not punished with them. Only the former interest is deemed socially important; the latter is treated as non-existent.  Yet it is that balance that is at the heart of all serious and mature discussions about how to combat rape.



Some very troubling trends I am seeing in the discussions defending this "preponderance of the evidence" policy:



First, there is an almost religious-like fervor to insist that it is too difficult to punish sexual assault perpetrators under a "clear and convincing" standard.  I am mystified by this. It is, or should be, more difficult to convict under a clear and convincing standard, but it is by no means impossible. Rapists are routinely convicted in criminal courts under the "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard, which is higher than the "clear and convincing" evidence standard, and there is no basis to believe it has become unduly burdensome to punish the guilty on campus using a "clear and convincing" evidence standard.



Second, and even more disturbing, is the implication that since it is allegedly difficult to prove rape under a "clear and convincing" standard, then the solution is to adopt a policy that will make it much easier to punish not just the guilty but even the innocent.



The Cavalier Daily suggests that the absence of hard evidence in many rape claims justifies the lower standard. The Cavalier Daily has it backwards. The absence of hard evidence to prove any crime is a sound reason to be wary about convicting men accused of it, not a valid justification to make it easier to convict the innocent with the guilty.  This point is so terribly fundamental and beyond dispute that it has been lost in the cacophony.



As Cynthia Bell recently pointed out: rape should be tough to prove, because the higher standard of proof protects the innocent. As Ms. Bell explained: "Lowering the burden of proof in these cases puts more college students at risk of being wrongly found guilty and having their reputations permanently damaged. How many innocents does OCR want to see mistakenly expelled as rapists in the name of getting tough on crime?" 



By insisting that the accusation should be afforded a weight just about equal to the defense, we are tossing Blackstone's formulation onto a scrapheap of politicized indifference. This reverses a policy that has been settled since the time of Abraham, as chronicled in Book of Genesis. When God was deciding what to do about the evil in Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham put the question to him: "Are you really going to sweep away the innocent with the guilty?" After repeated probing by Abraham, God made it clear he would not destroy the guilty if it meant destroying the innocent with them.



Third, we are allowing to be done to men what we say should not be done to women: victim blaming.  Read what the Cavalier Daily says men should do to avoid false rape claims: ". . . there are simple ways for individuals to avoid compromising situations that could lead to false accusations of sexual misconduct. Drinking responsibly at parties and respecting personal boundaries when communicating digitally, for example, would be a good start."



Imagine the outcry if a college newspaper said "there are simple ways for women to avoid compromising situations that could lead to rape."  While safety precautions directed to both men and women are, in fact, appropriate, in the politicized rape milieu, it is now officially politically correct to urge males to be cautious in their behavior while telling females they can party to unconsciousness.



What is lost in the entire discourse is any recognition that these are complicated, serious issues that are ill-served by shrill pandering to powerful interest groups. Basing a public policy on the desire to punish the guilty without protecting the innocent is not just childish and mean-spirited, it is morally grotesque.

College men at risk: A morally grotesque defense of the new preponderance of the evidence standard at the University of Virginia

The University of Virginia Cavalier Daily applauds the university's new "preponderance of the evidence" standard dictated by the Department of Education's April 4 "Dear Colleague" letter, and has some advice to men to avoid false rape claims:



"This addresses a glaring shortcoming in the current policy, which fails to acknowledge that few cases of rape or sexual assault feature 'clear and convincing' facts. 'The self doubt and confusion a survivor feels after experiencing an assault combined with a lack of knowledge of what to do and where to go in the hours after an assault makes hard evidence difficult to come by in some cases,' Andrea Mousouris, a fourth-year College student and external chair of the Sexual Assault Leadership Council, said in an email. 'For example, date rape drugs leave the system relatively quickly, so if you do not go to the hospital soon after, all evidence is lost.' Although some might claim that this standard is too harsh, there are simple ways for individuals to avoid compromising situations that could lead to false accusations of sexual misconduct. Drinking responsibly at parties and respecting personal boundaries when communicating digitally, for example, would be a good start." (Emphasis added.) http://www.cavalierdaily.com/2011/08/24/exemplary-conduct/



As with all the discussions lately touting and defending the new "preponderance of the evidence" standard of proof, there is an almost breathtaking, and willful, ignorance about the potential harm to men accused of sexual assault they didn't commit. It is perplexing in the extreme that there is no discussion whatsoever of the delicate and critical balance between the need to punish the guilty and the need to insure that the innocent are not punished with them. Only the former interest is deemed socially important; the latter is treated as non-existent.  Yet it is that balance that is at the heart of all serious and mature discussions about how to combat rape.



Some very troubling trends I am seeing in the discussions defending this "preponderance of the evidence" policy:



First, there is an almost religious-like fervor to insist that it is too difficult to punish sexual assault perpetrators under a "clear and convincing" standard.  I am mystified by this. It is, or should be, more difficult to convict under a clear and convincing standard, but it is by no means impossible. Rapists are routinely convicted in criminal courts under the "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard, which is higher than the "clear and convincing" evidence standard, and there is no basis to believe it has become unduly burdensome to punish the guilty on campus using a "clear and convincing" evidence standard.



Second, and even more disturbing, is the implication that since it is allegedly difficult to prove rape under a "clear and convincing" standard, then the solution is to adopt a policy that will make it much easier to punish not just the guilty but even the innocent.



The Cavalier Daily suggests that the absence of hard evidence in many rape claims justifies the lower standard. The Cavalier Daily has it backwards. The absence of hard evidence to prove any crime is a sound reason to be wary about convicting men accused of it, not a valid justification to make it easier to convict the innocent with the guilty.  This point is so terribly fundamental and beyond dispute that it has been lost in the cacophony.



As Cynthia Bell recently pointed out: rape should be tough to prove, because the higher standard of proof protects the innocent. As Ms. Bell explained: "Lowering the burden of proof in these cases puts more college students at risk of being wrongly found guilty and having their reputations permanently damaged. How many innocents does OCR want to see mistakenly expelled as rapists in the name of getting tough on crime?" 



By insisting that the accusation should be afforded a weight just about equal to the defense, we are tossing Blackstone's formulation onto a scrapheap of politicized indifference. This reverses a policy that has been settled since the time of Abraham, as chronicled in Book of Genesis. When God was deciding what to do about the evil in Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham put the question to him: "Are you really going to sweep away the innocent with the guilty?" After repeated probing by Abraham, God made it clear he would not destroy the guilty if it meant destroying the innocent with them.



Third, we are allowing to be done to men what we say should not be done to women: victim blaming.  Read what the Cavalier Daily says men should do to avoid false rape claims: ". . . there are simple ways for individuals to avoid compromising situations that could lead to false accusations of sexual misconduct. Drinking responsibly at parties and respecting personal boundaries when communicating digitally, for example, would be a good start."



Imagine the outcry if a college newspaper said "there are simple ways for women to avoid compromising situations that could lead to rape."  While safety precautions directed to both men and women are, in fact, appropriate, in the politicized rape milieu, it is now officially politically correct to urge males to be cautious in their behavior while telling females they can party to unconsciousness.



