Freedom of Information

When can we finally stop letting college campuses be little islands of sanctuary for budding criminals and allow actual real law enforcement to handle these cases?  There is clearly an ongoing, widespread, pattern of under and misreporting of sexual crimes at many universities. They have every incentive to continue to hide these crimes from potential future students.  Why do they get to keep doing this?  I can see letting campus police forces continue to handle property crimes. 

Hi, Claire, I’m a Yale alum too (SY ’93) though I opted to get off the Ivy League carousel in the 1990s and become part of America. I went to SUNY Buffalo for my PhD and have been happily among the 99% ever since.

I will throw this out there, having been at Yale and having spent a great deal of time in another institution, the Army, where sexual assault is extremely common especially among men.

I believe Yale’s stats. It isn’t an environment where a lot of rape happens. It just isn’t. I know from being in the Army what an institution feels like, which is susceptible to a lot of rapes. At Yale the students are largely bookish and also squeamish. They don’t have a close connection to visceral physical experience since they haven’t worked hard and they do sports for relaxation and social networking, not for raw competition. Yale is also a place where people are constantly watching each other and this makes it difficult, I would think, for rapists to isolate their prey.

Also, I don’t think universities should be involved in disciplinary proceedings against rapists. The police should handle that. If there is a student who gets readmitted with a criminal record involving sexual assault, then he should be treated on campus the way communities everywhere treat convicted offenders. If he did his time in jail, he paid his debt to society and that should be put behind him.

Here’s a link to a post about the Pentagon report, which didn’t get almost any coverage, revealing that 19,000 sexual assaults occur in the military each year:

http://criticalnewsscan.blogspot.com/2012/01/pentagon-suddenly-takes-sexual-assault.html

It is too bad I haven’t seen anyone addressing the Pentagon report with the same vigilance I see in this column about Yale. The problem of rape in the military is much more pronounced and unfortunately gay groups pushing for the repeal of DADT were systematic about covering up the widespread amount of gay-on-gay rape in the military, because they were worried about such information looking bad for the DADT repeal. I am still mad about the whole thing.

I am flabbergasted that Yale obtains evidence of crimes committed by its students, staff, or faculty and apparently doesn’t report them to the local prosecutors.

AHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Great piece. I don’t believe them either.  DKE frat still partying, huh? That’s breaking news and I hope someone picks it up.  Misogyny is a huge problem in this country and it seems that in this Republic primary season, the misogynist atmosphere is really heating up. And I echo JackDanielsBlack’s comment: Why in heaven’s name are colleges adjudicating rape cases?

In some cases, those labels mean something.  You could never have an actionable prosecution for “coercion” in a court of law, because the standard (sex procured from so-called “unreasonable pressure”) is void for vagueness.  Yale, of course, can enforce such standards against its students – meaning that when it says “coercion,” it might in fact mean something different than rape.  

That’s actually not true:  coercion can be a crime, depending on the circumstances, and it can count as rape.  For example, telling someone that s/he will not be allowed to leave until they submit to sex is coercion; as is telling them that if they don’t perform a sex act you will put it on Facebook that they did.

“because they were fictitious and filed solely to accomplish a punitive purpose.”

Can you document that? I mean seriously, is that a fact or the conclusion you have come to on your own?  Becuase certainly at the “elitist eastern” university I used to work at many cases could not be prosecuted because evidence had been destroyed, the victim was unconscious at the time of the attack, there were no third party witnesses and/or s/he waited too long to come forward.

I continue to be fascinated by the number of men who read this publication who simply do not believe that rape happens, and are enraged when someone like myself (and the DOJ) asserts that it does.  But perhaps that’s not strange, given the number of faculty, TA’s and administrators at Yale who are disciplined for sexual misconduct and harassment — you would think that would be more than obvious and I guess it isn’t.

I will never forget some very chilling and disturbing statistics presented by the local newspaper about the university in the mid-west with which I was affiliated at the time (about 18 years ago). City-wide (not just university) statistics indicated that  fraternity members alone accounted for approximately 65% of the sexual assaults in the town (not just on campus), specifically accounting for slightly over 85% of the date rapes and over 90% of the gang rapes reported.  These data did not include harassment or other categories of sexual assault, just forcible rape.

This was at a very Greek university in a highly “university town.”  As compelling as it may be to do so,  I am reluctant to join the ranks of those who dissect such data to the point of near irrelevance in explaining such outcomes in their misguided attempt to avoid painting any group or groups in an unfavorable light. The issue of sexual assault is often far too widely circumvented, ignored, marginalized, or redirected. The data are what the data are at both the global and the granular level. 

A talented social scientist could run a few multiple regressions on such data and identify mitigating variables to dim the glaring light on these organizations, but with sincere apologies to decent, ethical fraternity members everywhere, both past and present, so very many of these organizations preach a culture of misogyny, entitlement, testosterone-driven excess and brotherhood in secrecy, that it cannot be so easily dismissed.

