LongAgoPlebe
10-Year Member
- Joined
- Jul 25, 2010
- Messages
- 493
Sounds like they are all a bunch of liars and none of them should be in uniform
One on one interactions between faculty and student, behind closed doors is just setting someone up for problems. Keep the door open. Have private conversations in a public setting. Why would you even want to take the chance?
Definitely that's a big part of it. I also learned that something as innocent as texting with students can be problematic because, while we old farts see texting as a tool, with utility, for young people the purpose of texting is much more about forming and maintaining relationships. So they may think that a perfectly innocent message from me, "Running late, haha!" is actually much more than that.
I would not call it paranoid, but rather cautious. What you are doing is important to protect you and your students and insure that no one gets themselves into a compromising position.
I am an adult leader for the boy scouts, which has had it issues with sexual misconduct. They teach/train similar precautions. No one on one contact. Two deep leadership. They have youth protection training (a lot of which is to protect the adults) training videos that anyone can view. Also, remember those emails, alway copy someone else, their parent, another parent, because email is another place where you will want to minimize the opportunity for 1:1 contact.
True. Criminal and civil cases have different standards of proof; and thus can lead to opposite results.Any accused being found not guilty can, at one end of the possibility spectrum, imply not innocent but the Govt had insufficient evidence to determine guilt, beyond a reasonable doubt if in court martial setting. Administrative procedures, different ball game.
Navy Hoops is quite right. There have been so many he said/she said cases in the gray area, with lying on both sides, that it is extremely difficult to prove guilt. The system is designed to err on the side of presumed innocence - which means some truly guilty parties will escape consequences because of lack of proof. Just as it does in the wider system of American justice.
The saddest outcome is when true victims are reluctant to come forward in these cases, because they are afraid they will be accused of lying or "playing the rape card."
There are good mids and cadets with otherwise stellar professional demeanor who do bad things, whether out of a momentary lack of impulse control or a moral blind spot.
These cases are messy, and ultimately, very sad. Very instructive, if observers choose to watch their own boundaries more carefully and avoid situations at the top of the slippery slope.