What is lost in the entire discourse is any recognition that these are complicated, serious issues that are ill-served by shrill pandering to powerful interest groups. Basing a public policy on the desire to punish the guilty without protecting the innocent is not just childish and mean-spirited, it is morally grotesque.

UPDATED: Federal suit: Male student claims Sewanee: The University of the South rushed to judgment on rape charges against him; shocker--Brett Sokolow testifies for HIM

An unnamed male ex-student of  Sewanee: The University of the South, is suing the Episcopal-affiliated university in southeastern Tennessee for breach of contract and negligence because, he asserts, the university harmed his reputation and career prospects by violating its own rules in response to a sexual assault allegation against him in the fall 2008 semester.  The suit alleges a classic rush to judgment by the school against the male student that sounds typical of many others that we've chronicled on this site. If the evidence supports the male student's version of what happened, he was guilty by reason of accusation alone.  The suit seeks $1 million in compensatory damages. If the jury decides there are punitive damages the amount will be determined in a second deliberation.



We can't make a prediction about what the jury will do because that will depend on the evidence being presented at the trial. But if you want to know how badly the school behaved in this case, this one fact might just tell the whole story: Brett Sokolow, the architect of the nationwide crackdown to make it easier to expel young men accused of sex crimes (dare we say, even the innocent) -- that Brett Sokolow -- testified on behalf of the male student in this case. Read that again. It is true. We just wrote about Mr. Sokolow earlier this week (see here).



Defense counsel asked Sokolow for his opinion on how Sewanee handled Doe's case. 'The university did not satisfy the standard of care,' Sokolow responded."  



It marks the first time Sokolow has ever testified on behalf of a male student. That's how badly the school behaved.



The unnamed plaintiff was an out-of-state freshman when he and the female student had some sort of sexual contact in his dorm room about 1 a.m. on Aug. 30, 2008. She then left about 7 a.m., walked to an emergency phone and called university police.  Records show that when officers arrived she told them she had been raped and they took her to a hospital. The case was never taken to the district attorney.



According to one newspaper:



"On Aug. 29, 2008, Doe and an 18-year-old female freshman had sexual intercourse in his dorm room, according to court documents. The woman, identified as A.B., stayed for a few hours after the act, left about 7 a.m. and called police to report she had been raped by Doe.



"In court, Wayne [attorney for the male student called "John Doe" at trial] laid out the timeline of events Doe faced.



"On Sept. 16, 2008, A.B. [the accuser] met with Sewanee Dean Eric Hartman, who handles student disciplinary actions. A.B. related her memory of the alleged rape and made a written statement detailing the incident.



"Based on her statement, Hartman categorized the allegation as rape and contacted faculty to begin an investigation.



"Two days later, Hartman spoke with Doe, informing him that he had been charged with violating the school's sexual harassment and assault policy and that there would be a hearing by the faculty committee the following day.



"Wayne told jurors that Hartman told Doe to bring a character witness and talk with his faculty-appointed advocate before the committee meeting. Doe also was told that he would not be allowed into the proceedings except for when he was called to testify, Wayne said.



"Doe said Hartman asked for a written statement and advised Doe to say he was too drunk to know what was going on the night of the incident and that he is sorry.



"The committee met the next day and, within a few hours, found Doe guilty and told him he had two days to leave campus.



"Hartman told Doe to 'destroy' all related materials and that appealing the decision could increase his punishment and possibly cause A.B. to pursue criminal charges, Wayne told the jury. Doe's options, according to Hartman, were to leave school for one semester, reapply for admission with the incident remaining on his student record or withdraw for a year and reapply for the next fall with a clean record.



"Doe left campus and decided on the one-year option, but later decided not to return. In June 2009, he and his parents, identified as James and Mary Doe, filed the lawsuit."



For those of us steeped in the writings of Blackstone, Marshall, Holmes, Brandeis, and Cardozo, this, of course, does not resemble anything remotely approaching justice.  We shall see how the evidence plays out.



UPDATE: 8/30/11 -- a story not available when we wrote the above is found here: http://timesfreepress.com/news/2011/aug/31/sewanee-defense-expects-to-finish-today/ -- highlights: "Sokolow characterized the university's hearing process as unfair." And: "Sokolow said the school should have given Doe more time to mount a defense, called medical experts for more information and handed over evidence that could have helped Doe before the hearing." In contrast, the university's expert said: "I believe the one-day notice satisfies the university's standard."  Really? Some standard.  Read this next part -- according to the university's expert: ". . . the university followed the standard methods of such hearings and that the hearings do not rise to the level of scrutiny in a criminal trial. 'This is a disciplinary proceeding, an education opportunity.'"



Yes -- an "education opportunity" that can destroy a young man's life. Colleges would do well to spend more time insuring their hearing processes are fair than in dreaming up ways to gussy up injustice as something noble.



SOURCES:



http://timesfreepress.com/news/2011/aug/24/sewanee-lawsuit-trial-begins/



http://www.chron.com/news/article/Ex-college-student-suing-over-dorm-rape-accusation-2137410.php



http://www.chattanoogan.com/articles/article_207561.asp



http://www.tennessean.com/article/20110825/NEWS03/308240098/Ex-college-student-suing-over-dorm-rape-accusation

UPDATED: Federal suit: Male student claims Sewanee: The University of the South rushed to judgment on rape charges against him; shocker--Brett Sokolow testifies for HIM

An unnamed male ex-student of  Sewanee: The University of the South, is suing the Episcopal-affiliated university in southeastern Tennessee for breach of contract and negligence because, he asserts, the university harmed his reputation and career prospects by violating its own rules in response to a sexual assault allegation against him in the fall 2008 semester.  The suit alleges a classic rush to judgment by the school against the male student that sounds typical of many others that we've chronicled on this site. If the evidence supports the male student's version of what happened, he was guilty by reason of accusation alone.  The suit seeks $1 million in compensatory damages. If the jury decides there are punitive damages the amount will be determined in a second deliberation.



We can't make a prediction about what the jury will do because that will depend on the evidence being presented at the trial. But if you want to know how badly the school behaved in this case, this one fact might just tell the whole story: Brett Sokolow, the architect of the nationwide crackdown to make it easier to expel young men accused of sex crimes (dare we say, even the innocent) -- that Brett Sokolow -- testified on behalf of the male student in this case. Read that again. It is true. We just wrote about Mr. Sokolow earlier this week (see here).



Defense counsel asked Sokolow for his opinion on how Sewanee handled Doe's case. 'The university did not satisfy the standard of care,' Sokolow responded."  



It marks the first time Sokolow has ever testified on behalf of a male student. That's how badly the school behaved.



The unnamed plaintiff was an out-of-state freshman when he and the female student had some sort of sexual contact in his dorm room about 1 a.m. on Aug. 30, 2008. She then left about 7 a.m., walked to an emergency phone and called university police.  Records show that when officers arrived she told them she had been raped and they took her to a hospital. The case was never taken to the district attorney.



