A bill on the desk of Gov. Terry McAuliffe would require Virginia schools to mark the transcripts of students involved in misconduct, in hopes of stopping sexual predators from transferring to unsuspecting schools.
The bill was informally named after Jesse Matthew, the man charged in the death of University of Virginia student Hannah Graham. Graham was last seen leaving a downtown Charlottesville restaurant with Matthew last September; her remains were discovered a few weeks later.
McAuliffe introduced a similar bill. An earlier version would have required a prominent notation on the transcripts of students who withdraw while under investigation for sex crimes.
The version on the governor’s desk, however, broadened the language to include a transcript notation for any student “who has been suspended for, has been permanently dismissed for, or withdraws from the institution while under investigation for a violation of the institution’s code.”
Should it become law as written, there are concerns about how it would be implemented at Virginia’s four-year schools, which have different administrative processes. Plus, transcripts are records of academic history, not rap sheets, said Ellen Plummer, an assistant provost at Virginia Tech who helped lawmakers work on the bill.
“What our elected officials want to achieve is to prevent a student who might have predatory tendencies or who might have this propensity for hurting people in a serial kind of way from being able to jump from institution to institution to institution,” she said. “I think the intent of the legislation is noble and correct, and I think there are real concerns around individual rights.”
The bill was among several new laws aimed at preventing campus sexual assaults.
There are concerns about students’ constitutional rights. VMI would also be exempt because their rules are so stiff that a student can be expelled for not having his or her shoes properly shined. Well, if that is the case, why are we worried about a potential sexual predator’s rights.
All students should sign an acknowledgement that they understand this law and that should be the end of it. It might clean up a whole lot of other behavior on the state’s campuses. The fact that Jesse Matthew jumped from Liberty to Christopher Newport to back to being a townie without anyone’s knowledge of sexual misconduct is reason enough right there. Get signing, Governor McAuliffe. Hopefully, the rest of the colleges and universities will follow suit, if they haven’t already.
Excellent idea and this definitely should be done.
Oh I think so too.
Of course I am still outraged that Fairfax County wasn’t allowed, by law, to send Cho’s mental health records to Tech. that has not changed.
I just watched Boyhood. what an interesting, different kind of movie. part of me thinks it was genius. The other part of me thinks it was probably tiresome.
I found Boyhood a bit long. Some nice scenes, some boring scenes, sloppily assembled into an overlong movie.
People think of it as something special because of the 12-year gimmick. But it’s obvious to me that this is just Linklater trying to be Francois Truffaut, imitating the way Truffaut made 4 “Antione Doinel” films through the decades with the same actor playing the director’s younger self. Linklater wants to be Truffaut so bad he can taste it. The movie’s hype.
I don’t know anything about the people you mentioned. I know Linklater wrote it. That’s all.
I hated the ending. It made me want my two hours back.
I say skip “Boyhood”, watch “The 400 Blows” instead.
I watched boyhood. I cant take back my two hours now. I thought the character study was very interesting. Who was the better parent?
Which parent was the better person?
Does this mean that Obama’s sojourn as a foreign student would be exposed too?
Did he rape someone?
That bill could well become raw meat for the ACLU and a lot of other attorneys. Once written down, things have a habit of not being erased in this country, even if not proven or proven to be wrong.
There is always a balance between rights and responsibilities.
I support the transcript notice.
How would this bill have helped Hannah Graham? I don’t recall Jesse M. being enrolled at UVa. Nothing in the bill would have kept him from becoming a C-ville “townie” even if he had been denied transfer from Liberty to Christopher Newport.
I think the real problem is the failure to investigate charges thoroughly to one conclusion or another, which I think will be helped by obliging schools to turn over serious charges to the local or state police. I don’t think that any school should be allowed by itself to place something so serious as sexual criminal allegations on any personal record.
He was expelled from Liberty and Christopher Newport for sexual misconduct. That information just dried up on the vine, so to speak. No paper trail. I agree with you about schools turning over information to cops but they couldn’t do it with an uncooperative student.
I don’t know what kind of proof you want. If a student’s conduct in that department is unsatisfactory, they will be expelled. Expulsion is fairly serious also. So…it is noted why you are expelled.
I am one of those people who thinks a person’s life supercedes privacy.
Because Matthew allegedly had many priors, perhaps his paper trail would have caught up with him before he got to Hannah Green, or Morgan Harrington or whoever else he killed. There are still missing girls.
This dude is a monster.
Including allegations without conclusive proof of guilt?
Yes, taxpayers.
That such utter and total bullshit.
Wolve, the bill doesn’t call for including any allegation – only for a student “who has been suspended for, has been permanently dismissed for, or withdraws from the institution while under investigation for a violation of the institution’s code”.
I think that is more than fair, Rick.
This means that students will bring lawyers to discipline hearings and actively fight it. I understand the objective of documenting bad behavior but like Wolve fear it will only impact the poor or ignorant who fail to realize the implications of not challenging a (perhaps false) accusation.
I suspect there will be less than 10 students per year that end up with a misconduct notice on their transcript. The rest will be allowed to quietly withdraw. He said she said isn’t enough to ruin someone’s life.
That’s 10 fewer rapists lurking around on campus. No one is suggesting he said she said as a reason for expulsion or involuntary withdrawal.
