But No One is Asking Where the Oversight Was –
Both the Davis Enterprise and the Sacramento Bee have been on this aspect of the investigation. On Thursday, the Davis Enterprise reported on a UC Davis police investigation, laid out in a three-page probable cause statement that led to a search warrant in early December.
Now it has been learned that she had a secret checking account to be used for the campus’ “Take Back the Night” program. According to the audit, nearly $12,000 in university funds had been deposited into the account and $5400 had been withdrawn for personal use over a period that covered 2002 to 2009.
In addition, $25,000 in payments of grant funds were made to produce a campus anti-violence guide that was never completed.
From the Vanguard’s standpoint, the focus on Beeman by police investigators and the media insulates the university from a good deal of scrutiny. If this indeed occurred of a period that covered 2002 to 2009, where is the university oversight of the money? They simply allowed an individual at the program director to have $500,000 of grant money at her control without any type of scrutiny or oversight?
It is obvious that the university has a vested interest in containing the damage to a middle manager such as Beeman. Neither the police investigation nor the news accounts in the Enterprise appear to ask any tougher questions of the university itself.
Let us start examining the issue of the crime statistics. We know, because we covered it at the time, the campus was reporting much higher levels of rapes than any of the other UC’s. At the time, the university was very quick to offer up the explanation that it was not due to a higher sexual assault rate at UC Davis than other UC’s, but rather that UC Davis had a better reporting system.
But should that not have been a red-flag? Who was responsible for oversight of the Clery Act reports? A responsible administrator might have looked closer rather than simply assume we had a better reporting system. That leads me to believe that probably the university was not interested in checking things out until a staff member inadvertently discovered the discrepancies in the reports from the actual figures. But that took three years.
The news coverage is quick to add that the Police Chief Annette Spicuzza “has said the inflated numbers were not used in the DOJ grant application” and that it is not clear if the university would have to return any of the nearly $1 million awarded from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office on Violence Against Women grant.
Obviously embarrassed, UC Davis officials are making changes by stating that they will now have a “three-person panel check sexual assault report numbers against case files with redacted personal information to ensure privacy.” That is a good reform to ensure accuracy in the future, but it still dodges the question of past culpability and who should have been on the ball.
Clearly if Beeman did what she is accused of, she will face serious consequences, but to date it is odd that the entire inquiry has focused on her, when again, she was a fairly low level staffer at UC Davis.
That leads us back to the embezzlement questions. Difficult questions need to be asked about the system of oversight that exists at the university. How is it that an individual could be funneling grant money into a private account not over a short period, but rather over a nearly seven year period and the only reason that they are discovering this is that there was an audit and investigation into her alleged misuse of travel money?
What other money is being misspent by other middle managers like Beeman? Does the university have accurate checks in place?
It is easy for the university, the police, and the media to throw Beeman under the bus, and this does not alleviate her responsibility, but it appears from the accounts so far that she should not have been able to do what she did, and would not have succeeded without a complete lack of oversight and scrutiny from the university. This is an area that is rife for investigation and here, UC Davis officials must come up with answers, not just Beeman. The Vanguard will be on this story to attempt to get answers.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
Since this account wasn’t audited, it is likely that all the University of California doesn’t have a thorough accounting system. Since UC is raising fees and requiring furloughs, an outside accounting firm should be paid to review all of UC’s finances; probably for the past ten years.
I don’t understand how the UC housing construction in west Davis can continue while housing prices are plummeting.
What other money is being misspent by other middle managers like Beeman? Does the university have accurate checks in place?
That is a very good question, and one I ask on a regular basis for just about every public-sector business. The media and political template today focuses on the need for increased private-sector regulation. We have manufactured a boogieman for all of our recent economic woes; yet there is barely a whimper of similar concern for how public business is regulated and audited. How does UC operations get audited and reported? What outside agencies provide regulatory oversight? My guess is that there is a lot of fox guarding the henhouse here and everywhere public money is spent.
With respect to Beeman’s artificially inflated UCD rape statistics; it is too bad this cannot be prosecuted as a criminal hate crime. It sure reads that gender hate was a driving force. Also, where is the ACLU on this and all similar cases where men are falsely accused and aggressively prosecuted for rapes they did not commit? There are many derogatory labels of our pop-culture that typical thick-skinned men must endure, but any and all falsified allegations of sex crimes are a serious attack on male civil liberties.
“it is too bad this cannot be prosecuted as a criminal hate crime. It sure reads that gender hate was a driving force.”
Do you have evidence that gender hate was the reason for the inflated rape statistics? To me it looked like an attempt to get more grant money that she was misusing. Do you have evidence to back up that position?
Exactly Jeff, how much of this kind of stuff is going on at our campuses and in government? Nice system where the ones in charge can create or falsely pump up problems in order to justify their jobs and get more public money. As another example, California is going broke but we have tons of EPA and CARB positions pulling in 6 figures and making mandates that try and justify their overpaid jobs. It’s time to reel in the waste.
Do you have evidence that gender hate was the reason for the inflated rape statistics?
How do you prove a hate crime other than analyzing behaviors and projecting state of mind and intent?
In a 2000 University of New Mexico study, Thornhill and Palmer take aim at the prevailing societal notion that rape isn’t about sex but about male power and is “a symptom of an unhealthy society in which men fear and disrespect women.” Instead, they theorize that that human rape ‘arises from men’s evolved machinery for obtaining a high number of mates in an environment where females choose mates.’