According to one newspaper:



"On Aug. 29, 2008, Doe and an 18-year-old female freshman had sexual intercourse in his dorm room, according to court documents. The woman, identified as A.B., stayed for a few hours after the act, left about 7 a.m. and called police to report she had been raped by Doe.



"In court, Wayne [attorney for the male student called "John Doe" at trial] laid out the timeline of events Doe faced.



"On Sept. 16, 2008, A.B. [the accuser] met with Sewanee Dean Eric Hartman, who handles student disciplinary actions. A.B. related her memory of the alleged rape and made a written statement detailing the incident.



"Based on her statement, Hartman categorized the allegation as rape and contacted faculty to begin an investigation.



"Two days later, Hartman spoke with Doe, informing him that he had been charged with violating the school's sexual harassment and assault policy and that there would be a hearing by the faculty committee the following day.



"Wayne told jurors that Hartman told Doe to bring a character witness and talk with his faculty-appointed advocate before the committee meeting. Doe also was told that he would not be allowed into the proceedings except for when he was called to testify, Wayne said.



"Doe said Hartman asked for a written statement and advised Doe to say he was too drunk to know what was going on the night of the incident and that he is sorry.



"The committee met the next day and, within a few hours, found Doe guilty and told him he had two days to leave campus.



"Hartman told Doe to 'destroy' all related materials and that appealing the decision could increase his punishment and possibly cause A.B. to pursue criminal charges, Wayne told the jury. Doe's options, according to Hartman, were to leave school for one semester, reapply for admission with the incident remaining on his student record or withdraw for a year and reapply for the next fall with a clean record.



"Doe left campus and decided on the one-year option, but later decided not to return. In June 2009, he and his parents, identified as James and Mary Doe, filed the lawsuit."



For those of us steeped in the writings of Blackstone, Marshall, Holmes, Brandeis, and Cardozo, this, of course, does not resemble anything remotely approaching justice.  We shall see how the evidence plays out.



UPDATE: 8/30/11 -- a story not available when we wrote the above is found here: http://timesfreepress.com/news/2011/aug/31/sewanee-defense-expects-to-finish-today/ -- highlights: "Sokolow characterized the university's hearing process as unfair." And: "Sokolow said the school should have given Doe more time to mount a defense, called medical experts for more information and handed over evidence that could have helped Doe before the hearing." In contrast, the university's expert said: "I believe the one-day notice satisfies the university's standard."  Really? Some standard.  Read this next part -- according to the university's expert: ". . . the university followed the standard methods of such hearings and that the hearings do not rise to the level of scrutiny in a criminal trial. 'This is a disciplinary proceeding, an education opportunity.'"



Yes -- an "education opportunity" that can destroy a young man's life. Colleges would do well to spend more time insuring their hearing processes are fair than in dreaming up ways to gussy up injustice as something noble.



SOURCES:



http://timesfreepress.com/news/2011/aug/24/sewanee-lawsuit-trial-begins/



http://www.chron.com/news/article/Ex-college-student-suing-over-dorm-rape-accusation-2137410.php



http://www.chattanoogan.com/articles/article_207561.asp



http://www.tennessean.com/article/20110825/NEWS03/308240098/Ex-college-student-suing-over-dorm-rape-accusation

The Rope Bridge: A Parable for College Men (Who Do Not Commit Sexual Assault)

You're hiking near the village of Husaini in Pakistan and you come up to the Borith Lake. The only way across is a rickety old rope bridge.  It doesn't look strong enough to hold you, and you're having some serious doubts about this. 

You look to your guide, who's had lots and lots of experience with rope bridges.  He tells you with both a smile and the utmost sincerity, "I'd give it a better than even chance that you'll make it across."

"Better than even chance" you think!  "So there's -- what? -- a 49 percent chance that I won't make it across?!!"

I'd say that's more than a little doubt; that's substantial doubt.

Are you going across that bridge? 

Let me answer it for you: not a chance in hell. I know you -- you don't take risks that huge about important matters.

___________________

Well, young man, the Obama administration, for one, is willing to take a risk with you, about something pretty damn important, too. It is willing to let you be expelled from school -- and have your future forever marred -- if you are found responsible for committing sexual assault, even though you didn't do it, and even if they have substantial doubt about whether you did it. 

Read that last part again. It's not hyperbole.

If you've been hiding under a rock since last spring, or playing too many video games, or studying female anatomy a little too intently on the Internet, you may not know that the Obama administration changed the law last April 4 for colleges: if you are accused of sexual assault while attending college, even if you are factually innocent, the school needs to find only a slightly better than 50% likelihood that you did it in order to expel you. Good luck getting into a good school, much less going to grad school, if that happens.

You see, when it comes to your life, they have no problem taking a substantial risk that the school might just get it wrong. They're willing to let you go plummeting into that river just so they can be sure they are catching all the real bad guys. You are collateral damage in their more important war on rape.



Don't take my word on it. Read about it here.

The Rope Bridge: A Parable for College Men (Who Do Not Commit Sexual Assault)

You're hiking near the village of Husaini in Pakistan and you come up to the Borith Lake. The only way across is a rickety old rope bridge.  It doesn't look strong enough to hold you, and you're having some serious doubts about this. 

You look to your guide, who's had lots and lots of experience with rope bridges.  He tells you with both a smile and the utmost sincerity, "I'd give it a better than even chance that you'll make it across."

"Better than even chance" you think!  "So there's -- what? -- a 49 percent chance that I won't make it across?!!"

I'd say that's more than a little doubt; that's substantial doubt.

Are you going across that bridge? 

Let me answer it for you: not a chance in hell. I know you -- you don't take risks that huge about important matters.

___________________

Well, young man, the Obama administration, for one, is willing to take a risk with you, about something pretty damn important, too. It is willing to let you be expelled from school -- and have your future forever marred -- if you are found responsible for committing sexual assault, even though you didn't do it, and even if they have substantial doubt about whether you did it. 

Read that last part again. It's not hyperbole.

If you've been hiding under a rock since last spring, or playing too many video games, or studying female anatomy a little too intently on the Internet, you may not know that the Obama administration changed the law last April 4 for colleges: if you are accused of sexual assault while attending college, even if you are factually innocent, the school needs to find only a slightly better than 50% likelihood that you did it in order to expel you. Good luck getting into a good school, much less going to grad school, if that happens.

You see, when it comes to your life, they have no problem taking a substantial risk that the school might just get it wrong. They're willing to let you go plummeting into that river just so they can be sure they are catching all the real bad guys. You are collateral damage in their more important war on rape.



Don't take my word on it. Read about it here.

'Dear Colleague' letter was promulgated in secret, and is not just

On Sexual Harassment and Title IX by Robert Smith

'Dear Colleague' letter was promulgated in secret, and is not just

On Sexual Harassment and Title IX by Robert Smith

Atrocity: Surgeon went to prison after his accuser and her boyfriend lied on the stand

In 2007, Labeed Nouri, then-36-years-old, had a wife and four children and a thriving medical practice as an orthopedic surgeon in Michigan. He was vice president of the church council at St. Toma Syriac Catholic Church where he worshipped. A Chaldean who had emigrated from Iraq in 2003, Dr. Nouri often treated other Chaldeans in his tight-knit community.



