# Research driving claims about campus rape may be a fraud. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 2, 2015, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/research-driving-claims-about-campus-rape-may-be-a-fraud/729679 "2015-09-02T04:22:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![camille](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/22d042/32.png) [@camille](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/camille)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2015, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/research-driving-claims-about-campus-rape-may-be-a-fraud/729679/61 "2015-09-04T05:45:58Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > Just to be sure about something, am I remembering correctly that **Dseid** and **Camille** would typically _not_ be on roughly the same “side” as **ITR Champion** in a dispute about a socio-political issue? You’re remembering correctly. But I don’t play politics with science, and that study is flawed. About the only thing we can take from it is (cliche warning) more studies are needed. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2015, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/research-driving-claims-about-campus-rape-may-be-a-fraud/729679/62 "2015-09-04T13:21:15Z")
To echo **camille** with a “me too.” Creating a bad study to create a desired conclusion demeans science. I would guess that the conclusions mostly are likely correct … but this study is crap. My comments regarding the study are not about a pre-existing socio-cultural belief but about the science. (My separate comments about expulsion based on some undescribed “lesser standard” of evidence are socio-cultural belief based however.) Not so sure that “more studies are needed” though, just some honest critical analysis of what we have. The CDC report I linked to, based off of an analysis of complete interviews obtained from 16,507 adults in the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey (NISVS), provides _plenty of quality evidence_ for how significant the issue is, and again, not just for or even particularly for young women in a college environment. And men are not immune from victimization either: nearly one in ten women have been raped (including completed forced penetration, attempted forced penetration, or alcohol/drug facilitated completed penetration) and about one in 45 men have been made to penetrate an intimate partner. Also an “estimated 16.9% of women and 8.0% of men have experienced sexual violence other than rape.” The risk is greater for bisexual women and for women the risk is clearly linear with the greatest risk for the lowest income groups and for those experiencing housing and food insecurity. And again other high quality studies that I have linked to come up with similar numbers which also further demonstrate that the risk overall is less for women in college but mostly correlates with demographic features. Point being that while I want _my_ daughter in a safe environment when she goes off to college in a few more years, I also want her safe where ever she may be, and I want others’ daughters, who may not go to college, safe too. They are not now. The CDC came to the following conclusion about reducing the significant public health burden of Intimate Partner Violence (IPV): > [@](#): > > This report suggests that IPV victimization begins at an early age with nearly 70% of female victims and nearly 54% of male victims having experienced IPV prior to age 25. This suggests that primary prevention of IPV must begin at an early age. CDC’s approach to primary prevention of IPV is the promotion of healthy relationship behaviors among young people, with the goal of reaching adolescents prior to their first relationships. By influencing relationship behaviors and patterns early through dating violence prevention programs, it is possible to promote healthy relationship behaviors and patterns that can be carried forward into adulthood. My personal political agenda is thus informed by what the data actually is. One in ten for rape is a horrible and frightening number and misrepresenting college as a uniquely dangerous environment distracts from creating more effective interventions for the real issue, the significant risk of sexual violence throughout our society, especially for younger and even more so less privileged younger women. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2015, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/research-driving-claims-about-campus-rape-may-be-a-fraud/729679/63 "2015-09-04T13:32:09Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > I have asked for some clear explanation of what lesser burden of proof would be accepted. Not a lawyer, so “preponderance” don’t mean diddley to me without some examples. About that I am indeed ignorant. “The preponderance of the evidence” is the same standard of proof that applies in almost any civil trial. It means “more likely than not” or a probability of greater than 50%. > [@](#): > > Give me a hypothetical accusation of rape that would have the evidence highly probably not be sufficient to win at trial and that would meet that standard. I’ll give you a real life scenario, though not a rape: OJ was acquitted on a criminal murder charge, but lost a civil action against him based on the same facts. > [@](#): > > Yes, that equals “suspicion alone, without any burden of proof.” What are you talking about? I don’t care if you’re not a lawyer, but if you don’t understand what a burden of proof is, you should stop throwing around your wild-ass theories about them. > [@](#): > > That report contains scary and sad statistics to be sure, but they do also provide the actual context: colleges are relatively safer places than the rest of the country is. The rest of the country just does not apparently rank as much concern. The rest of the country generally doesn’t have to conform to a student code of conduct, so this is irrelevant. ---
