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Culture War Roundup for the week of May 8, 2023

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Could this person be the leader of some nonprofit or advocacy group? I’m struggling to imagine how that would be possible.

There are databases of active investigations (server issues?), pending cases, and incidents, but none make the plaintiff’s name public by default. Maybe this database has something? I’m not optimistic—if only a fraction of those 8,000 complaints are founded, they’re not going to be obvious in the active lawsuits.

Why doesn’t the Title IX office disclose this name? For obvious reasons, he or she is unlikely to be personally involved in most, if not all, of the cases. Privacy shouldn’t be an issue. I wonder if this is something that can be FOIA’d.

As I note in response to HaroldWilson below:

I have no idea who that person might be. Charitably: a top-notch attorney at an important law firm in Washington, D.C., who is capturing most of the "Title IX complaint" market, maybe? The right intake process could probably make this happen. I just have a hard time seeing it actually playing out this way; unless their "sometimes founded" complaints turn into outrageously large payouts on a pretty regular basis, it would be very difficult to fund such a venture. Part of the mystery of averaging 20 complaints a day is, who is funding that?

My only other half-plausible idea is that there is someone out there on retirement or disability or something who is doing stuff like collecting data on student athletes and filing a complaint any time they can find the slightest mathematical discrepancy in apparent sex balances in school athletic programs, or maybe faculty sex ratios or something. I don't know what else they could possibly find 20 complaints a day to file on, or how else they could be funded.

I know there are some bits of legislation out there that essentially pay bounties to people for filing lawsuits (there was a lawyer in California who was making a living for a while going to "ladies night" at bars and demanding equal pricing, then suing when denied, here's the one I think I'm remembering) but I'm not aware of any such setup for Title IX cases.

I wonder if this is something that can be FOIA’d.

I don't know, but my first thought is that these things probably fall under FERPA, which is not as strict a piece of privacy legislation as, say, HIPAA, but it's still pretty strong.

there was a lawyer in California who was making a living for a while going to "ladies night" at bars and demanding equal pricing, then suing when denied,

Absolutely based behavior. The only way I can stomach such blatant favoritism in favor of women is if we men were ever allowed to get away with that. But good luck finding a "men's only" event that doesn't attract immediate opprobrium.

Yeah this is ridiculous. The alternatives are:

  1. Sausage fest.

  2. Face checks at the doors which accomplish the same outcome but only the higher status men are allowed inside to mingle with the women.

  3. Invite only parties where any woman is easily invited while only higher status guys are.

I get the feeling that anyone who cheers something like this simply hasn’t had much of a nightlife.

2 & 3 are pretty much swinger's clubs rules.

I simply don't care. Such blatant unfairness raises my hackles, and women get plenty of attention and free drinks from horny men as is.

Is/ought, plus game theory. Women will always have an unfair advantage in this arena because men will always gain an advantage by handing this advantage to women. The man who boycotts the ladies night at the bar, or any other low stakes garden variety simpery, out of offence to his high-minded egalitarian principles will lose out to the pragmatic man who accepts the phenomenon and potentially uses it as a pivot to open a conversation and flirt with those women. ("You women get half price drinks? Nice, that means you can buy me two! No? Ah, so you're a hashtag trad wife. Cool, I'm more of an equal rights feminist. A very thirsty equal rights feminist with an empty glass. Oh okay I get it, maybe those dodgy pick up guys were right about women after all. Hold on a second, are you a pick up artist girl? No? So where did you learn your undeniable skills? In that case I guess it must have come to you naturally. Naturally blessed with half price drinks. Imagine that." Or something significantly smoother and less terminally online, I don't know).

Look dawg, I have a girlfriend, and I don't really struggle to get one with or without the existence of blatantly illegal and anti-egalitarian practises that offend me.

I have nothing against men who willingly buy drinks for women, I simply don't want the implicit lower value of men enshrined in explicit practise.

See my other comment at this level for details if you care.

Such blatant unfairness raises my hackles

"The game" is unfair either way. It will never be fair as long as we are mammals with certain sexual instincts. Hear me out.