In late May 2007, one of Dr. Nouri's Chaldean patients asked Nouri if he would hire his 19-year-old daughter. Dr. Nouri and his wife, Rouwaida Nouri, who managed his medical practice, agreed to hire the young woman for two days a week to help with filing in their medical office.



On June 22, 2007, on just her sixth day of work, the young woman alleged that sometime between 7:15 and 7:23 p.m., Dr. Nouri sexually assaulted her with his hand in an exam room. How was the young woman sure of the time? She said she noticed the times on clocks in the office and in her car when she left. At 7:33 p.m., she called her boyfriend in a parking lot 2 miles from the office, and told him she had been assaulted. 



The woman's parents took her to police and to a hospital. She refused to allow a rape exam, saying she was a virgin and such an exam would "un-virginize me," records show.



Records eventually obtained by the defense showed that Dr. Nouri was in his office from 7:06 to 7:27 p.m., continuously dictating over the phone to a medical dictation firm.



Charges were brought against Dr. Nouri. If convicted, he would likely serve many years in prison. The accuser and her boyfriend testified at trial. Defense lawyers tried to show that the young woman had concocted the story because she had been sexually active and was trying to cover up her loss of virginity. The woman was from a conservative Chaldean Catholic family, and virginity is highly prized in their faith. 



The woman and her boyfriend repeatedly claimed on the witness stand that she was a virgin, a central issue in the case.



Initially, the jury was hung, with jurors twice asking to review the accuser's testimony. On July 2, 2008, they found Nouri guilty.



After the verdict, Dr. Nouri's defense counsel asked jurors how they thought Dr. Nouri could have been dictating over the phone at the same time his accuser claimed he had been assaulting her. Jurors said that since they couldn't reconcile the time line, they chose to disregard it. "They said they then just decided to go by their gut," said Dr. Nouri's defense counsel.



Dr. Nouri was sentenced to 10 to 20 years in prison for sexual assault convictions .



While Dr. Nouri was incarcerated, he was repeatedly assaulted by fellow prisoners. His nose was broken and his teeth were cracked. He was hospitalized for three days and received stitches to his face, according to a federal lawsuit filed against Oakland County. (Oakland County corporation counsel Keith Lerminiaux acknowledged that Nouri had been assaulted in the jail but said he was the aggressor in one of the attacks.)



One day in late 2010, while Dr. Nouri sat in a prison cell, his accuser's boyfriend spotted Dr. Nouri's wife and four children and was suddenly overcome with guilt.  It turns out the young man had lied about his sexual history with the accuser and wanted to make amends.  The young man went to Dr. Nouri's attorney and admitted that he and the accuser had been sexually active for months leading up to the allegation and that they lied on the witness stand.



Dr. Nouri's attorney asked the man to secretly record conversations with the accuser. The man met with her in March, and while recording their conversation, he told her he was worried private investigators were looking into the perjury. The accuser, according to the attorney and prosecutors who have heard the recording, admitted she lied on the stand but instructed the man to keep denying it if he's questioned.  She told him that if authorities discover credit card receipts showing she was at local motels, she will say she lent the card to a friend. She also discussed feigning a mental breakdown so she would be hospitalized, a tactic she says she hoped would discourage a continued investigation.



By this time, Dr. Nouri had served more than three years behind bars. Prosecutors, noting Nouri had been convicted, offered him a deal: If he pleaded no contest to a low-level misdemeanor assault -- with no probation-reporting requirements and no restrictions on obtaining his medical license -- he could be free within hours and get it expunged after five years. It took Nouri, who was sitting in a prison cell at the Kinross Correctional Facility in the Upper Peninsula, two days to agree. "I'm thinking, 'No, I didn't do anything,' " he recalled. "But then I think, 'I take this and I can see my kids in a day or two.' I hadn't seen them in three years. I took it."  The choice was really no choice at all: "Which one would you choose? Be in jail for something you didn't do or go immediately?" Nouri said. "We will fight the very minor misdemeanor." Dr. Nouri was removed from the sex offender registry.



Now, another lie has surfaced. When Dr.Nouri was sentenced to prison in April 2010, the judge read a letter signed by his accuser's priest.  "A young girl has had her youth stolen," the letter read. "I have told her to forgive Labeed Nouri. She has forgiven him, but she needs closure on this terrible ordeal. ... It is time to grant her wish of getting her justice and put Labeed Nouri in jail where he deserves to be."



It turns out the pastor denies writing the letter. "I have never written any letter," Kejbou told a Detroit newspaper. "Anybody can forge a signature."



Dr. Nouri's accuser, who continues to maintain she was sexually assaulted, has become a licensed practical nurse. She is not named in the newspaper accounts because she has not been charged with a crime.



And now, Dr. Nouri is on a mission: he's trying to get his accuser charged with perjury. "She took three years from me," he said. "I can never get them back. My youngest daughter was a baby when I went away. I never saw her first step, heard her say her first word. It's my turn for justice." 



Oakland County Prosecutor Jessica Cooper, who dropped felony charges against Nouri and sought his release from prison when she learned of the perjury, said she is awaiting police reports before deciding whether to file any charges against the woman. "We moved heaven and earth to get him out immediately when we learned of this," Cooper said.



SOURCES:

http://www.freep.com/article/20110829/NEWS03/108290349/Doctor-jailed-3-years-wants-charges-sex-assault-accuser



http://www.clickondetroit.com/news/29017638/detail.html 

Atrocity: Surgeon went to prison after his accuser and her boyfriend lied on the stand

In 2007, Labeed Nouri, then-36-years-old, had a wife and four children and a thriving medical practice as an orthopedic surgeon in Michigan. He was vice president of the church council at St. Toma Syriac Catholic Church where he worshipped. A Chaldean who had emigrated from Iraq in 2003, Dr. Nouri often treated other Chaldeans in his tight-knit community.



In late May 2007, one of Dr. Nouri's Chaldean patients asked Nouri if he would hire his 19-year-old daughter. Dr. Nouri and his wife, Rouwaida Nouri, who managed his medical practice, agreed to hire the young woman for two days a week to help with filing in their medical office.



On June 22, 2007, on just her sixth day of work, the young woman alleged that sometime between 7:15 and 7:23 p.m., Dr. Nouri sexually assaulted her with his hand in an exam room. How was the young woman sure of the time? She said she noticed the times on clocks in the office and in her car when she left. At 7:33 p.m., she called her boyfriend in a parking lot 2 miles from the office, and told him she had been assaulted. 



The woman's parents took her to police and to a hospital. She refused to allow a rape exam, saying she was a virgin and such an exam would "un-virginize me," records show.



Records eventually obtained by the defense showed that Dr. Nouri was in his office from 7:06 to 7:27 p.m., continuously dictating over the phone to a medical dictation firm.



