False Rape Accusations Are Common

From WTNH TV, the story of a woman who made a false rape accusation:

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) - A young woman accused of making up rape allegations against two college football players to gain the sympathy of another student she wanted to date is going on trial this week, and claims that she was pressured into confessing are expected to play a key role.

Jury selection in the case of Nikki Yovino, 19, of South Setauket, New York, is to begin Tuesday in Bridgeport Superior Court in Connecticut, and testimony is expected to start June 18. Prosecutors and defense lawyers will be in court Monday to argue over whether some evidence and testimony should be excluded from the trial.

Yovino was a student at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield when police say she reported being raped by two Sacred Heart football players at an off-campus party in Bridgeport in October 2016.

Authorities say she later admitted that she had consensual sex with the players and told them her motive. She was charged with evidence tampering, a felony, and falsely reporting an incident, a misdemeanor. The evidence tampering charge carries as many as five years in prison.

So her fake story fell apart, and she was charged. Justice was done, right? Not really. The story continues:

Yovino withdrew from Sacred Heart. The football players were never criminally charged, but both withdrew from the school as they faced possible disciplinary action based. One player lost a football scholarship, his lawyer said.

The football players’ names have not been released by police but are expected to be disclosed when they testify at the trial, their lawyer said.

“Her actions have seriously affected them,” attorney Frank Riccio II said. “They’re no longer in school. The loss of their education and the college experience has certainly affected them greatly. And this is all because of a very serious lie.”

One case, of course, doesn’t prove much of anything, but it does underline the problem with the feminist notion that women would never (well, they have to admit, hardly ever) lie about rape.

How Common are False Rape Accusations?

Quoting from Stuart Taylor, Jr. and KC Johnson, Until Proven Innocent, 2007, pp. 374-375.

The standard assertion by feminists that only 2 percent of rape claims are false, which traces to Susan Brownmiller’s 1975 book Against Our Will, is without empirical foundation and belied by a wealth of empirical data. These data suggest that at least 9 percent and probably closer to half of all rape claims are false:

1. FBI statistics say conservatively that about 9 percent of rape reports are “unfounded” in the sense of being dismissed without charges filed, usually because the accuser recants or because her account is contradicted by other evidence.
2. Forty-one percent of 109 rape complainants eventually admitted to police that no rape had occurred, according to a careful, highly regarded 1994 study of all rape reports in a midwestern town of about 70,000 between 1978 and 1987, by Purdue sociologist Eugene J. Kanin, Ph. D. The recantations made irrelevant the claims of many feminists that police often discount valid rape claims. And because there is no reason to suppose that all false accusers recanted, the total number of false reports probably exceeded 41 percent. The police in the study made serious efforts to polygraph both the accused and the accuser; it is now much more rare for police to polygraph rape accusers, due to pressure from feminist and victims’ rights groups more interested in convictions than in truth.
   
   Kanin also concluded that “these false charges were able to serve three major functions for the complainants: providing an alibi, a means of gaining revenge, and a platform for seeking attention/sympathy. This tripartite model resulted from the complainants’ own verbalizations during recantation and does not constitute conjecture.” Other experts note other motives for false rape claims; they include remorse after an impulsive sexual fling and escaping accountability when caught in an embarrassing consensual encounter.
3. Fifty percent (32) of accusers recanted their rape charges in a study by Kanin of campus police reports on sixty four rape claims at two large, unnamed Midwestern universities. In both universities, the taking of the complaint and the follow-up investigation were done by a ranking female officer. “Quite unexpectedly then” Kanin wrote, “we find that these university women, when filing a rape complaint, were as likely to file a false as a valid charge. Other reports from university police agencies support these findings.”
4. False rape accusations occur with scary frequency and “any honest veteran sex assault investigator will tell you that rape is one of the most falsely reported crimes,” Craig Silverman, a former Colorado prosecutor known for his zealous pursuit of alleged rapists, said in 2004 as a commentator on the Kobe Bryant case for Denver’s ABC affiliate. Silverman added that a Denver sex-assault unit commander had estimated that nearly 50 percent of reported rape claims are false.
5. Fraudulent rape complaints were perceived as a problem by 73 percent of the women and 72 percent of the men in a survey of students at the Air Force Academy, West Point, and the Naval Academy, according to a March 2005 Defense Department report.
6. One in four rape reports was unfounded in a 1990-1991 Washington Post investigation in seven Virginia and Maryland counties. When contacted by the Post, many of the alleged victims admitted that they had lied.

The presumption, driven by the political power of feminists on college campuses, that any accusation of rape must be true is a classic case of ideologically driven “justice.”

The campus leftists would loudly support the presumption of innocence, and full due process rights, for a black defendant accused of robbery, or a Muslim accused of conspiring with terrorists. But since the stereotypical campus rapist is a white male, these principles go out the window.

Plaintiff in Title IX Marquette Lawsuit Complained to Office for Civil Rights

We have blogged about former Marquette student Jane Doe (a pseudonym) who is suing Marquette for the treatment she received following her alleged rape (and also for Marquette’s failure to properly punish the accused rapist before the alleged rape).

We declined to draw any firm conclusions about the case, since many of the people involved refused to talk about it. We did note the implausibility of a concerted conspiracy against her in the College of Nursing, where she claims she was badly mistreated and eventually forced to leave Marquette.

In addition to filing a lawsuit, Doe filed a complaint with the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, which that office received on July 7.

Here is the statement that Doe provided the OCR.

On a form asking what she wanted from Marquette, Doe responded:

I request censure for MU and acknowledgement that corrective action has occurred preventing other students from enduring this treatment. Because I was forced to withdraw from MU, I would like help in entering other schools. I should also receive reimbursement for tuition and related expenses (including legal expenses).

The narrative she supplied OCR mostly recounts the same claims she made in the Complaint in the Title IX lawsuit, with an exception or two. A key claim in the Complaint is that Marquette’s Department of Public Safety discouraged her reporting the alleged rape to Milwaukee police. A fuller account of her claims is given in the narrative.

I told my parents, who went with me to report the assault to MU department of public safety (MU DPS). The MU DPS told me and my parents to think long and hard about reporting to Milwaukee Police because if they don’t charge him, he would find out and possibly act out against me; Did I really want him to know that I have reported him; I should think long and hard about this before calling the police. At this time, the DPS officers were aware of [redacted] and status with Marquette.

Even though MU discouraged us from [redacted] my parents and I did not think that was the right to to do. We reported to Milwaukee Police Department.

If this account is accurate, officers at Public Safety blundered badly. Note, however, that had they encouraged her to report the rape, the outcome would have been the same. She would have faced the investigation of her case by the Milwaukee Police, the long-delayed trial of her accused rapist, rape charges against her filed by her accused rapist (in apparently reprisal) and so on. So it will be difficult, in her lawsuit, to prove that any damages followed from this alleged blunder by DPS officers.

Office for Civil Rights Responds

The Office for Civil Rights judged her complaint under two rubrics: (1) Discrimination, and (2) Retaliation.

The complain based on discrimination was dismissed, based on the fact that she was late filing the complaint. The letter from Dawn Matthias (OCR team leader) said:

You informed OCR that you did not file your complaint within 180 days because you were afraid the University would retaliate against you. However, this is not an acceptable basis for a waiver of the 180-day filing requirement.