**Author:** ![Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f475e1/32.png) [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jimmy_Chitwood)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2015, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/research-driving-claims-about-campus-rape-may-be-a-fraud/729679/64 "2015-09-04T13:35:45Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > I have asked for some clear explanation of what lesser burden of proof would be accepted. Not a lawyer, so “preponderance” don’t mean diddley to me without some examples. About that I am indeed ignorant. Give me a hypothetical accusation of rape that would have the evidence highly probably not be sufficient to win at trial and that would meet that standard. > > Again, not a lawyer, but most rape cases that are of the sorts being included in these college surveys are of the “too inebriated/high to consent” or “I said ‘No.’” variety, having had sex is not in question, significant physical violence is not usually alleged, and the cases already depend mostly on how much the accuser is believed about lack of consent versus how much the accused is that there was mutual consent. The only difference I can imagine in such cases is that if significant doubt exists over who is being truthful then “not guilty” is often a court’s response, while in such cases a school tribunal is free to say that in the case of significant doubt over who is truthful the accused should be expelled. Unclear if the accuser would be protected from cross examination in that circumstance as well out of well intended concern to protect her from being re-victimized. Is there another scenario that you see as probable? To return to the point I was making before, “significant doubt” is a drastic overstatement of what’s required to avoid a conviction; any reasonable doubt is what you mean to say. So, in the cases you’re talking about, if there is anything about the case that would make a reasonable person say “hmm, I guess I’m not certain about this” before they acted on a matter of great importance, then a jury can’t convict. They get a big lecture from the judge right before they deliberate about how important it is that they understand this. Innocent until proven guilty in the criminal context is a gigantic barrier to conviction, and for good reason. (When I did criminal work, I used to say to the jury hey guys, think about what the judge is saying to you – if there’s enough here that it would make you _hesitate_ before acting, that’s reasonable doubt! If it would be enough to make you take one second and say “… huh”, then that’s it, right there! That is a really really high standard they have to meet to prove this case!) Preponderance means more likely than not. I’m not sure what sort of hypothetical example you think is going to illustrate this point better than the abstract, but in every case you start with zero evidence. Everything you hear, if it’s relevant, moves the needle in one direction or another. If you hear enough credible evidence, at some point you no longer have reasonable doubt that the thing happened. Just before that point, you do have reasonable doubt. So any case that gets to the point of almost, but not quite, beyond a reasonable doubt is an example that fits into this space. I mean, you’re an intelligent person, so the concepts of something being “probable” vs. “very probable” vs. “extremely probable” don’t need to be explained to you. A criminal conviction only happens when you’re all the way up past very probable to “happened beyond a reasonable doubt.” So this could be any fact pattern you like; it’s an evidentiary standard, not a blueprint. Guy talks to a woman at a bar who he’s had drinks with before, and they’ve fooled around a little on those occasions. She texts her friend around the same time that she’s feeling dizzy and the gross guy from a couple weeks ago is there. She says she doesn’t remember what happens the rest of the night and doesn’t remember agreeing to go anywhere with him, but she gets a rape kit, and she had sex with the guy. The bartender saw them leaving and she seemed out of it. He testifies that they went home, she got on top of him, they had sex. She goes into work the next morning and her coworkers report that she seemed extremely groggy and hung over, but her bar tab was two glasses of wine. Beyond a reasonable doubt? More likely than not that he took advantage of her? > [@](#): > > Yes, that equals “suspicion alone, without any burden of proof.” Well, no it doesn’t. That’s just an entirely unsupportable thing to say. You’ve even acknowledged above that you know there’s a burden of proof. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2015, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/research-driving-claims-about-campus-rape-may-be-a-fraud/729679/65 "2015-09-04T13:41:46Z")
Going back to this idea that colleges shouldn’t be in the business of adjudicating guilt for serious crimes: it’s impossible to believe that the people saying this have thought it through. What you are effectively arguing is that colleges should only be able to discipline students for tiny infractions. If a student does something really awful, he/she would essentially be untouchable. Stole a soda from the cafeteria? Loss of parking privileges! Raped another student? Well, you haven’t been convicted of anything, so off you go! ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2015, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/research-driving-claims-about-campus-rape-may-be-a-fraud/729679/66 "2015-09-04T15:03:21Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > “The preponderance of the evidence” is the same standard of proof that applies in almost any civil trial. It means “more likely than not” or a probability of greater than 50%. > > I’ll give you a real life scenario, though not a rape … Don’t care about about OJ, not material to this discussion. I am asking for a specific set of hypothetical facts that would fit your sufficient to warrant expulsion but not enough to likely convict on rape, specifically what sort of facts would meet your lesser standard. You don’t want to give one, fine. Greater than 50%? So you’d expel someone with the significant lifetime consequences of that when there is in your mind (counting any pre-existing biases you may have) a just a hair’s breadth under a coin flip that they are indeed _not_ guilty of the allegation made, nearly a 50% chance they did nothing wrong. Okay. Clear enough now and that is, to me, way fucked up. Still also no answer as to whether or not in your college enforce a perceived hair’s breadth more than 50% chance of guilt and a hair’s breadth less of nothing done wrong with expulsion includes the accused being protected from re-victimization and thus no questioning the accuser’s story by an advocate for the accused. > [@RNATB continuing over two posts](#): > > … The rest of the country generally doesn’t have to conform to a student code of conduct, so this is irrelevant. … If a student does something really awful, he/she would essentially be untouchable. Stole a soda from the cafeteria? Loss of parking privileges! Raped another student? Well, you haven’t been convicted of anything, so off you go! All of the country is subject to the laws of the country which supersede colleges’ “Rules of Conduct.” The bigger issue is what colleges shield from societal enforcement and protect law-breaking students from quite frankly as local law enforcement often lets the college handle things themselves, not only for drug dealing (up to significant points) and significant other criminal misbehaviors, but for rape. Yeah colleges “Rules of Conduct” seem to in practice mean that we will protect you from the real world consequences of breaking laws as much as we can. If we are confident someone is guilty of rape, more than a best guess we suspect did it, you _know_ how football and lacrosse players are, then that someone should be in jail and punished by society, yes reasonably certain **Jimmy**. Rape is not a code of college student conduct issue; it is a societal issue. If I understand you correctly **RNATB** , and I may not be as you have so far not spelled it out, you’d further facilitate the current - “You are telling us you were raped? Don’t go to the police. Don’t get a rape kit. That’s a difficult experience, they will question you about it, want to collect evidence, and the court system will make you testify and well that is traumatic. We’ll take care of it as a college discipline issue. (And under the rug.)” The only possible results of that? True rapists are more likely kept in the public sphere, putting other women at risk, maybe and maybe not at that college, but somewhere, and those who are actually not guilty (up to nearly half of those accused by your preponderance standard) have their lives significantly damaged. Yeah. That is major league fucked up. Sorry, the solution to being 50.1% confident that someone is guilty and 49.9% thinking they are not is _not_ to punish everyone with 10% level of consequence what a guilty person should incur. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2015, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/research-driving-claims-about-campus-rape-may-be-a-fraud/729679/67 "2015-09-04T15:10:19Z")
What? No. Colleges and law enforcement should be working in parallel. All crimes should be referred for law enforcement investigation. Colleges should not be shielding students. I don’t know where you got any of that. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2015, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/research-driving-claims-about-campus-rape-may-be-a-fraud/729679/68 "2015-09-04T15:14:41Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > If you pull a sample at random from a population, you can extrapolate safely to the population that the sample was taken from. You cannot extrapolate safely to a much larger population. > > For example, if you took a random sample of people in Utah and asked them whether they were Mormon, you could use the results to form conclusions about the percentage of Utah residents who are Mormons. You could not extrapolate the results to the percentage of Americans who are Mormons, or the percentage of human beings who are Mormons. Yes. Good. I’m glad you recognize that there’s nothing statistically improper about extrapolating from a small sample to a general population, and that the focus of your criticism should instead be whether the sampled population is appropriately representative. So far, you haven’t offered any reason for why you think UMass is analogous to Utah in your comparison. Someone else pointed out that it is principally a commuter school. Do you believe more commuters are rapists? ---