Charges were brought against Dr. Nouri. If convicted, he would likely serve many years in prison. The accuser and her boyfriend testified at trial. Defense lawyers tried to show that the young woman had concocted the story because she had been sexually active and was trying to cover up her loss of virginity. The woman was from a conservative Chaldean Catholic family, and virginity is highly prized in their faith. 



The woman and her boyfriend repeatedly claimed on the witness stand that she was a virgin, a central issue in the case.



Initially, the jury was hung, with jurors twice asking to review the accuser's testimony. On July 2, 2008, they found Nouri guilty.



After the verdict, Dr. Nouri's defense counsel asked jurors how they thought Dr. Nouri could have been dictating over the phone at the same time his accuser claimed he had been assaulting her. Jurors said that since they couldn't reconcile the time line, they chose to disregard it. "They said they then just decided to go by their gut," said Dr. Nouri's defense counsel.



Dr. Nouri was sentenced to 10 to 20 years in prison for sexual assault convictions .



While Dr. Nouri was incarcerated, he was repeatedly assaulted by fellow prisoners. His nose was broken and his teeth were cracked. He was hospitalized for three days and received stitches to his face, according to a federal lawsuit filed against Oakland County. (Oakland County corporation counsel Keith Lerminiaux acknowledged that Nouri had been assaulted in the jail but said he was the aggressor in one of the attacks.)



One day in late 2010, while Dr. Nouri sat in a prison cell, his accuser's boyfriend spotted Dr. Nouri's wife and four children and was suddenly overcome with guilt.  It turns out the young man had lied about his sexual history with the accuser and wanted to make amends.  The young man went to Dr. Nouri's attorney and admitted that he and the accuser had been sexually active for months leading up to the allegation and that they lied on the witness stand.



Dr. Nouri's attorney asked the man to secretly record conversations with the accuser. The man met with her in March, and while recording their conversation, he told her he was worried private investigators were looking into the perjury. The accuser, according to the attorney and prosecutors who have heard the recording, admitted she lied on the stand but instructed the man to keep denying it if he's questioned.  She told him that if authorities discover credit card receipts showing she was at local motels, she will say she lent the card to a friend. She also discussed feigning a mental breakdown so she would be hospitalized, a tactic she says she hoped would discourage a continued investigation.



By this time, Dr. Nouri had served more than three years behind bars. Prosecutors, noting Nouri had been convicted, offered him a deal: If he pleaded no contest to a low-level misdemeanor assault -- with no probation-reporting requirements and no restrictions on obtaining his medical license -- he could be free within hours and get it expunged after five years. It took Nouri, who was sitting in a prison cell at the Kinross Correctional Facility in the Upper Peninsula, two days to agree. "I'm thinking, 'No, I didn't do anything,' " he recalled. "But then I think, 'I take this and I can see my kids in a day or two.' I hadn't seen them in three years. I took it."  The choice was really no choice at all: "Which one would you choose? Be in jail for something you didn't do or go immediately?" Nouri said. "We will fight the very minor misdemeanor." Dr. Nouri was removed from the sex offender registry.



Now, another lie has surfaced. When Dr.Nouri was sentenced to prison in April 2010, the judge read a letter signed by his accuser's priest.  "A young girl has had her youth stolen," the letter read. "I have told her to forgive Labeed Nouri. She has forgiven him, but she needs closure on this terrible ordeal. ... It is time to grant her wish of getting her justice and put Labeed Nouri in jail where he deserves to be."



It turns out the pastor denies writing the letter. "I have never written any letter," Kejbou told a Detroit newspaper. "Anybody can forge a signature."



Dr. Nouri's accuser, who continues to maintain she was sexually assaulted, has become a licensed practical nurse. She is not named in the newspaper accounts because she has not been charged with a crime.



And now, Dr. Nouri is on a mission: he's trying to get his accuser charged with perjury. "She took three years from me," he said. "I can never get them back. My youngest daughter was a baby when I went away. I never saw her first step, heard her say her first word. It's my turn for justice." 



Oakland County Prosecutor Jessica Cooper, who dropped felony charges against Nouri and sought his release from prison when she learned of the perjury, said she is awaiting police reports before deciding whether to file any charges against the woman. "We moved heaven and earth to get him out immediately when we learned of this," Cooper said.



SOURCES:

http://www.freep.com/article/20110829/NEWS03/108290349/Doctor-jailed-3-years-wants-charges-sex-assault-accuser



http://www.clickondetroit.com/news/29017638/detail.html 

Former prosecutor Scott Turow gives Cyrus Vance passing grade on handling of DSK matter

Excerpt: " . . . the standard that Vance and his assistants employed in deciding to dismiss the case is noteworthy and laudable. "If we do not believe her beyond a reasonable doubt," the prosecution wrote in its motion to dismiss, referring to Diallo, 'we cannot ask a jury to do so.' This is not the bar all prosecutors set in deciding whether or not to go forward. Ethical rules prohibit lawyers from calling a witness whose testimony they know to be false; but the rule is not the same when the testimony is possibly true but dubious. Particularly in urban criminal courts, where caseloads tend to be overwhelming and the police sometimes push cases aggressively, prosecutors are often not convinced beyond a reasonable doubt about the truthfulness of particular testimony. Frequently they leave it to jurors to determine the credibility of a particular witness. In trying to talk prosecutors out of weak cases, I have been told more than once, "I wasn't there, man, and neither were you. Let the 12 of them figure it out."



"In practice, this means that even defendants who are probably innocent must endure the anguish of trial. I once represented a young man in a gang murder case who had been arrested and indicted along with eight other people, even though his name was never mentioned in the grand jury testimony. Although it seemed clear that the police had mistaken this young man for his brother, both the prosecutors and the judge told me to 'put it on,' meaning go to trial; the client sat in court for several days, in jeopardy of a lengthy prison term, before the case against him was finally dismissed."



Source: http://234next.com/csp/cms/sites/Next/Home/5740322-182/reasonable_doubt_and_the_strauss-kahn_case.csp

Former prosecutor Scott Turow gives Cyrus Vance passing grade on handling of DSK matter

Excerpt: " . . . the standard that Vance and his assistants employed in deciding to dismiss the case is noteworthy and laudable. "If we do not believe her beyond a reasonable doubt," the prosecution wrote in its motion to dismiss, referring to Diallo, 'we cannot ask a jury to do so.' This is not the bar all prosecutors set in deciding whether or not to go forward. Ethical rules prohibit lawyers from calling a witness whose testimony they know to be false; but the rule is not the same when the testimony is possibly true but dubious. Particularly in urban criminal courts, where caseloads tend to be overwhelming and the police sometimes push cases aggressively, prosecutors are often not convinced beyond a reasonable doubt about the truthfulness of particular testimony. Frequently they leave it to jurors to determine the credibility of a particular witness. In trying to talk prosecutors out of weak cases, I have been told more than once, "I wasn't there, man, and neither were you. Let the 12 of them figure it out."



"In practice, this means that even defendants who are probably innocent must endure the anguish of trial. I once represented a young man in a gang murder case who had been arrested and indicted along with eight other people, even though his name was never mentioned in the grand jury testimony. Although it seemed clear that the police had mistaken this young man for his brother, both the prosecutors and the judge told me to 'put it on,' meaning go to trial; the client sat in court for several days, in jeopardy of a lengthy prison term, before the case against him was finally dismissed."