Because your allegation of discrimination is not timely and OCR finds no basis for granting a waiver, OCR is dismissing this allegation effective the date of this letter.

Retaliation

The Office for Civil Rights likewise dismissed the claim of retaliation, saying:

Although you contend that the Associate Dean who denied your grade appeals was aware of your report of sexual assault, you did not provide information suggesting that the Associate Dean’s stated reasons for denying the grade appeals were false or illegitimate. In light of the protracted amount of time between the protected activity and adverse action, and the lack of any indications of possible retaliation, OCR finds that you have not stated a prima facie case of retaliation and is dismissing this allegation.

Conclusion

It might seem that all this is damning for Jane Doe’s lawsuit against Marquette. But it’s not quite so simple. There is no evidence the Office for Civil Rights actually investigated the case. The passage quoted above implies that Doe’s complaint about retaliation was dismissed based merely on the fact that she herself presented no convincing evidence. Several documents from the OCR file were withheld from this blogger (based on privacy concerns) and Lauren Skerrett of the Office for Civil Rights declined to say whether any of them contained more evidence or investigative reports. But the meticulously written letter from Dawn Matthias indicates no additional evidence or investigation, and the redactions in that letter are too minor to conceal such.

But the bottom line has to be that Doe’s case is rather weak. The notion that her alleged rapist should have been suspended or expelled before he raped her only makes sense if his treatment was egregiously lenient, and we don’t know that it was. Further, even guys who are terrible jerks and deserve some punishment aren’t typically likely rapists.

The actions of DPS officers, if they really did discourage reporting a rape, were grossly unprofessional. But it’s hard to see how that changed anything in her subsequent experiences. And evidence of intentional mistreatment by multiple people in the Nursing College is missing.

Title IX Lawsuit Against Marquette

It’s been in the media, but not covered in any depth: the fact that a former student is suing Marquette for the treatment she received after reporting to University officials that she had been raped by a Marquette student.

We have obtained the Complaint, filed with the Federal District Court of the Eastern District of Wisconsin by “Jane Doe.” This is, of course, a pseudonym, since both the legal system and the norms of journalism protect the identity of rape victims, so far as is possible.

And we have identified the alleged rapist as “the accused,” since he was acquitted of rape charges in a Milwaukee court.

We have reproduced most of the Complaint below, stripping out legalese, paragraph numbers, and some redundant material.

If everything here is true, Marquette has been guilty of rather severe misconduct. But is everything (or even most of it) true? We have inserted our comments where we have information or a perspective to add. But much of the material in the Complaint is, at the moment, mere assertion that will need to be backed up (or refuted) by sworn testimony.

The Complaint

Defendant MARQUETTE UNIVERSITY recklessly allowed a male student who had already threatened and harmed another female student to return to campus. When the male student then raped JANE DOE, MARQUETTE knew it had done wrong. Rather than help and support DOE, MARQUETTE tried to sweep its mistake under the rug, discouraging DOE from reporting the rape to law enforcement and seeking to discredit DOE as a student.

DOE began attending MARQUETTE as a freshman in or about August 2013. DOE was enrolled in MARQUETTE’s College of Nursing. Once students are admitted to the College of Nursing, they are guaranteed all required classes and clinical hours, enabling students not only to graduate with a college degree but also, upon graduation, to assimilate into the nursing profession.

DOE had a normal, uneventful first year at MARQUETTE. She made friends, earned good grades (with approximately a B average), and enjoyed the nursing program.

During her first year at MARQUETTE, DOE met another MARQUETTE student [the accused]. Although [the accused] repeatedly expressed a sexual interest in DOE, and they once attended a dance together, they were not in a romantic relationship.

In or about August 2014, after summer vacation, DOE returned to MARQUETTE for her sophomore year. Throughout August, [the accused] sent DOE text messages that were at times rude, crude, demeaning, and hostile. DOE repeatedly told [the accused] that she had a boyfriend and asked [the accused] to communicate with her civilly or leave her alone.

On or about August 21, 2014, [the accused] threatened DOE by text message, “If I wanted to I could’ve railed you any night of my choosing ever since I met you. And there’s no doubt in my mind I’m going to rail you sometime this semester. Nothing like you’ve ever experienced before. I would be doing you the favor.” DOE responded, “That’s not going to happen.”

The quoted message is a pale reflection of vulgar messages the accused sent to Doe. Another soon after said:

I know big dicks are a scary thing, but you will grow to like it.

Which was immediately followed by:

I swear to god if one of those freshman sluts bleeds on my new sheets I’m going to lose it.

But it’s downright false to claim that Doe demanded that the accused be more civil or stop texting her. In spite of the vulgarity of the messages, Doe continued a congenial exchange with him, as this list of texts shows.

For example, about a half hour after the “rail you” text quoted above, the accused texted:

What if I told you I liked you and wanted something more. Obviously I don’t give a shit about sex if I’m still talking to you after 6 months of knowing you. . . . You could not let have sex [sic] with you and be your friend. I really enjoy talking to you.

To which Jane Doe replied:

That’s what I’m going for. I’m just looking for friends right now.

The accused then bragged about how he was “doing really good right now with the ladies,” and then shortly thereafter texted:

Just met a girl named Mary walking down the sidewalk and her friend Grace it’s their first night here and they got back from some square dancing thing.

Doe then replied:

Well have fun kid. Remember, safe sex is great sex.

So rather than being sorely offended by what seems to us as patiently offensive language, Doe continued with a congenial exchange.

A few days later, in the early morning hours of August 24, 2014, DOE met with [the accused] when she was intoxicated, and he raped her.

This is stated as fact, although a jury acquitted the alleged rapist.

The Rape Case

It seems that the testimony of Jane Doe had several problems. In the first place, she claimed to have simply happened upon the accused on the street the night of the rape. But in fact, she had exchanged several text messages with him and they planned to meet, as a list of their texts shows.

Here is the first page of the texts, and here is the second.

Beginning at 9:53 p.m. on the evening of the alleged rape (August 23-24) a series of texts between Doe and the accused detailed their respective movements. At 2:32 a.m. the accused texted:

Come to Ivy or meet me down in the lobby at [truncated]

To which Doe responded:

Why do you want to meet me?

The accused replied:

To see you’re beautiful face and say hi

To which Doe responded:

OK (:

Another nine messages followed and concluded with the accused being at Schroeder Hall. According to Doe, the accused then invited her to come see his apartment, which was right across the street.

Doe, speaking to police, misrepresented what happened, implying that the two had simply happened upon each other when both were out roaming around.

Milwaukee Police Officer Cindy Carlson interviewed her. Carlson describes her testimony.

A. . . . the victim stated that she was outside of her dorm on Marquette’s campus looking for some friends when she was approached by a known acquaintance of hers [the accused]. She said they hugged each other, then talked, and they began walking to his apartment because he wanted to show her his new apartment.

Examined by the accused’s lawyer, Carlson was asked:

Q. Officer, you indicated that when you interviewed [Jane Doe], she indicated that she was outside of Schroeder Hall on August 24th in the evening when she saw [the accused]?

