rphilos

You might want to re-read @TakeruK's posts, because that's a caricature of what they said, and no one here thinks anyone should make unjustified accusations.

Oh, we're at the dictionary definition part of the argument already?

telkanuru, can you please provide evidence that I caricatured TakeruK? TakeruK said that you "should not have to justify or...determine whether or not the action they are complaining" about fits the definition of sexual harassment. They say: "If anyone feels that something is amiss, they should make a report/complaint" and "the Title IX coordinator decides that the report/information is actionable." TakeruK explicitly says that you should make a complaint even when you were offended by someone who "just doesn't know the social norms," which in practice means disproportionately reporting people who are on the autism spectrum or are for some reason socially impaired.

A large percentage of people are not capable of learning social norms well enough to always avoid inadvertently making others uncomfortable. This article talks about a professor (on the autism spectrum) who was driven to suicide by the pain of continually offending his colleagues: http://quillette.com/2017/07/18/neurodiversity-case-free-speech/
You keep saying that reports to a Title IX office aren't "accusations." I'm not sure what you mean. American Heritage Dictionary defines "accusation" as "A charge of wrongdoing that is made against a person or other party." The only reason to submit a report to a Title IX office is to inform them of some sort of wrongdoing. You say a Title IX investigation is "is not a disciplinary process." I guess an "investigation" is not a "disciplinary process" per se, but Title IX investigations can lead to serious, formal punishments. And, as a matter of fact, there are countless examples of Title IX committees committing travesties of justice (I gave one example above where Title IX officers expelled a USC student from the football team for abusing his girlfriend while the girlfriend kept protesting that he was innocent).

I said that accusations of sexual harassment should be justified. TakeruK objected. I explained why I think it is morally wrong to make unjustified accusations.
Multiple people (e.g., @NoirFemme) down-voted my posts saying that we should be careful about making accusations potentially based on false information or innocent misunderstandings. The vast majority of the people commenting on this thread said that the behavior described by OP in her original post was a clear-cut case of sexual harassment, even though the facts given in the original post did not support that verdict. Making false accusations is itself a horrendous, socially destructive thing to do. What I am trying to "accomplish" with my back and forth with TakeruK is to encourage people to rethink their immoral position that false accusations aren't a big deal.

Is there an Ombuds officer or ombuds department at your school? They can direct you to the policies and proper channels for reporting this. I'm sorry this happened to you. 
http://ombuds-blog.blogspot.com/p/higher-ed.html
Good read: https://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2017/05/12/advice-graduate-students-dealing-sexual-assault-and-harassment-essay

Based on the details that OP has now revealed, I agree that she was sexually harassed. However, your suggestion that you should "not have to justify" charges (related to sexual harassment or anything else) before making them because the justice system will conduct an investigation is grossly immoral. If someone feels uncomfortable because they were asked out by someone they're not interested in, or if they misinterpret an off-color joke, it would be seriously wrong to make any sort of complaint against that person, even if they are eventually vindicated. Merely being accused of sexual harassment is a traumatic and stigmatizing experience. You should only make accusations if you are justified in doing so. (In OP's case she is justified.)
 
In my description of what constitutes sexual harassment, I mentioned "persistent unwanted advances" as one kind of sexual harassment. I said sexual harassment could also involve "an explicit or implicit threat, inappropriate touching, or something along those lines," which could all be "single occurrence."

Based on the details that OP has now revealed, I agree that she was sexually harassed. However, your suggestion that you should "not have to justify" charges (related to sexual harassment or anything else) before making them because the justice system will conduct an investigation is grossly immoral. If someone feels uncomfortable because they were asked out by someone they're not interested in, or if they misinterpret an off-color joke, it would be seriously wrong to make any sort of complaint against that person, even if they are eventually vindicated. Merely being accused of sexual harassment is a traumatic and stigmatizing experience. You should only make accusations if you are justified in doing so. (In OP's case she is justified.)
 
In my description of what constitutes sexual harassment, I mentioned "persistent unwanted advances" as one kind of sexual harassment. I said sexual harassment could also involve "an explicit or implicit threat, inappropriate touching, or something along those lines," which could all be "single occurrence."

