Uni suicide - tragedy but is this the only recourse for women that experience assault ?

[mids2019]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14060637/Oxford-University-student-20-killed-cancelled-female-friend-told-pals-felt-uncomfortable-sexual-encounter.hotlink

Superficially this is a tragedy and the sites is was the major factor for that led to it. However given the extremely low probability of criminal conviction of the university acting from a disciplinary point of view are women justified in using ostracism as the only till they have left for justice and as a warning to others that may consider assault a crime where there are in reality limited chance of consequence?

The woman concerned comes across as psychologically cruel and the coroner warns against 'cancel culture' but there seems more to this and perhaps the woman concerned was justified in talking to their friendship group at the very least as warning to other woemn?

Is this the social equivalent of a lunch mob with no proven guilt or the actions of a woman who knew there is typically no justice from authorities in such cases?

There are plenty examples of unintentional but unforgivable actions in the world. Normally it involves the parties going their separate ways and just building new lives apart.

eg when a child dies under one parent’s care, running over a dog, gambling life savings away, hitting your wife when you’re so drunk you don’t know what you’re doing.

No one needs to be forced to forgive or brought back into the fold, but everyone deserves a fresh start with new people. I can’t see in this case that anyone did anything that would’ve followed the man around for his whole life - he just wanted that friendship group back, but he wasn’t entitled to that.

This. As far as I’m concerned his friends did the right thing. Telling someone you’re uncomfortable with their behaviour and aren’t sure if you want to associate with them anymore is not shunning on cancel culture.

Yeah, a lot of proofreading needed, OP.

You're suggesting that if a man sexually assaults a woman or else acts in a creepy and unacceptable way towards her, she can only tell her own friends and seek support quietly. Nothing that could possibly inconvenience the poor dear, the assaulter, is ever to be countenanced - that would be "quite a calculated move".

In an appropriate situation, the male friends of an assaulter should be informed and they should in fact respond by no longer associating themselves with the assaulter. If you're friends with someone who sexually assaults women, you countenance sexual assault.

If that was what it was, I don’t think a coroner would have made those statements.

The coroner didn’t ask for better pastoral support for people who make mistakes or lose their friendship group.

The coroner asked for a change of culture due to organised ostracism of people who transgress. It isn’t about the behaviour of a handful of people, but an established culture that needs addressing because students are ganging up on each other.

It’s bullying under the guise of protecting victims- pure power play. The in crowd whipping g up righteous fury against the transgressor.

Why would we think we know what happened better than the coroner?

Depends on the severity

Teenage fumblings that are learned from, yes you can come back from that but the victim shouldn’t have to welcome you with open arms

Brock Turner. No.

I don’t blame the young woman. There’s nothing to suggest her complaint was malicious.

I do think ostracising a young person because of one incidence of making someone uncomfortable is an over reaction. We don’t know that his behaviour was predatory or inappropriate rather than misjudged. We don’t know they weren’t both a bit drunk and regretted it afterwards while thinking it was a good idea at the time.

I think we should avoid imposing our own experience of years of predatory male behaviour on a barely adult man, based on a barely adult woman saying she felt uncomfortable.

Why would they? In one post you say young people of 20 are not equipped to dispense blame and punishment and in the next you say that they could have foreseen the outcome of ignoring a former friend.

Friends of Alexander Rogers, a 20-year-old Corpus Christi student who died in January 2023, ran the Salisbury Plains Marathon in his memory.

I wonder if these are the same friends who made him feel so alone that he killed himself?

Oxford has a major problem with bullying and ostracising due to the College system.

There were other options for boy, his life wasn’t over, it would’ve blown over certainly in years if not in months and weeks (rightly or wrongly).

@hamsandyams 20 year olds don’t think like this. The lad would have seen his university life as over. He would have been distraught at having to leave and explain to his parents why.
As far as Alexander was concerned his life as he knew it was finished.
It’s a tragedy caused by immaturity from all parties concerned imo.

"You're suggesting that if a man sexually assaults a woman or else acts in a creepy and unacceptable way towards her, she can only tell her own friends and seek support quietly. Nothing that could possibly inconvenience the poor dear, the assaulter, is ever to be countenanced - that would be "quite a calculated move".

In an appropriate situation, the male friends of an assaulter should be informed and they should in fact respond by no longer associating themselves with the assaulter. If you're friends with someone who sexually assaults women, you countenance sexual assault."
*

Yes and that's exactly what my daughter did in similar circumstances. Their mutual friends didn't want to be friends with him anymore, for very obvious reasons.*

I don't know. The expressions uncomfortbale or regrettable sex have been used by assault apologists in the past so I have some misgivings about these expressions.

I am all for counselling and support for students that have poor sexual encounters but to what extent is counselling being used a plaster to cover up the fact in reality assault convictions are extremely hard to get?

Is the ostracism that is referred to in campus a social reaction to the fact the police and governing university authorities are not set to deal with these accusations generally.

not sure what happened to the text there. I was trying to bold my reply and failed!