A. It was the early morning hours, yes.

Q. Okay. And did she tell you that [the accused] and her had planned to meet up outside of Schroeder Hall?

A. She did not say that those were her plans, no.

Q. Okay. She told you she was waiting for other friends. Not [the accused]. Correct?

A. She was looking for her other friends, yes.

Why would Jane Doe give a false account about this? Perhaps she knew that the truth might look like a hook-up for sexual purposes, even if it was not. Still, it doubtless harmed her credibility in the eyes of the jury.

Back to the Complaint:

The next day, DOE sent [the accused] multiple text messages, telling him that they needed to speak. He told DOE, “text me what you want to say.” DOE wrote, “Its about Saturday night. What you did was absolutely horrible....” [the accused] then agreed to speak with DOE, who told him that she was going to report the sexual assault. [The accused] admitted he had raped DOE but told her that if she went to the police, no one would believe her.

In fact, the texts sent the next day to not show any urgency on the part of Doe to meet her supposed rapist, as the exchange of texts shows.

Further, on the day after the supposed rape, Doe told friend Ann Lally that she “did not know” whether she had had sex the night before. An odd statement, which might make sense if Doe was drunk to the point of unconsciousness. But she does not claim to have been unconscious during the rape, and video surveillance footage from her return to her dorm (Schroeder Hall) does not show any perceptible impairment in her actions.

Probably worse, in the eyes of the jury, was the fact that Doe admitted, at the rape trial of the accused, to extremely aggressive sexual behavior toward him during the spring of 2014. Specifically, she admitted making out with him, to taking off his clothes and hers, and getting on top of him, grinding her pubic area against his.

The accused claims his penis briefly penetrated Doe’s vagina. Indeed, he brought sexual assault charges against Doe, but only after she had accused him of rape, in what was apparent retaliation.

(How a misguided tactic of the prosecutor allowed this into evidence notwithstanding the rape shield law is an interesting story.)

Verdict

After a much-delayed trial, the jury acquitted the accused on July 14, 2016. Anomalies in Doe’s account, and (doubtless) her earlier sexual aggressiveness toward the accused, appear to have produced a “reasonable doubt” in their minds. A less strict standard of proof – for example the “preponderance of the evidence” standard used in many campus tribunals – might lead to a different result. Especially, it is hard to see a motive for a false rape claim here. But then, not all such claims have a perceptible motive.

Back to the Complaint:

At the Time of DOE’s Assault, MARQUETTE Was Already Under Scrutiny for Title IX Non-Compliance

In 2011 – a few years before DOE was assaulted – MARQUETTE officials acknowledged that they made mistakes in handling student reports of sexual assaults, including by failing to report incidents to Milwaukee police as required by state law. In order to remedy those failures, MARQUETTE said it was improving how the university reported incidents of sexual assault to the Milwaukee police. These changes came only after a former student said that MARQUETTE dismissed her allegations that a student-athlete had sexually assaulted her.

At that time, MARQUETTE officials told the press: “There were a lot of things I think we found that we were not proud of, as you can imagine. We have initiated a lot of conversations since then on campus as well as with local law enforcement . . . to really help us learn from that. It will not happen again.”

This is quite accurate. Misconduct was exposed by articles in the Chicago Tribune that show, in two separate incidents, Marquette failed to inform police of sexual assaults that the university knew about and meted out absurdly lenient punishments to athletes who committed assaults.

Moreover, in and around 2015, around the same time as incidents described in this Complaint, MARQUETTE was under investigation by the U.S. Department of Education for possibly mishandling an incident involving sexual harassment.

After the sexual assault, DOE was scared and upset. She called her parents, who immediately came to the MARQUETTE campus. Together, DOE and her parents went to MARQUETTE’s Department of Public Safety to report the attack.

Despite the fact that [the accused] had committed a serious violent crime – and despite MARQUETTE’s prior mishandling of situations like this one – MARQUETTE’s Department of Public Safety discouraged DOE and her parents from reporting the crime to the Milwaukee Police Department. Moreover, despite the fact that DOE specifically asked what her options were, no one informed DOE or her parents about Title IX or her option to pursue a complaint under MARQUETTE’s complaint procedures.

We have been unable to reach any of the parties to the exchange between Marquette Public Safety and Doe and her parents. A call to Doe’s parents was not returned, and neither was a call to Marquette Police Chief Paul Mascari. We did reach Megan DeVries, apparently one of the officers present, and her only response was “I have nothing to say about that.”

In response to the earlier scandal, reported by the Chicago Tribune, Mascari said “I can tell you that, having talked to the officers afterward, it was never the intention of anyone in this department to discourage … victims from contacting the Milwaukee Police Department.”

It would be striking, in light of the previous scandal, if Public Safety officers in fact did discourage a report to police.

Notwithstanding MARQUETTE’s repeated efforts to dissuade DOE from contacting police, DOE insisted that she wished to report the rape to the Milwaukee Police Department. At DOE’s request, the police responded and took DOE’s statement.

The police secured an arrest warrant for [the accused]. DOE feared encountering [the accused], who lived across from DOE’s dormitory. Even though MARQUETTE knew the danger that [the accused] posed to DOE and other students, MARQUETTE refused to allow the police to arrest [the accused] on campus. During the days that it took for the police to track [the accused] down off campus, DOE was frightened and stayed in a hotel with her parents until police notified her that [the accused] was in custody.

On or about August 29, 2014, [the accused] was arrested and charged with third-degree sexual assault.

We don’t know what to make of the “refused to allow the police to arrest [the accused] on campus” comment. Perhaps Marquette resisted having him arrested when he was in class. But he lived at Ivy on 14th, right on Wells Street, and would not have been hard to find.

Restraining the Accused

On September 3rd, the accused appeared before Court Commissioner Barillas and was granted bail, and also was put on GPS monitoring, and forbidden to be within 1,000 feet of Schroeder Hall. A complication arose when it was discovered that his apartment was only about 600 feet from Schroeder Hall, and many of the buildings in which he would have classes were less than 1,000 feet from that building.

Later on the 3rd, this was brought to the attention of Barillas, who modified the order to give the defendant 48 hours to collect his belongings and leave campus. At this time, Barillas was informed that the defendant had withdrawn from Marquette.

The defendant then returned to his parents home in Illinois, and remained under surveillance by Justice Point, although the GPS monitoring was eventually removed.

On or about September 3, 2014, while [the accused] was still in custody, DOE and her parents met with MARQUETTE’s Assistant Vice President for Student Affairs and asked what the school was going to do. The Assistant Vice President, who failed to inform DOE about Title IX or DOE’s ability to lodge a complaint with the school, was non-committal concerning what action MARQUETTE would take concerning the rape. The Assistant Vice President said only that people at MARQUETTE would discuss the issues.

A source at Marquette tells us that the Marquette official in question was probably Marya Leatherwood, of the Student Affairs office.

Reached at her home in Georgia, Leatherwood could not confirm that she was the official (citing confidentiality rules), but she did make it clear that, at this point, “lodging a complaint with the school” was a moot issue. The rape complaint lodged with Department of Public Safety on August 27th would have automatically been reported to Student Affairs (which was then handling Title IX complaints under the Student Conduct process).