What you are objecting is a situation where the unfairness becomes explicit instead of implicit. But this is a horribly bad strategy!! If you are not a "gigachad" and/or "absolute player" type of guy, this is exactly what you want! When the rules of the game becomes more explicit it gives more chances to people who lack the deep social instincts for playing the implicit game. And forgive me for stereotyping, but I have literally never met an Indian guy (from India proper) who had very strong instincts in this regard and I know many.

When ladies get cheap booze explicitly from the bar there is less expectation on you to do the classic move of introduce yourself with confidence, say a couple witty funny things, and ask what she wants to drink. For some guys this is second nature. For many this is nerve wrecking and they will fuck it up. If you are in the group that gets the nerves from approaching a pretty girl like this then you should absolutely welcome a ladies night. It takes some pressure off you.

This is the exact reason why dance classes, blind dating, formal courtship, even arranged marriages etc are all good strategies for men too awkward to just ask a girl out from zero. Each one of these options add an extra dose of explicitness to the interaction.

I have a girlfriend, and even when I didn't, I have little issue in acquiring one, so I genuinely couldn't care less about the marginal change from killing something so explicitly anti-egalitarian.

The constitutions of most liberal democracies, including India and the US, explicitly enshrine equal rights for both men and women, including a ban on explicit and intentional discrimination for or against each. I protest each and every deviation from that rule, be it women getting free drinks, or preference in college admissions, and I'd do the same for men.

Ladies nights are simply one of the more blatant and commonplace violations, and clear violations to boot. I don't need reminder that I, as a man, am inherently less valuable than woman, and I'm content to have it stamped out and establishments who engage in it made an example of. There's already so much implicit discrimination which can't be stamped out that I won't tolerate more explicit forms.

I simply care more about equality of opportunity than equality of outcome, so this argument doesn't sway me. I prefer men and women pay the same amount for the same product, namely time in a bar or drinks, and then what they do with it is up to them, be it the former simping over the latter and handing them theirs.

“I refuse to entertain the subtleties of life because some people some time ago came up with some legal principles on which I shall base my entire thought process” isn’t a very good jumping point for a conversation or deliberation. But you do you

There's a subtle but important distinction between liking certain principles and "basing my entire thought process" around it. I simply think your "subtleties" are too contrived to be really worth entertaining.

But yes, I'll continue doing myself, thank you.

Legally enforced equality, or legally allowed special treatment. Pick one.

the pink razors are materially different both in the pigment and geometry of the blades. (It's not pricier because of the different geometry, but it's still different).

When were you put in charge of deciding how many choices there are?

I'm not. My statement is a logical truism. You cannot have both. You can of course have neither.

Most of the Title IX complaints have nothing to do with athletics but allege that the University didn't sufficiently respond to complaints of sexual assault or harassment.

Most of the Title IX complaints have nothing to do with athletics but allege that the University didn't sufficiently respond to complaints of sexual assault or harassment.

Where are you getting that? The article seems to suggest that, in both 2016 and 2022, most of the Title IX complains did deal with athletics. The complaints from 2021 (which don't appear in the graph) do appear to fit what you are saying, but also seem to suggest that 2021 saw far fewer complaints overall. Honestly it would be helpful if the author had included more information about each year. I am disinclined to try to dig it all up myself.

In 2016, the more than 6,000 complaints filed by that same individual alleged discrimination in school athletic programs, according to the civil rights office. Fiscal year 2022 followed much the same pattern when the office logged 4,387 allegations of Title IX discrimination involving athletics.

One complaint could include more than one type of alleged Title IX violation, encompassing, for instance, both athletics and gender harassment.

The 2022 athletics-related claims far outpaced the 1,030 related to sexual or gender harassment or sexual violence. The figure also swamps similar claims from fiscal year 2021 when just 2,093 complaints included Title IX-related claims — with just 101 focused on athletics. More than 500 cases concerned sexual or gender harassment or sexual violence that year.

Yeah, sorry, I was looking at examples of cases that were actually filed. Upon rereading the article it's clear that it's usually the case that the majority of the claims are harassment, but the number was skewed by the one person filing a ton of athletic claims.