Based on the details that OP has now revealed, I agree that she was sexually harassed. However, your suggestion that you should "not have to justify" charges (related to sexual harassment or anything else) before making them because the justice system will conduct an investigation is grossly immoral. If someone feels uncomfortable because they were asked out by someone they're not interested in, or if they misinterpret an off-color joke, it would be seriously wrong to make any sort of complaint against that person, even if they are eventually vindicated. Merely being accused of sexual harassment is a traumatic and stigmatizing experience. You should only make accusations if you are justified in doing so. (In OP's case she is justified.)
 
In my description of what constitutes sexual harassment, I mentioned "persistent unwanted advances" as one kind of sexual harassment. I said sexual harassment could also involve "an explicit or implicit threat, inappropriate touching, or something along those lines," which could all be "single occurrence."

orange turtle - Thanks for context. That is worse than what you originally described. It seems like he's guilty of propositioning you in a crude and inappropriate way. Is it possible that he's on the autistic spectrum or otherwise impaired at reading social situations? Still, so far he's only made one unambiguous advance, and you told him no. If he does something similar again, then I think it would count as "persistent" unwanted advances and it would be bona fide sexual harassment. Maybe you could tell his wife what happened...I'm sure she would make sure it doesn't happen again.

orange turtle - Thanks for context. That is worse than what you originally described. It seems like he's guilty of propositioning you in a crude and inappropriate way. Is it possible that he's on the autistic spectrum or otherwise impaired at reading social situations? Still, so far he's only made one unambiguous advance, and you told him no. If he does something similar again, then I think it would count as "persistent" unwanted advances and it would be bona fide sexual harassment. Maybe you could tell his wife what happened...I'm sure she would make sure it doesn't happen again.

It's very disturbing how almost all the commenters here are saying that this was definitely sexual harassment. I'm not saying it wasn't. But based on the description of the events given by OP, it's far from clear that it was. Both men and women sometimes receive romantic/sexual overtures that they do not reciprocate. It does not become "sexual harassment" merely by virtue of the fact that the person who does the propositioning is employed by the same university where you happen to be a student. Sexual harassment involves persistent unwanted advances, an explicit or implicit threat, inappropriate touching, or something along those lines. OP doesn't mention anything like. It's suspicious that OP's advisor--who presumably knows the facts better than any of us--told her that it wasn't harassment.
Now OP asks if she should try to ruin this man's life by having him labeled/punished as a sexual harasser. All we've been told is that a man propositioned a woman and she turned him down. If that's the whole story, then OP's advisor was right.

I definitely think more clarification on the context is needed here to really jump to giving advice.
How did this exactly occur, where, and how did it even come up in conversation?
It makes a big deal because for example if professor in a different department propositioned you in a private and social setting and there was some kind of dual dialogue that led up to it, it may not be sexual harassment (could easily be construed as inappropriate or whatever). If this person propositioned you without being led on in say his office, then yes obviously it is.

Does he have any formal authority over you? What exactly did he say?

If you don't mind my asking, why do you want an MA in philosophy? Frankly, you won't be competitive, for all the reasons you mention. If you get all As for a couple semesters maybe you could get into a self-funded MA program at an unranked school. But would that be preferable to just studying philosophy on your own for free?

This could also be explained by there being a very significant correlation between high GRE scores and a strong writing sample, letters of recommendation, and GPA, which wouldn't be at all surprising. This is a straightforward case of correlation (between high GRE scores and success in admissions) not equalling causation.

be., is your field philosophy? It's just not true that someone has a "reasonable chance of admission to a PGR-ranked program" with V159/Q152, or that GPA isn't a "great indicator[] of one's admission prospects." Some programs publish the average GRE scores of admitted PhD students. Even the lower-ranked PGR programs have average V scores in the 167-168 range, and Q scores much higher than 152. tbphilstudent deserves to know that before he/she spends 3 months working on applications and $1,000 on application fees.

be., is your field philosophy? It's just not true that someone has a "reasonable chance of admission to a PGR-ranked program" with V159/Q152, or that GPA isn't a "great indicator[] of one's admission prospects." Some programs publish the average GRE scores of admitted PhD students. Even the lower-ranked PGR programs have average V scores in the 167-168 range, and Q scores much higher than 152. tbphilstudent deserves to know that before he/she spends 3 months working on applications and $1,000 on application fees.