Of course, Student Affairs might not move on such a complaint if the criminal justice system was pursuing it aggressively. Why institute a process that might lead to the student’s expulsion when cops and prosecutors are trying to put him in prison? And why make any promises about what Marquette is “going to do” when the issue is in the hands of the justice system? Marquette would not be precluded from pursuing a disciplinary process if charges were dropped, or if the accused was acquitted. But by the time the accused was finally acquitted (nearly two years later) he was long gone from Marquette.

DOE’s parents also specifically asked the Assistant Vice President whether [the accused] had any disciplinary history. In response, the Assistant Vice President said that [the accused] was a MARQUETTE student. DOE’s parents followed up, asking if [the accused] had any issues. The Assistant Vice President just repeated that [the accused] was a MARQUETTE student.

Of course, rules about confidentiality would have prevented any Marquette official from revealing this information. While the Marquette official may have come across as frustratingly evasive, the evasiveness was prudent (don’t promise something that might not happen) and in some cases was required (don’t reveal confidential information).

DOE’s parents met with the Assistant Vice President again on or about September 5, 2014, and notified the Assistant Vice President that the Milwaukee County District Attorney was bringing formal charges against [the accused]. DOE’s parents provided a copy of the charges and asked what MARQUETTE was going to do. Again, the Assistant Vice President provided no information about Title IX and gave no assurances that the school would take any action.

On or about September 5, 2014, [the accused] withdrew from MARQUETTE. When DOE’s parents followed up with the Assistant Vice President, the Assistant Vice President stated that because [the accused] withdrew, the school would take no action.

To DOE’s knowledge, MARQUETTE never commenced a Title IX investigation or took other action concerning [the accused] with respect to the sexual assault.

Marquette’s Actions

In fact, Marquette was taking action on the case. On September 4th, Erin Lazzar, Associate Dean of Students, wrote to the accused student noting that the charges against him had been reported to her office by Public Safety, and that he was not enrolled in classes for the fall semester. Thus, a “Student Conduct Hold” had been placed on his record. Further, “Should you wish to return to Marquette as a student, a student conduct hearing will need to be scheduled first.”

Finally, he was told that “Effectively immediately, you are prohibited from being on the Marquette University campus at any time for any reason.”

So while Doe’s parents were faced with what they considered stonewalling, Marquette was indeed acting against their daughter’s alleged rapist.

With respect to DOE, MARQUETTE assigned a counselor who, upon information and belief, was serving in an interim capacity and had no training working with sexual-assault victims. DOE received calls from the counselor at random times, asking questions like, “Hi, how are you feeling about being raped?” The calls were insensitive and very upsetting to DOE.

DOE also discussed the sexual assault with her Academic Advisor, who instructed DOE to notify her teachers about what had happened. DOE told each of her teachers at MARQUETTE that she had been sexually assaulted by another student at the beginning of the school year.

DOE Learns about [the accused’s] Past

Another MARQUETTE undergraduate student approached DOE in or about January 2015. The student informed DOE that in or around early 2014 – when DOE was a freshman at MARQUETTE – [the accused] had stalked and intimidated the student. [the accused] sent the student angry, harassing, and degrading text messages; posted hostile slurs about her on social media; and aggressively approached and followed her on campus. The student was extremely frightened by [the accused], fearing for her safety and repeatedly seeking recourse with MARQUETTE’s Department of Public Safety.

Also, just as [the accused] had done with DOE – trying to turn the tables and accusing DOE of raping him – [the accused] had used the same tactic the previous year, when under investigation for stalking the student. That is, [the accused] had attempted to shift blame to the student, telling MARQUETTE that the student had previously stalked him.

Because of [the accused’s] misconduct toward the student, MARQUETTE suspended [the accused] from the school, in or about spring 2014. There was also a no-contact order in place at MARQUETTE, prohibiting [the accused] from having contact with the student.

Inexplicably, though, [the accused’s] suspension did not stand. MARQUETTE’s Vice President for Student Affairs overruled that decision, and [the accused] was permitted to return to MARQUETTE in fall 2014 on the conditions that he, among other things: (1) write a reflection letter to the student, and (2) receive counseling.

Of course, without knowing the full details of the case, and also the precedents (how had similar previous cases been handled?) is it impossible to know whether this sanction was unduly lenient.

Back to the Complaint:

According to the student, [the accused] never provided her with a reflection letter.

Moreover, on information and belief, [the accused] never provided MARQUETTE with evidence that he received counseling or wrote the required reflection letter to the student before returning to MARQUETTE’s campus.

MARQUETTE Retaliates Against DOE

Once DOE learned this information about [the accused], DOE and her parents confronted MARQUETTE, trying to understand why [the accused] had been permitted back on campus. It also became clear to DOE that the information about the other MARQUETTE student was very important to the criminal case against [the accused] and should be turned over to the prosecution. Although MARQUETTE knew all of this information before and could have shared it with the District Attorney’s Office, MARQUETTE did so only at DOE’s urging, and only after the student alerted DOE.

DOE tried to remain focused on succeeding in MARQUETTE’s nursing program. Rather than recognizing the trauma that DOE had experienced and helping her overcome the new obstacles facing her, however, MARQUETTE embarked on a campaign to discredit DOE and ultimately to run her out of the school. Throughout 2015 and 2016, in particular – after [the accused] filed a complaint with MARQUETTE about DOE – MARQUETTE appeared to have two motivations: (1) to deter future sexual-assault victims from pursuing charges, as DOE had done, and (2) to intimidate DOE, in an effort to cause her to leave MARQUETTE, protect MARQUETTE against legal action, and discredit DOE as a complainant.

Note that this supposed “campaign” would have had to involve multiple administrators in both the Student Affairs office and (as we shall see below) the College of Nursing, as well as several instructors in the College of Nursing. But any campaign against Doe would seem to involve much greater risks than merely letting her alone to finish her education.

This retaliation took multiple forms. First, despite knowing that DOE was a witness in the ongoing criminal proceedings against [the accused], requiring frequent interviews and meetings with police and prosecutors, which were stressful and difficult for DOE, MARQUETTE failed to support DOE’s participation in those proceedings and failed to provide reasonable academic accommodations.

When [the accused] accused DOE of assaulting him, in late 2014, the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office informed DOE that she would be interviewed, either by MARQUETTE’s Department of Public Safety (because [the accused] had made the complaint directly to MARQUETTE) or by the Milwaukee Police Department. A representative for DOE contacted MARQUETTE’s Associate General Counsel and informed him about [the accused’s] accusation and the circumstances.

Throughout this time, DOE did not know who would be reaching out to her or when the request would occur. This hung over DOE’s head.

In or about January 2015, the Milwaukee police called DOE to come in to the police department that day to be interviewed about [the accused’s] complaint. DOE was scheduled to take a critical test in her Pathophysiology 1 class just a couple of hours after the call from police. The test was important. DOE had completed Pathophysiology 1 the previous semester, but DOE’s instructor had given DOE the option to take this particular test in January, after the semester’s end.

Nervous, but not wanting to rock the boat, DOE took the test. She got a C/D (meaning: under 78%), which – in the MARQUETTE nursing school’s grading scheme – constituted a failing grade.

The Pathophysiology 1 class was a prerequisite for the other classes DOE was taking during the spring semester. DOE’s Academic Advisor told DOE that because of her C/D grade, she would not be permitted to proceed with her spring classes and needed to leave MARQUETTE immediately. The Advisor said that DOE could no longer attend the classes she had already started and that she could not remain in the dorms.