There is a problem in the culture of young people which is quite worrying as a trend. We experienced something similar with one of my DCs. It wasn't quite the same since it was during sixth form and no sex or physical contact involved. He liked a girl and made an approach to her to see if she was interested but it was not reciprocated and she had only just broken up with someone else a couple of weeks before (someone who was vaguely in his friendship group). Because he had apparently not waited the requisite amount of time before making the approach he was cancelled by his friendship group. That was it. They didn't speak to him for the rest of sixth form (almost a year). It was horrible for him and caused him serious mental distress. They literally told everyone how awful he was since he hadn't followed their made up rules and he had a miserable end to school.

We don't know the whole story here and its certainly not ok to label this as anything but an awful tragedy.

She couldn’t have predicted how they’d react but the fact she told her ex bf (?) and there was a fight, she must have predicted they’d react negatively - and what was the motivation for telling them?

Also, the ‘close friends’ of his probably reacted in this way bc they were concerned about their own reputations among the women and student body at large (which could affect their social and financial futures) and didn’t want to be seen to be condoning or associated with someone with anything of sexual impropriety, despite it being based on just one of the party’s account.

The fact the young man said it was unintentional but unforgivable is not an admission of guilt. More an acknowledgement of how society at large (particularly youthful) views anyone accused of anything it deems inappropriate - the best thing to do is admit you were in the wrong and sincerely apologise as quickly as possible, as no one will listen to your side of the story and will just come down harder if you try to defend yourself. Just look at all the celebrities who have unwisely made a ‘controversial’ statement on SM and then faced instant backlash - they rarely double down on their initial statement - they’ve seen what that does to the likes of JK Rowling, Graham Linehan, to name just a couple, who were supremely popular people and now to support them is the social equivalent of admitting you’re a Tory.

Because there is a massive problem with mental health and the subsequent consequences at Oxbridge that they would have encountered and been made acutely aware of by their college and university welfare services, as well as the ambulances.

There is no way, absolutely no way, that they would have been unaware of the likely consequences.

The ostracisation is due to Corpus Christi being a very very small college.

If he was at another University with no college system he could have had a broader range of friends from all over, who didn't know each other and this would mean, if one lot of friends stop talking to him and gang up ...then he could have had other friends to talk to and be supported by.

A tiny college means you all are friends , but equally, if those friends turn their backs on you, it can feel very very lonely.

I really hope she hasn't lied. If she has, she has ruined his life, his family's lives, her life and his friend's lives to some point because they now have to live with this.

Exactly this ⬆️

Exactly what the Daily Mail wanted to happen is what is happening in this thread.

We don't know what happened - there is no point in speculating. The coroner knows and seems not to have indicated any concern about Alexander's behaviours towards the girl but has indicated concern about the behaviours and choices of their friendship group, who (on the basis of what the girl told one or more of them), ostracised him which caused him serious stress/worry/fear and mental health concerns and led to him killing himself.

The ostracisation of a person by young people with no actual evidence of crime or any formal complaint having been made and investigated is, apparently, a now common culture at this and other universities and the coroner has rightly identified it as such and said this needs to be dealt with by universities. It is akin to young people taking judgement and punishment into their own hands rather than leaving it to authorities to deal with and, as it has here, can have tragic consequences.

Whatever happened, she had a range of choices, so did her and his friends. The choices they made had the most tragic outcome. Alexander also made choices and there were others he could have made.

In my experience of working with people they often don't make careful or thoughtful enough choices when emotion takes over. They may have made different choices even hours later with very different outcomes.

Does anyone actually know what the 'uncomfortable' was?

Assault? Coercion? Drunk? Guilt? Too soon after the break up? Ex and Alex were friends? Specific acts?

I have no idea what happened, the details aren't there, but a lad is dead and everyone else involved is going to be affected by this for the rest of their lives.

I'm sorry that happened to your son. Obviously you expect your kids to have dramas and fall outs with friends but I didn't know young people were "cancelling" their peers in such a deliberate way like that.

That would have made me an anxious wreck knowing that one wrong move could mean being cancelled and it sounds like a horrible environment knowing it could happen at any time.

Isn’t there also a third narrative, about the prevalence of ‘cancel culture’, and the damage that can do? I agree with a pp that the DM has an agenda in being ‘anti-woke’, but others have looked at this too. See Jon Ronson’s book and podcast ‘ So, You’ve Been Publicly Shamed’ which shows some of the immense damage, psychological and other, which can arise out of this culture to move straight to condemnation and ostracisation before facts are established.

She didn't say he raped her he made her feel uncomfortable and it was enough for her to discuss it with male friends which suggests to me she wasn't thinking he was a predator she was checking to see if it was normal male behaviour

There were other options for boy, his life wasn’t over, it would’ve blown over certainly in years if not in months and weeks (rightly or wrongly.

@hamsandyams blown over “in years”? Bloody hell, you don’t see being boycotted by people you thought were your friends for ‘years’ as not being serious?