Maybe those stats are correct but I have serious doubts about your evidence. Just because a newspaper reports something doesn’t mean it is true. And these numbers border on the ridiculous, first of all “responsible for 85% of date rapes?” How is “date rape” defined by the newspaper? These were self reports from women to authorities that they were date raped not simply raped ( I don’t mean that in minimizing way)? How is that determined? And frat members were responsible for 90% of gang rapes, yeah, ok, sure. That characterization  of fraternity members is so over-the-top stereotypical, I need to see the reference for this. Can you provide it? You seem to remember the numbers pretty clearly. I pray you aren’t daytripping on this but we shall see. I am sure even those Duke Lacrosse players who were exonerated after the witch hunt they were subjected to, are still responsible for 90% of Duke gangbangs. Lord.

I have actually sat on some of these committees, and while I understand you are sincere, what you are saying comes out of a world view that puts the interests if the university first.  I think administrators create the world they want around this, and that some of you truly do not understand this: women don’t come forward because there is nothing that actually encourages them to do so, particularly these dumb hearings.  Why do people file “informal” complaints or ask for mediation?  Because being raped is horrible, and they want it to be over with as quickly as possible. Because sitting in the same room with the guy who raped you who claims nothing happened is crazy-making.  Only later do many of them want more than that, and it’s too late.

What I think is telling is how few readers have commented on the last part of the post:  that universities do very little to prevent rape because they don;t want to acknowledge its prevalence.  Wen asked to do more, they point to the fraction of rapes that were reported and ask what the need is.

BTW, dozens of women have written me since this post went up (some at Yale) to say that they were raped in college and were too ashamed and depressed to go through a hearing where they were clear the rapist would not be held accountable in any meaningful way.

Of course colleges and universities should hand these cases directly to the
police, but of course they don’t because it would be bad for PR.  Reporting rape
and other crime statistics accurately would be bad for PR (and recruiting), so
it doesn’t happen.  Maintaining good PR is more important to
an institution than anything legal or moral.

Henry Adams

Often they do not go to the police because they are encouraged by campus authorities not to do so, but that isn’t always true.   Sometimes when intoxicants are involved, they aren’t sure what happened until much later; sometimes, as in olden days, they blame themselves. Sometimes they are intimidated by peers from reporting rapes because “So-and-so” is “such a nice guy. Are you sure?”  Sometimes they are urged to embrace their status as victims and do nothing if that’s what they want at the time — not unusual to want to do nothing when you are traumatized. Campus authorities present their procedures as “best” and least likely to “re-traumatize the victim.”

A bigger problem from my perspective is the category “sexual misconduct” that has been invented by colleges and universities so that people who are raped are sometimes not clear that what has happened really is a crime. I have heard university officials articulate a range of harms that are actually felonies and misdemeanors as “not crimes” but punishable as “sexual misconduct” by the universities.

In short, students are lied to about rape and what they ought to do about it.

 So is promising someone you will marry them.

Rapists can get fed, slowly, into a wood chipper. 

The handling of sexual assault / rape / misconduct / etc. cases by a college or university board  is not an “alternative” or a replacement for law enforcement.It can allow the “perpetrator” of the “crime” to be held accountable to the university’s standard when a criminal court would find them innocent. It can also allow the victim to get counseling, to help them report the incident to police if they want, and to force the separation between the “parties” involved (when no criminal court would). Why are universities involved? Because sometimes there is no one else.  

In some states you are obligated to report a crime to the police (usually if they are a minor) but in others the best you can do is listen to the victim, council them, and try to lead them to report the incident; sometimes they don’t. 

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2009/10/how_often_do_women_falsely_cry_rape.single.html

Does anyone have a better article on the difficulties of providing accurate statistics for the frequency of false rape allegations? 

Thanks- Evan

I’m currently a student at an Ivy League school who has experienced sexual assault from a former partner/student at my college. Only after a year was I willing to come forward with the information. Throughout the process of the disciplinary hearing (which included a committee of peer students and faculty), I was constantly told that the chances of “winning” my case were slim to none. I was told by deans and counselors that my best bet would be to come to some kind of non-legally binding arrangement with my attacker that would neither penalize him nor hold him responsible for his actions. No matter what he did, I knew that through a school disciplinary hearing, the worst thing that would happen to him would be suspension for a period of time. That was my best case scenario.

I eventually did get the “best case scenario”: he was suspended for the duration of my time at the school (one year), was/is not allowed on campus, the outcome of the hearing was put on his permanent record, he is not allowed to contact me, and he was advised to take counseling. What seemed like a small bit of justice had occurred but unfortunately, a large portion of his sentence was overturned and the incidences removed from his record so that he could transfer to another school. If he didn’t have a long history of physical violence against women, I would be less concerned, but I know that the lesson that needed to be learned was not. 

But why was he able to get away? A few reasons. 1. I did not file a criminal suit against him because I had neither the financial nor emotional reserves to handle such an endeavor. 2. No one believes women when they say they have been assaulted, especially if it is by a partner. And 3. His family could buy him out of any trouble he may find himself in and that is the underlying problem in the way sexual assault cases are handled on the university level, especially in Ivy League colleges. The college’s driving desire to protect its students has become twisted and takes a backseat to the necessity to not upset, offend, or vilify (even rightly so) the children of the powerful Elite. Covering up rape protects endowments, the reputations of abusers and universities, and the only person left unprotected is the victim.

Universities need to realize that protecting that one victim is enough.