DOE’s mother contacted the Advisor, explained that DOE had been contacted by police right before the test to be interviewed about [the accused’s] accusation against DOE, and asked that DOE be given an opportunity to retake the test. The Advisor said no. The Advisor said that DOE would be required to take a full withdrawal on medical leave, or MARQUETTE would not refund the tuition that DOE had already paid for the semester.

DOE’s mother engaged the Advisor in discussions about alternatives. DOE’s parents were willing to do anything to keep DOE in school, as much on schedule and with as much normalcy as possible. The Advisor shot down every suggestion. Despite the fact that MARQUETTE routinely allowed other nursing students who did not pass a prerequisite class to remain at school and take electives or other classes, MARQUETTE repeatedly told DOE’s parents that they would not accommodate DOE.

Only after DOE’s mother specifically called out MARQUETTE for trying to get rid of DOE the month before [the accused’s] criminal trial did MARQUETTE relent in part, allowing DOE to stay in the dorms and take just one class for spring of her sophomore year. MARQUETTE also – after initially refusing, repeatedly, to do so – refunded a portion of tuition for the classes that DOE was not being permitted to take. Although this arrangement allowed DOE to remain enrolled at MARQUETTE and maintain the regularity of living on campus, it still constituted a significant setback for DOE, who wanted to be and should have been a full-time student taking a full course load.

A representative of the Milwaukee County Office of the District Attorney reached out to MARQUETTE on DOE’s behalf, describing in detail the many demands on DOE as part of the investigation. The letter stated in part, “It is very common for victims of sexual assault to struggle with concentration, sleep disturbances, anxiety, and hypervigilance in the wake of this type of incident. Not only does [DOE] bear the weight of those types of challenges, she is experiencing additional pressures related to the Criminal Justice System.” The District Attorney’s Office urged MARQUETTE to support DOE and her efforts to continue her education.

Despite this advocacy by DOE’s parents and law enforcement, MARQUETTE continued to refuse to provide reasonable academic accommodations to DOE. For instance, in spring semester 2016, DOE was enrolled in Nursing 2002. Twenty percent of her course grade was based on an online quiz that students were permitted to take throughout the semester. Students were permitted to retake the quiz as many times as needed to earn 100% on the quiz. DOE timely took what she believed was the correct quiz and earned 100%. DOE noticed, though, that the teacher had not posted her quiz grade in the online gradebook. This was not out of the ordinary, because the teacher was routinely slow in posting grades. Toward the end of the semester, when the quiz grade still had not been posted, DOE met with the teacher to inquire.

During the meeting, the teacher informed DOE that DOE had taken the wrong online quiz. The teacher refused to allow DOE to take the correct quiz, stating that it was too late. DOE told the teacher, who knew about DOE’s sexual assault, that she was willing to do any extra assignments necessary to make up for the quiz, but the teacher refused. Instead, the teacher asked what DOE was doing this summer to help herself. DOE told the teacher about her internship. The teacher said words to the effect of, “No, what are you doing about therapy?” DOE explained that she continued to attend therapy. The teacher then stated, in substance, that she did not think DOE was mentally stable enough to be at MARQUETTE because of the sexual assault, and that she was worried about DOE’s current and future performance in the clinical program.

Any suggestion that DOE was struggling in the clinical program was false. DOE was succeeding in clinicals, and her clinical teacher had even praised DOE as a standout student. But more to the point – even though DOE had already experienced clear retaliation as a result of reporting and pursuing the sexual-assault charge against [the accused] – the comment made DOE more aware that teachers in the nursing school were holding the sexual assault, and DOE’s pursuit of accountability for her attacker, against her.

DOE followed up with the Dean of the nursing school to address her Nursing 2002 grade and the teacher’s refusal to allow her to take the online quiz. The Dean agreed to provide DOE the opportunity to take the quiz, stating that there was no hurry, DOE’s grade would be marked as incomplete, and that DOE had until October to take the quiz and complete the course.

Despite the Dean’s giving her until October, DOE did the quiz right away in May and earned 100%. Because it was an online quiz, DOE’s grade was immediately posted to her teacher. With the inclusion of the online quiz, DOE was set to earn an A in the class.

But just hours after she completed the quiz – and within weeks of [the accused’s] scheduled trial (which had been postponed) – MARQUETTE notified DOE that she was being placed on academic probation. With the Nursing 2002 course marked incomplete – and, therefore, without the benefit of the A that would ultimately be posted as DOE’s grade – DOE’s grade point average was 2.62. Under MARQUETTE’s usual policy, academic probation was imposed for students with a grade point average below 2.5.

This did not make sense, both because DOE’s grade point average exceeded 2.5 and also because the Dean had specifically told DOE that she would be able to have her quiz counted as part of her Nursing 2002 grade. When DOE pointed out this out, the only explanation DOE was given was words to the effect of, “We sometimes do that.”

While suffering under the stress of the imminent [the accused] trial, DOE filed a formal appeal, protesting her academic probation. MARQUETTE demanded access to DOE’s medical records, including records concerning mental-health treatment. This was an unreasonable and invasive request, part of MARQUETTE’s continuing effort to damage and intimidate DOE. Ultimately, DOE’s treating physician provided a letter stating, in substance, that DOE should be in school and certainly was stable enough to be at MARQUETTE.

Only after DOE pushed back on MARQUETTE’s unfair and unreasonable treatment did MARQUETTE agree, in or about June 2016, to lift the academic probation and allow DOE to return for the fall semester.

Over the summer, DOE was determined to return to MARQUETTE and put the past behind her. When she returned for the fall semester, though, she encountered resistance from MARQUETTE. In or about October 2016, MARQUETTE administrators informed DOE that she could not attend clinicals – required courses for the nursing program – because DOE’s mandatory drug test had not been properly uploaded. DOE was informed about this snafu at around 4:30 pm on a Wednesday, when the clinicals were scheduled for Thursday and Friday. Although DOE offered to provide the results from a drug test administered by her doctor, MARQUETTE refused to accept the test. As a result, DOE missed the Thursday and Friday clinicals, taking her otherwise-A grade down to a C.

By contrast, at least one other student who was missing a critical requirement – proof of a current flu shot – was assisted by the nursing department and did not have to miss clinicals. DOE was not given such accommodation.

In or about December 2016, DOE was notified that she was slated to receive a C/D (by .038%) in her maternity class. Although DOE knew she did not have an A going in to the final exam, she had not known that she was in jeopardy of finishing without a passing grade. DOE believed that she had completed assignments correctly and performed well in the class. After seeing the C/D final grade, DOE tried to discuss the grade with her professor, but the professor refused, stating only that DOE’s group paper – on the topic of sexual assault – did not meet standards. It did meet standards, however.

Around this time, one of DOE’s clinical instructors in the nursing program informed DOE that the instructor was resigning from MARQUETTE because of the way the school treated students.

Harassed by the Nursing College?

There is no reason to doubt that Doe was psychologically distressed, and it’s possible that a Nursing instructor or two might be a jerk. But the idea of a coordinated campaign begins to look like tin foil hat theorizing.

We don’t know the details of each of these situations, and the present and two immediate past Deans of the College of Nursing failed to respond to our multiple requests for comment.