**Author:** ![Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f475e1/32.png) [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jimmy_Chitwood)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2015, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/research-driving-claims-about-campus-rape-may-be-a-fraud/729679/69 "2015-09-04T15:24:19Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > If we are confident someone is guilty of rape, more than a best guess we suspect did it, you _know_ how football and lacrosse players are, then that someone should be in jail and punished by society, yes reasonably certain **Jimmy**. Rape is not a code of college student conduct issue; it is a societal issue. > > If I understand you correctly **RNATB** , and I may not be as you have so far not spelled it out, you’d further facilitate the current - “You are telling us you were raped? Don’t go to the police. Don’t get a rape kit. That’s a difficult experience, they will question you about it, want to collect evidence, and the court system will make you testify and well that is traumatic. We’ll take care of it as a college discipline issue. (And under the rug.)” I’m going to suggest two things here. The first is that you don’t know enough about sexual assault victims, perpetrators and cases, based on your characterization of universities pressuring them not to go to police. They don’t want to go to the police. The police are unhelpful to them in many cases. You have the cause and effect reversed. Universities are putting these measures in place to address the problem that is sexual assault victims who don’t report because they don’t get any help. The second is that, with all due respect, you sound like you’re arguing based on emotions rather than reason here. I find it hard to believe that you actually think someone should be in jail where we are “reasonably confident” they’ve committed a crime. I don’t think you are actually having trouble, conceptually, with the idea that “beyond a reasonable doubt” is a really high bar, and that something less than that bar makes obvious sense in non-criminal contexts like employer and academic investigations. It seems to me like you want it to be true that universities have no good reason to take action on sexual assault complaints, so you’re advocating a frankly _horrible_ notion about what criminal justice should look like, even though you know it would be horrible. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2015, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/research-driving-claims-about-campus-rape-may-be-a-fraud/729679/70 "2015-09-04T16:16:21Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > What? No. Colleges and law enforcement should be working in parallel. All crimes should be referred for law enforcement investigation. Colleges should not be shielding students. I don’t know where you got any of that. From reality. It’s why the McCaskill bill specifically bars investigations to be run by the school’s athletic department. Should be working together but are not. Schools more often than not do not want to get police involved in what happens on campus and many local police districts keep a hands off policy unless asked to be come involved. Schools protect students from the law within their bubble and are not held to standards that others are held to. What do you think would happen to anyone else who was known to be knowingly looking the other way while those under legal drinking age binge drank and imbibed and sold a variety of illegal drugs on their property? Hell, schools even discussing actually trying to limit the breaking of alcohol and drug laws causes an uproar not only among students but among alums and even many parents … illegally getting shitfaced is a right man! [This](http://time.com/2905637/campus-rape-assault-prosecution/) from a bit encouraging the ability to report anonymously and to not necessarily involve the police: > [@](#): > > “When I reported violence to my school, I was told not to go to police. But I never would have told [the school] if I knew I was going to be forced into that option.” Note: she was _told_ to not go to the police. And she had already been reluctant to do so. I am not sure I completely agree with the opposite perspective expressed in a recent [Chicago Tribune editorial](http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-sex-assault-campus-crime-reporting-rape-police-edit-0830-jm-20150828-story.html) but I think it is better than facilitating and encouraging keeping the police out of it. > [@](#): > > A Senate bill sponsored by Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., with bipartisan sponsorship, would bring about some valuable changes. One is to require every school to survey students every two years — and to publish the results. It would mandate minimum levels of training for school staffers responsible for investigating accusations and assisting victims. It would bar athletic departments from handling complaints about athletes. It would create financial penalties intended to provide a real impetus for universities to comply. All this is to the good. > > What the bill lacks is a requirement or strong inducement for college officials to turn sexual assault complaints over to the people with the most resources and expertise in such matters: police and prosecutors. … > > … Some schools, fearful about