jrichisamazing —
I certainly hope you’re right.
Again, what the faculty members seem to be focusing on is the process. And in my humble opinion, I think they’re right — the process is open to criticism.
Implement a process in which if an initial in-house investigation concludes that no misconduct occurred, an independent investigation is (assuming the initial complaint or complaints aren’t withdrawn or abandoned) automatically commissioned (no “ifs, ands or buts”, no discretion, no one is put on the hot seat of having to make a judgment call on the matter) which reviews not only the original complaint(s) but the in-house investigation.
Well, I've had my say. Time to let others chime in.
This sort of thinking drives me nuts. The victim of unfairness deserves justice. I'll say it again to be certain it's clear: the victim of unfairness deserves justice.
That said, 'fairness' and justice has to be thought out with regards to all parties involved, not just the accuser. Without going into detail or making assumptions regarding this case, suffice to say there are bad actors out there who will make things up to save themselves or at least further their interests.
Let me ask you some questions:
Do you think there's a conflict of interest on the accuser's part?
If the accuser has a conflict of interest, even if it's personal face-saving or improving their chance at an NCAA petition or having a sympathetic story to potential recruiters, would that not factor into whether to invest more and more in investigations?
Who do you think pays for the time and expense of more investigations?
What happens to the accused and other parties during this whole process?
Have you ever been falsely accused by someone who stands to gain from you being accused?
Ultimately, what's at stake and what's to be gained if you get to the bottom of the alleged wrong-doing?
If you take a serious physical crime for example, there's a lot at stake. And you could be preventing a terrible tragedy down the road by stopping the perpetrator now. Racial harassment is a hot button issue that I wouldn't want to downplay, so I look to the report for what was done:
"As for charges of racial harassment, this drew the attention of UI Chancellor Robert Jones, two faculty reps and Keiko Price, all respected African-Americans. They found the charge unsubstantiated."
Does that sound like they took it seriously?
What more do you want done?
I have my own opinion of this situation, and I see high potential for bad actors to play on either side of this. However, I don't see anything productive coming out of further investigations, and I do see plenty of opportunity for harm. Given who's cleared Underwood in the internal investigation, I'm ok with this.
And to be honest, I think outside investigations are generally more credible *provided* you have investigators who don't have their own agenda, and are actually trying to be constructive with their findings. I just find this thing to be a hot mess that's better off left alone at this point. Not enough to be gained by airing it out and forcing more bad actions by pressing the matter.