But a knowledgeable source close to the College of Nursing told us “I have a hard time believing that the college of nursing would mistreat a student after reporting a rape. Just the opposite. The College of Nursing administration and the faculty have a track record of supporting students in difficult situations.”

Harm to DOE

Ultimately, DOE could no longer endure MARQUETTE’s conduct toward her. In 2017, DOE left MARQUETTE and transferred to a community college where she could get back on her feet and prepare to transition to a different nursing program. DOE has been earning straight As since leaving MARQUETTE.

MARQUETTE’s actions caused DOE significant harm. First, DOE has suffered trauma and emotional distress as a result of being raped by [the accused] and a result of the way MARQUETTE treated her. Since the attack, DOE has needed regular therapy and psychiatric treatment. Her physicians prescribed and DOE now takes medication for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder-related anxiety and depression, as well as sleep medication to block recurring nightmares about the rape. Had MARQUETTE followed through with its expulsion of [the accused] and exercised due care for its students, [the accused] would not have been permitted to return to campus, would not have been there to rape DOE, and DOE would not now be suffering these harms. MARQUETTE’s treatment of DOE in the aftermath of the attack further exacerbated these problems.

Second, although DOE earned some school credits while at MARQUETTE, she now has to start over, almost entirely. Credits in nursing classes from MARQUETTE will not transfer to a new nursing program; DOE has to repeat those classes. DOE must now pay tuition for three more years of nursing school – despite having already paid well over $75,000 in connection with DOE’s schooling at MARQUETTE. These three additional years of nursing school are expected to cost at least $90,000, and as much as $150,000.

Third, but for the events described in this Complaint, DOE would have graduated with her class in spring 2017. She then would have entered the workforce as a nurse, earning approximately $65,000 per year. Now, DOE’s work as a nurse will be delayed for three years while she repeats the nursing program and earns her degree.

In addition to the direct harm to DOE, MARQUETTE’s actions have harmed others. DOE is aware of at least one other MARQUETTE student who was sexually assaulted by another MARQUETTE student. The student victim told DOE that she decided not to report the rape because she saw how MARQUETTE retaliated against DOE for making a report and standing by the charge.

Conclusion

So what does one make of all this? As we have shown, some of the claims in the Complaint are pretty implausible. But not all of them are, and until and unless we get depositions and other sworn testimony from several of the principals, some of these issues will be hard to judge.

The Plaintiff is demanding a jury trial. Will it come to that, or will Marquette simply pay some money in a settlement to make the problem go away? Lawyers from Michael Best & Friedrich are representing Marquette, and they don’t come cheap.

Clinton Sex Scandals and the Election

“The Hunting Ground:” Agitprop in the Service of a Moral Panic

Student Government and Center for Gender and Sexuality Studies to Show Discredited Film on Campus Rape

A story in the Marquette Tribune includes this short note at the end:

The CGSS (Center for Gender and Sexuality Studies) and MUSG (Marquette University Student Government) will show “The Hunting Ground” on April 25, followed by a panel of faculty and staff who will discuss campus sexual assault.

In fact, “The Hunting Ground” has been widely discredited in liberal and mainstream media outlets for its distortion of facts, and its attempt to convict for rape two fellows who are almost certainly innocent. See for example:

• Slate
• Harvard Law Record
• Reason
• New York
• The Harvard Crimson
• (And the conservative) National Review.

Are people who got to see the film going to be told about the controversy, or if so, will all the critics be dismissed as “rape apologists?”

When supposed scholars become activists, nothing good comes of it. And intellectual honesty is always the loser.  That’s the story of academic feminism.

Mainstream Media Turning Skeptical on Campus Rape Moral Panic?

It may just be a blip, or it may be a turning point, but Newsweek has come out with an article that takes a rather skeptical view of the notion that a rape epidemic afflicts college campuses. Focusing on Paul Nungesser, the man who was falsely accused of rape by “mattress girl” (Emma Sulkowicz), it details how rape accusations that were rejected by Columbia University, and by prosecutors in New York City because the convenient politically correct truth for social justice warriors, and much of the mainstream media.

It also details how accused males are increasingly suing when they are denied due process rights in campus kangaroo courts, and pressing claims of sex discrimination. From guys assumed to be guilty simply because they are male, such claims are plausible.

CNN

On the other hand we have CNN, which aired “The Hunting Ground” — a documentary that accepts all the standard cant about a “rape culture” and a “rape epidemic.” Robbie Soave of Reason debunks the whole enterprise, showing that it is a piece of advocacy rather than journalism. And indeed, 19 Harvard Law professors (not a particularly conservative bunch) condemned the documentary for distorting the facts about a Harvard student. Even the liberal Slate published a critique of the film.

Liberal Hypocrisy

It is interesting that liberals, who have always been scrupulous about due process and “innocent until proven guilty” where robberies, ordinary assaults, murders and all other sorts of crimes are concerned, should suddenly junk all that when rape is the issue. What we have here, of course, is a set of social biases, rather than a set of principled convictions. Liberals want to view ordinary criminals as victims of social injustice. But white males on campus, being the stereotyped oppressor group, need swift, summary, harsh justice. And given that they are white males, we need not worry excessively about whether they actually did what they were accused of.

Marquette’s New Rules: Enabling Repression on Speech, Sexual Accusations

This is an era in which college campuses are becoming more and more repressive. First, campus speech is coming under attack, with speech codes so broad that they could be used to silence perfectly legitimate expressions of opinion. Students who express opinions that aren’t politically correct face bullying and harassment, and have to retreat to the anonymity of Yik Yak to avoid repercussions.

Secondly, a moral panic has surrounded sexual violence on campus. Males accused of sexual assault are assumed to be guilty until proven innocent (and sometimes presumed to be guilty even after being proven innocent). Bogus rape claims at places like Columbia and the University of Virginia create a huge national furor. Males accused of sexual assault are deprived of basic due process protections.

Could we expect a supposed “Catholic university” to buck these trends? If the university is Marquette, most certainly not.

At Marquette

Marquette recently released a new “Title IX Sexual Harassment, Discrimination and Sexual Misconduct Policy.” Here is the policy, as captured from Marquette’s website on this past October 15th.

A comparison of the previous policy, captured by Archive.org on September 15th shows a number of changes.

Sexual Violence

The previous policy addresses “1. Non-Consensual Sexual Intercourse (or attempts to commit)” and “2. Non-Consensual Sexual Contact (or attempts to commit).” Then the issue is: How is “consent” defined.

The policy is as follows:

Consent is the equal approval, given freely, willingly and knowingly of each participant to desired sexual involvement. Consent is an affirmative, conscious decision – indicated clearly by words or actions – to engage in mutually accepted sexual contact. A person compelled to engage in sexual contact by force, threat of force, or coercion has not consented to contact. Lack of mutual consent is the crucial factor in any sexual assault. Consent CANNOT be given if a person’s ability to resist or consent is impaired because of a mental or physical condition or is there is incapacitation due to drugs or alcohol or if there is a significant age or perceived power differential. Providing alcohol or drugs to facilitate sexual activity is a violation of this policy. Use of alcohol or other drugs will never function to excuse behavior that violates this policy.