their reputations or their potential liability if a victim sues, resist immediately turning over reports of serious crimes to law enforcement personnel. And the American Council on Education, representing some 1,700 colleges, has expressed concerns that some victims would choose to do nothing rather than deal with civil authorities. > > Granted, every crime victim everywhere weighs the same worry — Will I regret engaging the criminal justice system? — before he or she calls the cops. Yet these incidents, first and foremost, involve profound allegations that a perpetrator has violated not extralegal campus creeds, but our state or federal criminal laws. > > The advantages of involving police and prosecutors from the outset are obvious: They have forensic resources, investigative skills, extensive experience and legal powers that colleges lack. All of which makes it easier for civil authorities to establish the truth about these incidents — and to impose consequences. A college can do nothing more than expel a rapist, who may then commit new crimes, while police can take him off the streets. This bill won the endorsement of the National District Attorneys Association. > > The concern that victims wouldn’t come forward makes it especially important for schools to provide the kind of active assistance to victims envisioned in the Senate bill. It’s also vital for police and prosecutors to handle these cases with dispatch and sensitivity, which would encourage more victims to report these crimes — and not only by students. Young women who don’t attend college actually have a higher chance of being sexually assaulted than those who do enroll. Let me re-emphasize that point: providing emotional and psychological support to presumed victims should be something colleges put a huge amount of resource to. Prevention programs, actually beginning in High School, make sense. (I’d love to see some studies to document efficacy too.) They should not be impeding law enforcement even with the best of intentions (which I do not believe they always have) or as an unintended consequence, they should not be playing CSI:Campus Police, they should not be providing a path that disables due process and rights for someone who is accused. ---
**Author:** ![Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f475e1/32.png) [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jimmy_Chitwood)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2015, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/research-driving-claims-about-campus-rape-may-be-a-fraud/729679/71 "2015-09-04T16:55:01Z")
Hey, if you want Alexandra Brodsky’s opinion on whether or not campus sexual assault should be left to the police, maybe you could check out her piece entitled “[No, We Can’t Just Leave College Sexual Assault to the Police](http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/12/uva-sexual-assault-campus-113294)” and see if she says anything about it in there. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2015, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/research-driving-claims-about-campus-rape-may-be-a-fraud/729679/72 "2015-09-04T17:05:58Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > From reality. I meant where did you get the idea that I am in favor of that? ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2015, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/research-driving-claims-about-campus-rape-may-be-a-fraud/729679/73 "2015-09-04T17:14:39Z")
> [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](#): > > Hey, if you want Alexandra Brodsky’s opinion on whether or not campus sexual assault should be left to the police, maybe you could check out her piece entitled “[No, We Can’t Just Leave College Sexual Assault to the Police](http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/12/uva-sexual-assault-campus-113294)” and see if she says anything about it in there. You know the Rolling Stone story was false, correct? She says nothing about solutions. There is really no way to mete out justice without discovering a preponderance of evidence. And that takes time. The rights of the accused must also be protected to insure that the falsely accused arent damaged any more than they already have been. ---
**Author:** ![Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f475e1/32.png) [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jimmy_Chitwood)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2015, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/research-driving-claims-about-campus-rape-may-be-a-fraud/729679/74 "2015-09-04T17:36:59Z")
That doesn’t have a whole lot to do with **DSeid** quoting her in support of the opposite of her opinion. ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2015, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/research-driving-claims-about-campus-rape-may-be-a-fraud/729679/75 "2015-09-04T17:42:39Z")
OK. She seemed to want to argue that students who are accused of sexual assault should be expelled but she doesnt seem to want to say it explicitly. There are no good solutions to this situation. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2015, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/research-driving-claims-about-campus-rape-may-be-a-fraud/729679/76 "2015-09-04T18:05:58Z")