Ed, do you think how the Jesse Matthew case was handled at 2 different institutes of higher learning was a good thing?
I’m taking a pass on the specifics of Jesse Matthews mostly because I don’t know if he is guilty or not and I don’t know anything about the situations surrounding his departure at other schools. I worry more in the abstract that vindictive lovers can ruin their former partner’s life using a process that accepts and acts on stories and hearsay rather than hard evidence of courtroom quality. I am also worried that this effort is all for show and will not really do anything because the discipline process will change faster than the law to get us back to square one. This is not to diminish the laudable goal of identifying sexual predators early in life and hopefully preventing many victims.
I guess I’m rethinking this.
We shouldn’t be relying on any college to investigate “sexual misconduct”. Rape or attempted rape is a legal matter. We should be relying on police to investigate.
And colleges should check criminal record, ideally to include pending cases, before admitting students.
I think the state might have passed a law that required colleges to turn over all reports of sex misconduct to the cops. Not positive but I think that has happened. I don’t think that it should be a unilateral decision either.
I am absolutely with Ed on this. Unless those transcripts contain information indicating that the case against the ex-student was pursued through the judicial system and that the ex-student was found to be guilty as charged, we will open the proverbial Pandora’s Box with defamation lawsuits against the schools and personnel involved, a well as the possibility of false and unjust revenge accusations.
So how do we keep the Jesse Mathews of the world from hopping from college to college without cops being involved?
Something was just fundamentally wrong with what happened with that dude.
@Moon-howler
Tough one to answer in this particular instance. I looked back at the Liberty and Christopher Newport cases again. Matthew was at Liberty University 2000-2002. He was on the football team. He was accused of sexual assault on the LU campus on 17 October 2002. LU Campus Police put the info in their Campus Crime Report and handed the case to the Lynchburg Police Department and the Commonwealth Attorney’s Office. The LPD reportedly interviewed both the victim and Matthew but said they did not have enough evidence to move forward, especially since the victim declined to press charges. There was no forensic evidence and there were no witnesses. Matthew was allowed to walk, but was expelled from LU.
Matthew next showed up at Christopher Newport (CNU) in January 2003. He was a member of the CNU football team on 14 August 2003. He was alleged to have committed a sexual assault on campus on 7 Sept 2003. He was no longer on the football team as of 12 September 2003 and left CNU on 15 October 2003 — probably expelled, but I’m not sure yet. In any case, it looks like he walked again, most likely for lack of sufficient evidence. I’m still looking for this, but CNU claimed student privacy to the media.
From what I have seen, this guy did not just leave LU. He was expelled. Personally, I think that an expulsion in a case like this should be on the transcripts but without a university statement of definitive judgement as to guilt or innocence. I would note the expulsion on the transcript and then list the police and CA case numbers for anyone who might encounter the expellee at his next stop. It would be up to the next guy to follow up on it with the police and CA. Maybe, if those notations had been on the Matthew transcript, both the CNU admissions office and the CNU football staff would have been alerted and made the appropriate telephone calls. (One thing that baffles me is why the CNU football staff didn’t just pick up the telephone and query the LU football staff about this guy vis-a-vis his football talents and why he left the LU squad. They might have gotten the alert right there and avoided whatever happened on the CNU campus.)
As for Matthew becoming a C-ville “townie”? The LU football roster in 2000 listed him as a freshman defensive lineman from Charlottesville, Virginia. He was home.
re “townie”
That is just what real Charlottesville people are called by UVA people. I was a townie. I think it is slightly pejorative.
You know, I have been doing the OCD thing over this subject. I am really tired of “privacy” being used to protect really bad behavior. I am tired of potential rapists or near rapists being allowed to walk. I am looking back over the years, and not just at UVA. I think I had an ash tray thrown at me there and I also got knocked into a wall. It is all about saying no. Let’s see, I have a marine Lt that I already explained in my list of grievances, and a business man who threw an alarm clock at me. I cant remember any other stuff. I know I didn’t just pull the luck of the draw and go out with every dirtbag in America. I did date a lot, as was the custom back in my day. I don’t think that I dated trash. In fact, some of the worst offenders were from what would appear to be quality people.
The people I had trouble with weren’t dates from high school. They were people I knew while in college. I don’t want to hear about poor mis-accused boys. There was some pretty atrocious behavior out there and I can only imagine it has gotten worse.
Yes, I have a son and if I ever thought he behaved that way to a girl I would skin him alive. Maybe some of you men really don’t know how some of your gender behave. That’s the only thing I can think of. I know you wouldn’t want your daughters to have to go through some of this and my experiences were not unique…not at all. All of us knew “mashers” and people who got a drink in them and turned totally asshole.
@Moon
Did you experience bad behavior exclusively from guys who had gotten a little liquored up or did your dates turn out to be straight-up jackasses too?
Hey, I avoid guys drinking heavily…to many bad things happen.
Well, as an officially recognized geezer, a big change that I have seen over the years is how aggressive and sexual many young girls have become in the so-called “dating game” and “hook-up game.” Mrs. W feels the same way, having seen it up close and personal in our high schools. It’s sort of like flaunting what you’ve got and then giving chase. Modesty and decorum seems to go out the window too often. And far too much booze. As an old frat guy at a big university, I can recall the booze but not nearly the level of overuse among coeds that seems to be with us now.