Source: http://234next.com/csp/cms/sites/Next/Home/5740322-182/reasonable_doubt_and_the_strauss-kahn_case.csp

A malicious mother with an axe to grind

Contentious divorces, where children are involved, tend to contain false accusations. The following is exactly that situation. The interesting part? The ex-wife has been given a jail sentence, even if it really isn't much of a punishment. And from the information supplied, she still has custody of their daughters.



Lauren Lippe, according to Judge Robert Ross, is "a vengeful roadblock, the barbed wire standing in the way of her two daughters and their desperate dad."



While this may be something more appropriate to the Fathers & Families site, she also falsely accused the father of molesting one of the girls.



Lippe is known to engage in tirades against Ted Rubin (her ex) in front of the girls calling him a “deadbeat,” “loser,” “scumbag” and “f – - – ing asshole.”, and according to Judge Ross, would deliberately plan last minute trips and events when Ted was scheduled to visit the girls. While it is contentious, this seems to be a clear cut case of Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS).



If Rubin protested, Lippe would berate him mercilessly. Court documents say that she once blared at him, “We all hope you die from cancer,” with both daughters in her arms.



When describing the hell he had gone through, including missing out on Hanukkah with his children, Lippe was smirking in court. The worst part, according to Ross, was "the crescendo of the plaintiff's conduct" which included false accusations of sexual abuse.



In 2008, Lippe charged that Rubin had fondled the breasts of one of his daughters. She later admitted she knew nothing had occurred.\



Judge Ross wrote in his decision, handed down last week, “The evidence before me demonstrates a pattern of willful and calculated violations of the clear and express dictates of the parties’ Stipulation of Settlement.”



He was also a little upset that she had punished the children for wanting to spend time with their dad.



The sentence, while at least is an on record punishment, really amounts to a slap on the wrist. She has to spend six weekends in jail, but it will be served on the first and third weekends in June, July and August. The sentence has been stayed pending appeal.



Please pay special attention to the next part: Rubin is expected to take care of the children while Lippe is on lockdown.



Notice that he was not given custody, even with all of the garbage this sorry excuse for a mother has pulled. Someone is going to have to explain to me why she deserves anything other than supervised visitation, with him having primary and physical custody.



Kieth Rieger, Lippe's lawyer, criticized the decision. “It’s extremely unusual, and in this case, it’s inappropriate,” Rieger said. “He chose to believe the husband and not her. Of course, she’s upset, but she’s also worried about her children. She’s worried that if she goes to jail how it will affect the children.”



Do you think, Mr. Rieger, she should have given that some consideration before she made false accusations, and interfered with Mr. Ruben's visitation?



Rubin, 52, a marketing executive, declined to comment, but has sounded off about his dilemma on his Internet blog: “Spending time with my girls is something I put before all else,” Rubin wrote last year. “They are teenagers now and being a divorced dad, it can be challenging to continue to reach out, put them first, and maintain this in the face of their occasional lack of interest and the roadblocks so easily put in place by their mom.”



Link: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/an_ex_to_grind_xg3281rUxt068tCFzX1skL#ixzz0qbptzKUU

A malicious mother with an axe to grind

Contentious divorces, where children are involved, tend to contain false accusations. The following is exactly that situation. The interesting part? The ex-wife has been given a jail sentence, even if it really isn't much of a punishment. And from the information supplied, she still has custody of their daughters.



Lauren Lippe, according to Judge Robert Ross, is "a vengeful roadblock, the barbed wire standing in the way of her two daughters and their desperate dad."



While this may be something more appropriate to the Fathers & Families site, she also falsely accused the father of molesting one of the girls.



Lippe is known to engage in tirades against Ted Rubin (her ex) in front of the girls calling him a “deadbeat,” “loser,” “scumbag” and “f – - – ing asshole.”, and according to Judge Ross, would deliberately plan last minute trips and events when Ted was scheduled to visit the girls. While it is contentious, this seems to be a clear cut case of Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS).



If Rubin protested, Lippe would berate him mercilessly. Court documents say that she once blared at him, “We all hope you die from cancer,” with both daughters in her arms.



When describing the hell he had gone through, including missing out on Hanukkah with his children, Lippe was smirking in court. The worst part, according to Ross, was "the crescendo of the plaintiff's conduct" which included false accusations of sexual abuse.



In 2008, Lippe charged that Rubin had fondled the breasts of one of his daughters. She later admitted she knew nothing had occurred.\



Judge Ross wrote in his decision, handed down last week, “The evidence before me demonstrates a pattern of willful and calculated violations of the clear and express dictates of the parties’ Stipulation of Settlement.”



He was also a little upset that she had punished the children for wanting to spend time with their dad.



The sentence, while at least is an on record punishment, really amounts to a slap on the wrist. She has to spend six weekends in jail, but it will be served on the first and third weekends in June, July and August. The sentence has been stayed pending appeal.



Please pay special attention to the next part: Rubin is expected to take care of the children while Lippe is on lockdown.



Notice that he was not given custody, even with all of the garbage this sorry excuse for a mother has pulled. Someone is going to have to explain to me why she deserves anything other than supervised visitation, with him having primary and physical custody.



Kieth Rieger, Lippe's lawyer, criticized the decision. “It’s extremely unusual, and in this case, it’s inappropriate,” Rieger said. “He chose to believe the husband and not her. Of course, she’s upset, but she’s also worried about her children. She’s worried that if she goes to jail how it will affect the children.”



Do you think, Mr. Rieger, she should have given that some consideration before she made false accusations, and interfered with Mr. Ruben's visitation?



Rubin, 52, a marketing executive, declined to comment, but has sounded off about his dilemma on his Internet blog: “Spending time with my girls is something I put before all else,” Rubin wrote last year. “They are teenagers now and being a divorced dad, it can be challenging to continue to reach out, put them first, and maintain this in the face of their occasional lack of interest and the roadblocks so easily put in place by their mom.”



Link: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/an_ex_to_grind_xg3281rUxt068tCFzX1skL#ixzz0qbptzKUU

The moral basis for an extensive state

A recent post focused on the conception of society involved in seventeenth and eighteenth English political thinking, the theory of possessive individualism.  The post suggested that this conception has a lot of resonance with the ideas and rhetoric of the Tea Party today.  I've also posted a number of discussions of the social ideals of John Rawls (link, link), expressing a liberal democratic view of the good society.  These posts remind me how important it is to have some fairly specific ideas about how we would want society to be organized in the future, so we can also have some ideas about current reforms that might take us in that direction.  And today we don't seem to have a lot of clarity about this kind of vision, especially on the progressive side of the political spectrum.