> [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](#): > > Hey, if you want Alexandra Brodsky’s opinion on whether or not campus sexual assault should be left to the police, maybe you could check out her piece entitled “[No, We Can’t Just Leave College Sexual Assault to the Police](http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/12/uva-sexual-assault-campus-113294)” and see if she says anything about it in there. Thanks for the link. What does she say? > [@](#): > > … The critics aren’t wrong that colleges and universities, for the most part, are doing a bad job responding to sexual-assault victims on their campuses. … Some schools even actively encourage victims to leave campus until their assailants have graduated, disrupting the survivor’s education under a guise of concern for his or her safety, rather than suspending or expelling the abuser. > What Alexander helped to establish, then, is that campus rape is not just a crime but also an impediment to a continued education—and to subsequent success in the workplace and public life. … Mostly what she wrote there was about how universities protect the alleged assailant and mainly in regard to teacher sexual harassment. How they fail to provide the social, emotional, and psychological support the presumed victims need deserve from them in their desire to keep things under the rug. Extremely consistent with her having been told by the university to not report her own rape to the police, reinforcing her hesitation to do that which would have gotten who she knew was a rapist out of society and prevented the rapist from harming the next woman in line, be that a woman on campus or not. I continue to agree that the schools have an obligation to provide support to victims in every case and that the schools should strongly encourage getting the police involved in alleged incidents very early on in every case and not be in the business of trying be all of investigator, judge, jury, prosecution and defense teams, and executioner, regarding accusations of serious crimes that fall under state and/or federal jurisdictions and deserve their expertise, not amateur hour. This is not deciding if an unattributed quote is plagiarism or what should happen to those caught pranking the school mascot. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2015, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/research-driving-claims-about-campus-rape-may-be-a-fraud/729679/77 "2015-09-04T18:13:45Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > I do not completely disagree with you but I am curious what sort of evidence that is not enough to prove guilt in the courts **BG** that you would consider adequate enough of guilt to warrant expulsion? Is your standard that a person accused of sexual assault is guilty until proven innocent as far as expulsion goes? No, merely that expulsion is a lesser sanction than conviction/imprisonment, and there is no reason why the same high standard should be required. This is like OJ being acquitted of murder but held liable in the civil lawsuit. As for “what sort of evidence” should be sufficient, that’s a matter of academic administrative policy, not law, and it is something for the colleges to work out, whether separately or collectively. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2015, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/research-driving-claims-about-campus-rape-may-be-a-fraud/729679/78 "2015-09-04T18:21:15Z")
Really **Jimmy** did you read past the headline at all? She exactly confirms that the point I was making with more examples. **RNATB** , I get the idea from lack of response to what kind of due process there should be, if any, and your statement that believing that there is anything more than a 50% chance of guilt warrants expulsion. ---
**Author:** ![Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f475e1/32.png) [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jimmy_Chitwood)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2015, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/research-driving-claims-about-campus-rape-may-be-a-fraud/729679/79 "2015-09-04T18:23:26Z")
Did I read past the headline? Yes. I didn’t just learn about this for the first time today. Do you think I was just randomly googling people’s names from your links, or do you think I was already familiar with what her position is on Title IX and police involvement with campus sexual assaults? It’s beginning to look like the question here is whether you really know what your point is. ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2015, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/research-driving-claims-about-campus-rape-may-be-a-fraud/729679/80 "2015-09-04T18:37:24Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > No, merely that expulsion is a lesser sanction than conviction/imprisonment, and there is no reason why the same high standard should be required. > > This is like OJ being acquitted of murder but held liable in the civil lawsuit. > > As for “what sort of evidence” should be sufficient, that’s a matter of academic administrative policy, not law, and it is something for the colleges to work out, whether separately or collectively. Since most colleges and universities are run by the government and the rest get money from the government they will likely have to follow laws governing due process to anyone they try to expel. If they make rules that are too draconian they also run the risk of driving students away. Its a fine balance. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/research-driving-claims-about-campus-rape-may-be-a-fraud/729679.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/research-driving-claims-about-campus-rape-may-be-a-fraud/729679.md?page=5)