A person may not consent if s/he is:

• unconscious
• frightened
• physically or psychologically pressured or forced
• intimidated
• impaired because of a psychological condition
• intoxicated by use of drugs or alcohol

Most of this is just fine, although we note a couple of problems. The policy seems to embrace the questionable “affirmative consent” standard, but it makes clear that “actions” an be construed to imply consent.

If a girl goes up to a guy’s apartment, takes off her clothes and gets in bed with him, that pretty clearly means “consent” even if she never says “we can have sex.”

Of course, the traditional rule was different. Consent could be implicit. A guy was allowed to try to “steal a kiss.” He could kiss a girl without asking, but was expected to move slowly enough such that she could avoid it if she wanted to. Similar rules applied to other forms of sexual contact.

The “psychologically pressured” language is equally suspect. A lot of women have been “pressured” into having sex. A guy who would pressure a woman to have sex is not a gentleman, but if he uses no force or threat of force (and she is not incapacitated) , he’s not a rapist.

In the real world of sex and dating, pretty much the same rules apply today. A woman who lets a guy kiss her (or have sex with her) is not going to run to campus authorities and accuse him of assault — usually. But if the relationship turns sour, or she finds the experience unsatisfactory and convinces herself she really didn’t want to do it, the guy could be in trouble. Something like this appears to have happened to Mattress Girl at Columbia.

The New Code

What does the new code say?

In order for individuals to engage in sexual activity of any type with each other, there must be clear, knowing and voluntary consent prior to and during sexual activity. Consent is the voluntary, clear, actively given, positive agreement between the participants to engage in a specific sexual act or activity. Previous relationships or consent does not imply consent to future sexual activity. Consent can be withdrawn at any time once given, so long as that withdrawal is clearly communicated.

What is missing? The language that says that consent can be “indicated by actions.” Thus, a girl quite voluntarily getting into bed with a guy does not meet the standard for “consent.” This opens the door for the prosecution of any guy who had sex that was consensual, but not verbally agreed to.

Harassment

We have blogged on Marquette’s absurd and repressive “harassment training” which was imposed on all employees and staff in the fall of 2014.

The previous code defined harassment first in terms of quid pro quo harassment (“you’ll get something of you submit to my advances”) and then went on to add:

. . . conduct [that] is sufficiently severe and pervasive so as to alter the conditions of, or have the purpose or effect of substantially interfering with, an individual’s academic performance or work by creating an intimidating, hostile, or offensive educational, residential, or working environment.

That’s not very precise, but on its face it seems reasonable.

The new code deals (likewise) with quid pro quo harassment, and adds things that might also reasonably be called “harassment” such as “Epithets, slurs, negative stereotyping, or threatening, intimidating, or hostile acts.” But then it goes into dangerous territory, adding:

Placing on walls, bulletin boards, email, social networking websites, or elsewhere on the University’s premises graphic material that shows hostility or aversion to an individual or group (as listed above) because of an individual’s race, color, national origin, religion, age, disability, sex, gender identity/expression, sexual orientation, marital status, pregnancy, predisposing genetic characteristic, or military status or any other characteristics protected by this Policy and/or law, under any of the circumstances described in this section.

(“Listed above” are the same groups listed in this paragraph.)

This, obviously, includes a lot of things that would be protected by the First Amendment in a public university. But often such expressions involve legitimate discussion at any university.

Social Networking Sites

Extending the policy to social networking sites is a major expansion.  It’s one thing if somebody puts up an anti-Muslim or anti-gay poster in a workplace, where all employees are necessarily exposed to it.  But nobody has to visit Facebook or Twitter, and if they do, they get to pick whose posts they see.  This policy means that campus authoritarians can search around social networking sites looking for statements they find “offensive” and then use them to get students in trouble.  

Can one criticize Islam for its treatment of women? That shows an “aversion” to a “group” on the basis of religion. And indeed criticism of Islam (and Baltimore rioters) recently got a student at Texas Christian University suspended for his posts on Twitter and Facebook.

Suppose somebody says of black people:

Their entire culture just isn’t conducive to a life of success. It just isn’t. The outfits. The attitudes. The behavior.

This statement was on a list of posts on Yik Yak that a bunch of feminist and “civil rights” organizations believed should be punished.

 What about a statement like:

Call me a preppy white kid again and I’ll protest you black people for racial profiling.

This appeared on a list of Yik Yak posts in the wake of a demonstration by the Coalition of and for Students of Color at Marquette University blocking traffic on Wisconsin Avenue. The person who compiled the posts (Zoe Del Colle) called them “racist.” (Facebook login required to see the page.)

Thus the language Marquette has adopted could easily be used to punish students who make legitimate (but politically incorrect) comments on public issues. Sometimes groups defined by race, religion, or such can legitimately be criticized.

And one can’t imagine anybody on a college campus getting into trouble for saying that conservative Christians are “bigoted” or that whites are “blinded by their white privilege.”

When people start punishing speech, they never ever do it in a viewpoint neutral way. They only do it to shut up expression they don’t like.

Current Marquette Administration

The nature of Marquette’s current administration engenders no confidence that free expression will be respected on campus, since it is in full “pander” mode toward the student activists.

Marquette Wire, for example, reports on a demonstration on campus last Thursday in sympathy with University of Missouri demonstrators:

Those that gathered were of various races and included faculty, staff, students and Milwaukee community members. University President Michael Lovell, Provost Daniel Myers and the mother of Dontre Hamilton, an unarmed black man who was killed by a white Milwaukee Police Officer, were also in attendance.

Lovell said he went to show support for the students and community. Myers added it was a proud moment to be a part of Marquette.

In another recent meeting, administration officials seemed apologetic for painting over a mural of black militant terrorist and murderer Assata Shakur.

Provost Myers, faced with a demand that Marquette apologize for painting over the mural said:

I want to change things. I came here to change things. I am really committed to this.

Associate Provost for Diversity and Inclusion William Welburn likewise pandered. According to Marquette Wire:

“I believe very strongly that we are not going to have processes like this again, especially when it comes to issues of how this campus handles diversity and inclusion,” Welburn said. “Whatever we do moving forward, we have to think about women, women of color, African-American women specifically because of this incident. We have to think about the damage.”

Marquette’s administration seems no more willing to stand up to activist bullies than other university administrations.

It’s an open question how much of this is the result of politically correct attitudes on the part of administrators, and how much is due to a timid desire to defuse trouble coming from the activists.

Either way, Marquette is becoming a more and more oppressive place. Not only is any notion of “Catholic identity” junked when it contradicts political correctness, secular notions of free expression are pushed aside too.

Actually Addressing Sexual Assault on Campuses

From Commentary Magazine, some data on how to actually reduce the number of campus sexual assaults.

Any successful approach to reducing sexual assault on campus will require the reconsideration of these very notions. We have completed a study of more than 1,300 colleges and universities and have found that far fewer accusations of sexual assault are levied at the schools that ban alcohol and prohibit opposite-sex overnight guests in residence halls. Our findings suggest that students are not so much victims of a “rape culture” as they are victims of faulty institutional policies that contribute to a higher risk of sexual assault.

Not surprisingly, religious schools and single sex schools also have lower levels of sexual assault.

Stated so simply, one might raise a bunch of caveats and methodological objections. But the authors of the article (Bradford Richardson and Jon A. Shields) are well-trained social scientists who understand the objections and have dealt with them well.

