Chronicle quotes Sokolow on CASA bill

"I do think with this version that the co-sponsoring senators are trying to better balance the bill between the rights of complainants and respondents, so that it has wider appeal to Congress," said Brett A. Sokolow, president of the National Center for Higher Education Risk Management, a consulting and law firm. 

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American Bar Association Journal quotes Sokolow on campus sexual assault

The California law defines affirmative consent as “affirmative, conscious and voluntary agreement” to a sexual activity. If someone is “incapacitated due to the influence of drugs, alcohol or medication,” the law states, he or she cannot give consent. Students also are incapable of giving consent if they’re asleep, unconscious or can’t communicate because of a mental or physical condition. But Sokolow says that if colleges are serious about eliminating student-on-student sexual violence and harassment, they need to engage in significant educational outreach and target teens before they get to college.

There’s a common perception among college students that peers who rape are “sex-starved, desperate guys who have no game and hide in the bushes,” Sokolow says.

But that’s inaccurate, he adds, suggesting that a more common profile of a college student who rapes would be a charismatic guy who is used to getting his way and has ample opportunities for consensual sex.

“I can’t educate a student who is predatory not to rape,” Sokolow points out. “What I can do is teach people around him to recognize the signs.”

http://ow.ly/JAkjp

NPR quotes Van Brunt on detecting threats aid social media

Brian Van Brunt is president of the National Behavioral Intervention Team Association, an organization that teaches campuses and workplaces how to head off violence such as mass shootings. He trains people to look for certain signs that a threat is serious — such as specificity.

"First off, if there's a fixation and focus on target. We also pay attention to action and time imperative. We're very interested in understanding, is there a time or an event that's occurring?" Van Brunt says.

Specifics like that were absent in the Lenio case, but Van Brunt still thinks Hutson was right to track the threat down. People may think there's some government entity like the NSA or FBI scanning social media for domestic threats of this nature, but Van Brunt says he hasn't seen any sign of that.

"It's much more of a fishing net with multiple holes. We are lucky when we discover something, in my opinion," he says.

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Chronicle quotes Sokolow on external investigators

Campus panels may fail to ask tough questions of the students on both sides of an accusation, says Mr. Sokolow, the consultant. He often works with colleges when they are finishing an investigation or a hearing to review their process.

In a recent case, a young woman had accused a male classmate of forcing her to perform oral sex. The college’s panel had found him responsible, and the young man had appealed. When Mr. Sokolow went over the evidence and the findings, he had several questions for the panelists: Had they asked the young woman how long the encounter took? What position was the couple in? Was she on her knees, or were they in bed? Was he holding her head to force her?

The panelists weren’t sure, says Mr. Sokolow. "They looked at me like, How can we possibly ask those questions? I said, Because that’s the job."

The panel on that campus has reopened the case. It has yet to issue a final judgment.

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Slate references Sokolow's report in drunk sex article

Sokolow proposed that universities adopt a technical definition of incapacitation as “an inability to make a rational, reasonable judgment or appreciate the consequences of your decisions,” and many institutions have come in line. Sokolow also proposed a “common-sense definition” of the term: the inability to “understand Who, What, When, Where, Why and How with respect to that sexual activity.”

http://ow.ly/JbpYO

Tennessean quotes Sokolow on UT sexual assault case

The finding that consensual sex occurred after a student reported a sexual assault is "highly unusual," said Brett Sokolow, president and CEO for the NCHERM Group, or the National Center for Higher Education Risk Management.

http://ow.ly/J81AY