The ideal that seems to lie behind the conservative Tea Party political philosophy is simple but alarming:

1. Citizens should have maximum possible liberties of activity and use of property.
2. Citizens have no positive obligations to other citizens, beyond those associated with respecting liberties and property rights.
3. The state exists only to secure the liberties and security of citizens; this means the state needs to have funds to provide for national defense, enforcement of property rights, and maintenance of public order.
4. The state has no legitimate basis for creating more extensive regulations on the exercise of liberty and property (FDA, EPA, regulation of banks, …).  Such regulations represent an unjustified interference with the exercise of private property rights.
5. The state has no legitimate basis for using tax moneys to provide a social safety net (unemployment payments, welfare payments, food and housing subsidies, …).  Such transfer programs represent an unjustified system of redistribution of wealth and income that violates the property rights of anyone who is taxed more extensively than a fair share of the costs of providing for national defense and maintenance of public order.

This political philosophy is familiar from Robert Nozick's Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974).  At the time Nozick's vision was considered extreme from a philosophical point of view; it took to a logical limit the very limited assumptions about individual rights that were a part of the Lockean tradition of political philosophy, and arrived at what was then a very startling set of conclusions about the limits on legitimate state action.  Nozick referred to this conception as the "minimal state".  Nozick's philosophy expressed a form of libertarian conservativism, with no inclination towards the "social values" of more recent conservatism.

If this political philosophy were to be enacted through legislation, it would imply a number of things: abolition of mandatory social security, abolition of regulatory agencies like EPA and FDA, abolition of unemployment benefits and poverty-based welfare programs, and dramatic reduction of taxes on the affluent.  This is a vision of the minimal state with a vengeance; and it seems rather familiar from much of the rhetoric offered by Tea Party activists and Republican presidential candidates alike.

We could spend time thinking about the deficiencies of this political philosophy from a number of points of view.  Here my interest is different; I'd like to consider what components might go into a political philosophy that expresses a moral justification for the more extensive state that a great many Americans would want to have. First, what are the institutional arrangements that might be considered?

A strong alternative to the minimal state is the Nordic model -- essentially the political and economic system associated with Scandinavian democracies in the 1960s through the 1980s.  Here is an interesting monograph on the economic and social characteristics of the Nordic model: The Nordic Model: Embracing globalization and sharing risks (Torben M. Andersen, Bengt Holmström, Seppo Honkapohja, Sixten Korkman, Hans Tson Söderström, Juhana Vartiainen; published by the Research Institute of the Finnish Economy); link.  The authors describe the key economic and social commitments of the Nordic model in these terms:

• a comprehensive welfare state with an emphasis on transfers to households and publicly provided social services financed by taxes, which are high notably for wage income and consumption;
• a lot of public and/or private spending on investment in human capital, including child care and education as well as research and development (R&D);
• and a set of labour market institutions that include strong labour unions and employer associations, significant elements of wage coordination, relatively generous unemployment benefits and a prominent role for active labour market policies. (13)

A key goal of the study is to assess the economic performance of the Nordic model over the past fifty years.  The study's summary conclusion is very favorable: contrary to anti-tax, anti-government ideology, the Nordic economies have performed very well.

The Nordic countries have, according to many indicators, succeeded relatively well in fulfilling their social ambitions. Recently, this has been combined with a satisfactory economic performance in terms of employment and productivity levels as well as growth of GDP per capita. Also, the macroeconomic balance is good and public finances are strong. There is indeed a Nordic success story in the sense of a favourable combination of economic efficiency and social equality. 

True, the Nordics went through a period of low productivity growth in the 1970s (like most other OECD countries) as well as a major financial and macroeconomic crisis with very high unemployment rates and large fiscal imbalances in the early 1990s (somewhat earlier and less dramatically in the case of Denmark). But even so, the Nordics have more or less managed to keep up with the US in terms of PPP-adjusted GDP over the last 25–30 years, which is more than can be said of most other EU15 countries. The longterm performance is mainly recorded as a high rate of total factor productivity growth. This indicates that technical progress, notably in the area of information and communication technology (IT), has played in important role in growth. More importantly, it also shows that the Nordics – contrary to popular belief – demonstrate a high degree of economic flexibility and capacity of structural change. The macroeconomic crises have helped the process by inducing growth-enhancing changes in structural policies (and, for a while, through the improvements of competitiveness caused by large depreciations in the early 1990s). (15)

These are social and economic arrangements that establish an active state, a state with broad responsibilities to the welfare of its citizens, and a state that calls upon a significant fraction of the wealth of society to do its work.  What are the moral principles that might underly such a conception of a good society?  Here are a few axioms that seem to be worth considering within such a political philosophy.

1. Society is a system of interdependency and mutual benefit for all citizens. Everyone benefits from being part of a just society.
2. The moral situation of individuals in society includes several important components:
1. Individuals within society have rights, liberties, and needs for personal security.
2. Individuals have obligations to each other to help prevent hardship and to facilitate full human development. These obligations derive from at least two sources: (a) the benefits we all enjoy as a result of social cooperation in a functioning society; and (b) the moral recognition we have of the equal human worth and dignity of fellow citizens.
3. Individuals within society have universal needs to facilitate their full human development and functioning, including education, health care, housing, and adequate nutrition.
3. Certain core functions for the state follow from these moral ideas:
1. The state is obligated to create a system of law that protects the rights, liberties, and security needs of all citizens.
2. The state is obligated to serve as one of the important vehicles through which our positive obligations to other citizens are honored. 
1. The state needs to ensure that all citizens have access to education, healthcare, and the essentials of life.
2. The state needs to provide a safety net for citizens whose earnings within the market economy leave them unable to provide for a decent standard of living.
3. The state is obligated to protect the public from the harmful effects of private activities, including regulations concerning health and safety, conditions of labor, and environmental harms.
4. A handful of moral constraints surround the policies and laws the state may adopt:
1. The state is authorized to collect taxes to efficiently perform its functions of protecting rights, securing welfare, and regulating harmful activities.
2. The state is obligated to be procedurally just and economically efficient in its administration of public programs.
3. The policies and laws of the state need to be adopted through a democratic process in which all citizens have equal voice.

This formulation highlights a cluster of values that can potentially gain wide support within a democracy: the equal worth of all individuals, the importance of liberty, the importance of a range of social obligations all citizens have to each other, and the idea that the state needs to be articulated in such a way as to embody these moral ideas.

If the theory of the minimal state owes much of its content to John Locke, the more extensive state described here owes much of its moral rationale to Jean-Jacques Rousseau.  Rousseau brought the moral perspective of the "individual within community" into the foundations of political philosophy.  Josh Cohen's Rousseau: A Free Community of Equals provides an excellent discussion of Rousseau's political theory; link.

(Gosta Esping-Andersen has studied the politics and policies of social democracies through a lifetime of writing. Especially important are The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism and Politics Against Markets: The Social Democratic Road to Power.)

The moral basis for an extensive state

A recent post focused on the conception of society involved in seventeenth and eighteenth English political thinking, the theory of possessive individualism.  The post suggested that this conception has a lot of resonance with the ideas and rhetoric of the Tea Party today.  I've also posted a number of discussions of the social ideals of John Rawls (link, link), expressing a liberal democratic view of the good society.  These posts remind me how important it is to have some fairly specific ideas about how we would want society to be organized in the future, so we can also have some ideas about current reforms that might take us in that direction.  And today we don't seem to have a lot of clarity about this kind of vision, especially on the progressive side of the political spectrum.