After reading this, Beeman was quoted: “Some of it rang true, and intuitively it sounds right.”
Certainly this alone may not prove Beeman harbors hatred for men in general; however, if we were to replace “men” with woman, black, Hispanic, gay, etc… and could quote a like approval of similar derogatory biological causation, this combined with evidence of other actions may suffice for proof. For example, let’s say a male program director is found to have underreported rape statistics over a long period of time while previously being quoted as supporting a theory that women are biologically predisposed to pursue men who do not easily take no for an answer.
At the very least, we would need to question Beeman’s state of mind and intent for creating a more male-hostile campus environment. Isn’t that a precedent for proving hate crimes: using power and influence to inflame a population against a protected group? At the very least it was gross negligence – but I suspect that given her position and background, Beeman knew exactly the consequences of her actions and was motivated by some level of male hatred to justify such a profound ethical lapse.
“How do you prove a hate crime other than analyzing behaviors and projecting state of mind and intent? “
Depends on the hate crime. For instance, the Sacramento incident wouldn’t need additional evidence.
In the case of inflating rape statistics you would have to prove that her efforts were motivated by hate, you’re just not going to do that even if you could prove that she hates men.
I still think the simpler explanation is more plausible UNLESS specific evidence emerges to demonstrate that there was a “hate” component.
[i]How do you prove a hate crime other than analyzing behaviors and projecting state of mind and intent?[/i]
A hate crime is an act of terrorism against a specific group. For instance, when Matthew Shepard was murdered, one of this motives of his attackers was to terrorize gays in Wyoming. Instead of “projecting state of mind and intent”, the prosecution establishes a hate crime the same way that it establishes motive in general.
Actually, I agree that prosecutors do project state of mind too often in trials. A lot of trial outcomes are dubious precisely for that reason. But this certainly isn’t specific to hate crimes.
Beeman is allegedly a crook, that’s for sure. But was she out to terrorize men on campus? That’s crazy hyperbole. I’m a male on campus and I wasn’t scared at all, and I don’t think she wanted me to be. Probably she just wanted to magnify he own importance.
[i]But No One is Asking Where the Oversight Was[/i]
If that’s true, then I’m glad of it. Especially in this time of budget crisis, UC Davis has too much bureaucracy, not too little. It is true that CVPP generated a lot of news (of more than one kind), but this is a small office on campus. UC Davis would have spent more than it could have saved with a pile of audits of CVPP’s work. Every large research university has a zillion tiny grants from all kinds of sources. If anything, they overspend on financial compliance in order to appease funding agencies.
But it may be true that CVPP had too much influence and too much independence from the rest of the campus police department.
A hate crime is an act of terrorism against a specific group.
Actually the bar is much lower than that. Acts of church vandalism and graffiti are often prosecuted as hate crimes.
From Wikipedia: “”Hate crime” generally refers to criminal acts which are seen to have been motivated by hatred of one or more of the listed conditions. Incidents may involve physical assault, damage to property, bullying, harassment, verbal abuse or insults, or offensive graffiti or letters.”
Also from Wikipedia: “In England and Wales, hate crimes may be physical attack, verbal attack, threats or insults and will be considered a hate crime if they are motivated by the victims race, colour, ethnic origin, nationality or national origins, religion, gender or gender identity, sexual orientation or disability.”
Actually, I am mostly playing devil’s advocate here. I think hate crime laws are a mistake too often wrongly exploited to be beneficial to our society. I think we are served well enough with existing criminal and civil laws, and hate crime laws are just a tool for victims, real or imagined, to seek extra revenge and retribution. However, I am routinely disgusted with the trend for males too often being marginalized and relegated as the only group not similarly provided any PC victim status. I think a little hate crime accusation is just what we need to raise awareness of this.
I’m a male on campus and I wasn’t scared at all, and I don’t think she wanted me to be
Greg, you might just be oblivious to the hatred boiling in so many female campus gender war terrorists. Watch your back!
[i]If this indeed occurred of a period that covered 2002 to 2009, where is the university oversight of the money? They simply allowed an individual at the program director to have $500,000 of grant money at her control without any type of scrutiny or oversight? [/i]
Hindsight is 20/20. In retrospect they [i]should have[/i] had better oversight. However, Ms. Beeman’s alleged embezzlement was highly unusual and as such unexpected. Having worked for a business which was embezzled by an accountant, I suspect the lack of oversight of her (or anyone in that job up to now) was due to the presumption that she was an honorable person. Until you get burned and as long as you have dealt with honorable people, you just don’t normally presume that such a person would ever do such things. It’s not as if Ms. Beeman was a low-paid staffer who had a pile of unattended cash in front of her. A normal person making a very good income won’t risk losing his job and facing criminal prosecution in order to embezzle modest amounts of money.
Here’s a recent (Jan. 2, 2010) report of 2008 UC crime statistics (Clery Act). UC Davis comes in second to UCLA, here:
California Watch: UCLA, UC Davis had highest reported sexual assault rates during 2008
[url]http://californiawatch.org/facts-figures/ucla-uc-davis-had-highest-reported-sexual-assault-rates-during-2008[/url]
There’s no asterisk or anything in this report that mentions the ongoing issue of UCD crime stats.
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