My wife thinks I'm a bit obsessive compulsive. I can't help myself. Every once in a blue moon I see a human interest story that grabs my attention and won't let go. The unfolding Cornell Sex Scandal is the latest.
There are many hooks that snag my attention but the educational consequences is a driver. As a lifelong learner and occasional educator, I'm recognizing patterns here that no one seems to be talking about. I served twelve years on a high school Board of Education and clearly remember being frustrated by parents who were abusing the system to get something from the school district that was of a dubious necessity.
These parents would lawyer up, take advantage of sanctimonious sounding "good" intentions, and proceed to push the legal envelope to confront the Board with a long, protracted legal battle (heads - they win/ tails - we (the district) pay and pay and pay). It is never anything more than a settlement negotiation.
Asses In Classes
Today and for a decade or more, higher educational institutions (the few that survive) are living like a bleeding, wounded animal that is prey for hungry wild animals. Special interest groups, grifters, lawyers smelling an easy score, and others are all lining up for the fiscal kill.
There's an algebra required for higher education to function properly. Young adolescents have raging hormones, strong often misinformed convictions and impulses, bad judgment and manners. And they need safe spaces to experiment with all that stuff - sex, drugs, contradictory ideas. Lots of letter of the law laws are broken unless we allow these Higher Education institutions to administer a blanket of educational immunity to the arrangement. These schools don't turn immature adults into criminals when they fuck up within reason.
But lately, the algebra that was written something like; "if we admit qualified students, that will equal a manageable population of imperfect but promising graduates" has collapsed. The new math involves fewer students, lower standards of acceptance, inflated credentials, and an educational experience that disempowers the school and incentivises defaulting to the existential reality that every dollar matters.
Academic subjects, departments, majors, and other offerings have strict return on Investment constraints. High completion grades, diplomas, and academic credentialing are awarded like trophy prises rather than hard-earned accomplishments.
D.E.I. social policies and practices are unnecessary in a recruitment environment where every and any warm body is plenty qualified to attend and keep the doors open. With population change comes flammable cultural and political baggage.
Expected Behaviors
I was working out at the local Community Center a few weeks ago and was sitting across from a Universty student who had a Rock band T-shirt on. I had never heard of the band and he said they were friends of his and so on. So I asked about what University students were "into" these days expecting some recognizable subjects.
He replied, "Polygamy. I'm really into Polygamy."
Now, being married, and attempting to slow the spinning of my head on my neck, I just said, "Oh." I had nothing to say. I once had a friend who was in a multi-partner marriage and I had worked with Mormons, so NBD but I couldn't wrap my head around a teen-ish student having polygamy on their lived experience bingo card.
To put this into the context of the Cornell Sex Scandal, the latest generation of young adults doesn't share the pedestrian groupthink about sexual behavior. In fact the legacy laws governing this stuff implies criminal motives when in fact its nothing more than a changing and novel approach to personal sexual choices.
In searching for a logical framework for the events that took place, many social media adolescents recognized the behavior as social media and streaming sexual memes. I had never heard of "Bonnie Blue" and "We can Share" cultural trends. Aside from being drug-influenced, these Cornell students were already imprinted with the idea that this activity was normal within their social ecosystem. NBD and not atypical experimentation.
Fiscal Consentual Incentives
The statistic that shocked lots of people and absolutely incited Feminist activists was that Cornell received over 1,200 reports of sexual assault-ish attacks on campus. My guess is that all major higher education institutions had relatively the same kinds of statistics.
Women are imprinted to "report" every real, imagined, and disingenuous event. Women who don't apparently haven't gotten "The Message". That message is that SA complaints are the equivalent of holding a future lottery ticket that can be exchanged for a "settlement".
These lottery tickets all operate on the premise that "The Patriarchy" (all men) are evil and empirically guilty of being unable to prove comprehensive and contiguous consent for every vaguely remembered geographically approximate encounter.
Like the legally neutered Boards of Education, the broad spectrum battery of civil suits each of these reports represents can potentially cripple these already wounded institutions and individuals. Instututional reputaions, insurance premiums, and lost alumni confidence is certain.
Downstream damage includes the dismemberment of Fraternity and Sorority organizations that are long recognized as training grounds for adult social volunteer organizations and the backbone of alumni support for endowments.
NY Governor Kathy Hochul is a political buffoon whose response to this politically fueled controversy may damage beyond repair the delicate administrative challenges higher education faces. Every small University town whose institution fails is a fiscal fallout zone that has been a long time in arriving.
A very dangerous game is being played.
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