The ideal that seems to lie behind the conservative Tea Party political philosophy is simple but alarming:

1. Citizens should have maximum possible liberties of activity and use of property.
2. Citizens have no positive obligations to other citizens, beyond those associated with respecting liberties and property rights.
3. The state exists only to secure the liberties and security of citizens; this means the state needs to have funds to provide for national defense, enforcement of property rights, and maintenance of public order.
4. The state has no legitimate basis for creating more extensive regulations on the exercise of liberty and property (FDA, EPA, regulation of banks, …).  Such regulations represent an unjustified interference with the exercise of private property rights.
5. The state has no legitimate basis for using tax moneys to provide a social safety net (unemployment payments, welfare payments, food and housing subsidies, …).  Such transfer programs represent an unjustified system of redistribution of wealth and income that violates the property rights of anyone who is taxed more extensively than a fair share of the costs of providing for national defense and maintenance of public order.

This political philosophy is familiar from Robert Nozick's Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974).  At the time Nozick's vision was considered extreme from a philosophical point of view; it took to a logical limit the very limited assumptions about individual rights that were a part of the Lockean tradition of political philosophy, and arrived at what was then a very startling set of conclusions about the limits on legitimate state action.  Nozick referred to this conception as the "minimal state".  Nozick's philosophy expressed a form of libertarian conservativism, with no inclination towards the "social values" of more recent conservatism.

If this political philosophy were to be enacted through legislation, it would imply a number of things: abolition of mandatory social security, abolition of regulatory agencies like EPA and FDA, abolition of unemployment benefits and poverty-based welfare programs, and dramatic reduction of taxes on the affluent.  This is a vision of the minimal state with a vengeance; and it seems rather familiar from much of the rhetoric offered by Tea Party activists and Republican presidential candidates alike.

We could spend time thinking about the deficiencies of this political philosophy from a number of points of view.  Here my interest is different; I'd like to consider what components might go into a political philosophy that expresses a moral justification for the more extensive state that a great many Americans would want to have. First, what are the institutional arrangements that might be considered?

A strong alternative to the minimal state is the Nordic model -- essentially the political and economic system associated with Scandinavian democracies in the 1960s through the 1980s.  Here is an interesting monograph on the economic and social characteristics of the Nordic model: The Nordic Model: Embracing globalization and sharing risks (Torben M. Andersen, Bengt Holmström, Seppo Honkapohja, Sixten Korkman, Hans Tson Söderström, Juhana Vartiainen; published by the Research Institute of the Finnish Economy); link.  The authors describe the key economic and social commitments of the Nordic model in these terms:

• a comprehensive welfare state with an emphasis on transfers to households and publicly provided social services financed by taxes, which are high notably for wage income and consumption;
• a lot of public and/or private spending on investment in human capital, including child care and education as well as research and development (R&D);
• and a set of labour market institutions that include strong labour unions and employer associations, significant elements of wage coordination, relatively generous unemployment benefits and a prominent role for active labour market policies. (13)

A key goal of the study is to assess the economic performance of the Nordic model over the past fifty years.  The study's summary conclusion is very favorable: contrary to anti-tax, anti-government ideology, the Nordic economies have performed very well.

The Nordic countries have, according to many indicators, succeeded relatively well in fulfilling their social ambitions. Recently, this has been combined with a satisfactory economic performance in terms of employment and productivity levels as well as growth of GDP per capita. Also, the macroeconomic balance is good and public finances are strong. There is indeed a Nordic success story in the sense of a favourable combination of economic efficiency and social equality. 

True, the Nordics went through a period of low productivity growth in the 1970s (like most other OECD countries) as well as a major financial and macroeconomic crisis with very high unemployment rates and large fiscal imbalances in the early 1990s (somewhat earlier and less dramatically in the case of Denmark). But even so, the Nordics have more or less managed to keep up with the US in terms of PPP-adjusted GDP over the last 25–30 years, which is more than can be said of most other EU15 countries. The longterm performance is mainly recorded as a high rate of total factor productivity growth. This indicates that technical progress, notably in the area of information and communication technology (IT), has played in important role in growth. More importantly, it also shows that the Nordics – contrary to popular belief – demonstrate a high degree of economic flexibility and capacity of structural change. The macroeconomic crises have helped the process by inducing growth-enhancing changes in structural policies (and, for a while, through the improvements of competitiveness caused by large depreciations in the early 1990s). (15)

These are social and economic arrangements that establish an active state, a state with broad responsibilities to the welfare of its citizens, and a state that calls upon a significant fraction of the wealth of society to do its work.  What are the moral principles that might underly such a conception of a good society?  Here are a few axioms that seem to be worth considering within such a political philosophy.

1. Society is a system of interdependency and mutual benefit for all citizens. Everyone benefits from being part of a just society.
2. The moral situation of individuals in society includes several important components:
1. Individuals within society have rights, liberties, and needs for personal security.
2. Individuals have obligations to each other to help prevent hardship and to facilitate full human development. These obligations derive from at least two sources: (a) the benefits we all enjoy as a result of social cooperation in a functioning society; and (b) the moral recognition we have of the equal human worth and dignity of fellow citizens.
3. Individuals within society have universal needs to facilitate their full human development and functioning, including education, health care, housing, and adequate nutrition.
3. Certain core functions for the state follow from these moral ideas:
1. The state is obligated to create a system of law that protects the rights, liberties, and security needs of all citizens.
2. The state is obligated to serve as one of the important vehicles through which our positive obligations to other citizens are honored. 
1. The state needs to ensure that all citizens have access to education, healthcare, and the essentials of life.
2. The state needs to provide a safety net for citizens whose earnings within the market economy leave them unable to provide for a decent standard of living.
3. The state is obligated to protect the public from the harmful effects of private activities, including regulations concerning health and safety, conditions of labor, and environmental harms.
4. A handful of moral constraints surround the policies and laws the state may adopt:
1. The state is authorized to collect taxes to efficiently perform its functions of protecting rights, securing welfare, and regulating harmful activities.
2. The state is obligated to be procedurally just and economically efficient in its administration of public programs.
3. The policies and laws of the state need to be adopted through a democratic process in which all citizens have equal voice.

This formulation highlights a cluster of values that can potentially gain wide support within a democracy: the equal worth of all individuals, the importance of liberty, the importance of a range of social obligations all citizens have to each other, and the idea that the state needs to be articulated in such a way as to embody these moral ideas.

If the theory of the minimal state owes much of its content to John Locke, the more extensive state described here owes much of its moral rationale to Jean-Jacques Rousseau.  Rousseau brought the moral perspective of the "individual within community" into the foundations of political philosophy.  Josh Cohen's Rousseau: A Free Community of Equals provides an excellent discussion of Rousseau's political theory; link.

(Gosta Esping-Andersen has studied the politics and policies of social democracies through a lifetime of writing. Especially important are The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism and Politics Against Markets: The Social Democratic Road to Power.)