GPA and GRE are not great indicators of one's admission prospects.  That said, your verbal score may hurt you slightly, and it would be worthwhile to improve your grad GPA. Nonetheless, contrary to the above comment, you still have a reasonable chance of admission to a PGR-ranked program, provided the other parts of your application are strong.

What kind of places are you aiming for? To be competitive at PGR-ranked PhD programs I think you would need to significantly raise your V and Q GRE scores.

If you don't mind my asking, why do you want an MA in philosophy? Frankly, you won't be competitive, for all the reasons you mention. If you get all As for a couple semesters maybe you could get into a self-funded MA program at an unranked school. But would that be preferable to just studying philosophy on your own for free?

Why do you want to do a Ph.D.? You make it seem like it's a plan B because you didn't get into law school. A Ph.D. program should never really be a plan B because it is a MASSIVE commitment.
Listen, I had similar 'stats' as you and I got into a few top 15/20 programs. But I also had a lot of research experience, good letters, and a pretty defined project/writing sample to make up for some of those weaknesses, do you have those things?
If you don't, it's going to be really tough for you...especially for top 10s. You are going to be competing against people that have known and prepared for Ph.D. programs and applications for multiple years WITH perfect stats and all the rest.

I would check out an English grammar website and make sure you read over some of the more basic rules. This is not intended to be an unkind criticism of your writing, merely, there are several obvious errors and places where the phrasing is awkward and clunky. 
Secondly, answer the question. Your conclusion says it all really; "universities should make a vast number of electives available for students". This is the closing statement for an essay throughout which you have justified a certain view. Unfortunately, whether or not universities should make a vast number of electives available for students was not the question. 
The question was Universities should require students to take courses only within those fields they are interested in studying. Not, should students only take courses in their major, nor, should the university provide a wide range of electives. My major may be economics, but I took a series of advanced mathematics courses and an elective in economic history because I was interested in studying those. They were outside of my 'major'. However, a course on modern political discourse is outside of my major, was an offered elective, but was something I had no interest in studying. So I didn't. The university did not make me. 
So what is the counterfactual to the question above? Universities should require students to take courses only within those fields they are interested in studying? Well, can you think of a circumstance in which the university should require students to take courses outside of those fields they are interested in studying? Note, no mention of majors is made in the question.
What about concerns over merit goods? Students may not place value on certain courses, but the university may feel they know better than an eighteen year old student what is good for them. In this case they can behave paternalistically and require a certain number of core credits. It isn't about studying inside or outside of majors - after all, students can double major, take minors etc. The question is whether or not there is any benefit to forcing students to study things that they are not interested in studying. Perhaps students do not wish to challenge themselves? Perhaps they only wish to study those things they are good at? Perhaps the university wishes to force these students to display a basic competency for many disciplines. Perhaps a basic advanced math component should be mandatory, because those wishing to go on to grad school in a STEM subject or the social sciences must have this, but incoming freshmen may not know that, or may not yet know whether they wish to do so? Perhaps the university wishes to prevent students only taking introductory classes in many disciplines, and graduating with a 4.0 for which they have not had to work very hard.
If I was marking the essay my first impression would be that you have some interesting ideas, but had in fact rewritten the question in order to answer the question that you wanted to answer.

Given your 169V score you presumably have the verbal intelligence to do much better on the AW section. One key to doing well is using examples to support your argument. If you didn't bring examples from your outside knowledge that would explain the low score. Note that the graders tend to be liberal--regardless of your own political views, your essay should be pro-liberal. (My own score was 5.5.)
If you're applying to top PhD programs it would be good if you can raise your quantitative score, too.

Hi @DBear
I think it's very questionable that there has been an uptick in hate crimes since Trump's election. See here.
I grew up and went to college in a very liberal city in a very liberal state in the US. I know of dozens of anti-Asian hate crimes committed at or around my college, including one that led to a death (several years ago a young Asian student was chased into the street and hit by a car). 100% of these crimes were committed by black people, 0% by conservative Republicans. I don't think you need to worry about the typical Trump voters.