By all means read the whole thing.

Of course, the people who are most vocal about campus sexual assault are also the most adamant about absolute sexual freedom. That there might be a conflict between these two values will take a long time to penetrate their minds. Until then, they will double down on things like teal ribbons and telling male students they are all guilty of rape since they are part of a rape culture and stripping due process protections from males accused of sexual assault. Those things serve their ideological biases and bureaucratic interests.

Sexual Hysteria on Campus: Absurdly Broad Definition of “Sexual Assault”

From Reason.com:

A new survey of Rutgers University students reinforces the idea that one in four college women will be victims of sexual assault... but only if you don’t look at the study too closely. Zoom in and you’ll find the same problems that plague so much research about sex crimes on college campuses, from defining violence to include rude comments to failing to differentiate between an unwanted kiss and forcible rape.

The Rutgers survey—conducted by the school’s Center on Violence Against Women and Children at the request of the White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault and the Department of Justice—was carried out last academic year at the state school’s New Brunswick campus, attended by about 42,000 students. Around 10,800 students completed the online survey; the majority were undergraduates (80 percent) and women (64 percent).

Rutgers used definitions of sexual violence and sexual assault based on material from the White House task force. “‘Sexual assault’ and ‘sexual violence’ refer to a range of behaviors that are unwanted by the recipient,” notes a school summary of survey findings, “and include remarks about physical appearance, persistent sexual advances that are undesired by the recipient, threats of force to get someone to engage in sexual behavior, as well as unwanted touching and unwanted oral, anal, or vaginal penetration or attempted penetration.”

Survey respondents were presented with that definition, then asked whether they had experienced sexual violence prior to starting school at Rutgers. Nineteen percent of all respondents and 24 percent of undergraduate women said they had.

That’s right. “Remarks about physical appearance” could constitute “sexual assault.” So could “persistent sexual advances that are undesired by the recipient.” The latter are a form of harassment, and somebody in authority might need to tell the dork who does it to back off, but it’s absurd to call it violence.

Surveys like this are virtually always conducted by people with an agenda. Often, they are feminists who want to promote a narrative of men as evil oppressors. But often they come from campus bureaucrats who want an excuse for more programs and initiatives to justify more staff, a larger budget, and more power.

And of course, the two groups overlap.

Further, participation in these studies is typically entirely voluntary, and in this study fewer than 30 percent of the student population took the survey. Thus there may be a skew toward those who have been sexually assaulted (or have some grievance about some sexual encounter).

Things like this may explain why the very best survey of victimization, the National Crime Victimization Survey, shows a radically lower level of campus sexual assault, and campus rape. It mostly limits the definition of “sexual assault” to things that people in the real world (outside college campuses) consider an assault, and the response rate is quite high (88%).

This survey shows the rate of sexual assault among college women as 4.3 victimizations per thousand.

Yes, per thousand. That is the rate for six months, so for a college career, one might need to multiply it by eight. But it’s a little more complicated since college women are apparently less likely to be assaulted in the summer (when they are likely away from the party atmosphere of campus). On the other hand, some women take five years to graduate. But there is no way to get anywhere near the scary statistics the rape activists use.

Click on image to enlarge

Where actual rape is concerned, the rate is two per thousand, and the rate for attempted rape is 1.5 per thousand (see Table 1 here).

Further, rather than there being a rape crisis, the rate of campus sexual assault has been declining.

So what we have here is yet another case of college campuses being a Wonderland were hard empirical facts don’t matter, and the proper politically correct attitudes are all that counts.

Is Marquette Finally Going to Tell the Truth About Campus Date Rape?

Sent out last fall by Marquette: a “Teal Poster” about sexual violence.

It touts the following statistics:

Believe...
“1 in 5 women and 1 in 70 men will experience rape in their lifetime.”
(National Crime Victims Survey, 2007)
“7 out of 10 rape survivors knew their attacker.”
(National Crime Victims Survey, 2007)
“People between the ages of 18 to 24 experience the highest prevalence of stalking, sexual assault an dating violence.”
U.S. Department of Justice (Revised, 2012)
“1 in 4 Stalking victims are cyberstalked”
U.S. Bureau of Justice, 2009

What is missing? Bogus statistics about the incidence of campus date rape.

We have found that our students have been told that 20% of college women are victims of date rape. And indeed, one “training” module that was mandated for all University employees last fall used a somewhat scarier statistic, claiming that 25% of college women are victims of “some sort of sexual assault.”

Click on Image to Enlarge

We called Susannah Bartlow, director of the Gender and Sexuality Resource Center, which was responsible for the poster. We wanted to ask her whether Marquette is backing off inflated claims about date rape.  We left voice mail, but she never got back to us.

Instead, Brian Dorrington, head public relations guy at Marquette, responded.

(It’s significant that nobody in the Provost’s office will talk to us, but rather gives Dorrington the task of framing an evasive response.)

Dorrington said:

Hi John,

Susannah Bartlow shared your inquiry with me and I’m writing to provide context. This year’s sexual violence prevention poster offers new information and statistics to expand the knowledge base of our university community on this important topic. The information from both posters is accurate and includes widely accepted statistics. We have worked diligently to educate our entire campus community about preventing sexual misconduct. This includes sexual violence prevention and bystander intervention during the past four years and mandatory training for all first-year students.

Dorrington, of course, has completely and entirely avoided our query, which was whether Marquette is backing off of the bogus statistics it has been giving students.  Perhaps he did not understand our query, or perhaps he simply was unwilling to admit that Marquette is backing off something it has been (falsely) telling students.

That colleges (following feminist activists) have been trafficking in bogus, grossly inflated statistics about date rape is not new information.

The first widely noticed article questioning inflated date rape statistics appeared in 1991, written by Berkeley professor Neil Gilbert.

And of course, we have repeatedly blogged on the issue.

Why Inflate the Problem?

The chronic inflation of the problem of sexual assault on campus is the result of the confluence of two forces.

The first is feminism, which casts men as the evil oppressor class. What better metaphor for male evil than the notion that lots of men are raping women. Indeed, why not go beyond that and say that all men are responsible for the prevalence of rape, or that a “rape culture” encompasses all men?

Thus, a certain R. Clifton Spargo from the English Department, in a campus program on sexual violence. . .

. . . rejected the notion that rape is “merely aberrant, deviant behavior,” and told the male members of the audience “you are living in the rape culture.” Where? “On Campus. In the bars.”

The other force is the interests of campus bureaucrats. Hyping “sexual violence” is a justification for programs, and initiatives, workshops, and indoctrination sessions. All which have the effect of inflating the budgets and staffs of campus bureaucrats.

There are a few things that students should be told about rape. The “Teal Poster” is pretty good in this regard. Women should be told that, if a victim of rape, they should not shower, not change their clothes, but go immediately to an Emergency Room. Women should be told to be careful about ever taking a drink if it might possibly contain a date rape drug.

And women ought to be strongly encouraged to report rape. The entire student body should encourage women to report rape and support those who do. This is more likely to happen if Marquette can (honestly) tell students that reports of rape will be dealt with in a sensitive and professional manner.

But it doesn’t help when Marquette makes stupid statements about rape.

This page, for example, says that a women has not consented to sex if she is “Giving in or going along with someone to gain approval.” A lot of women have sex to gain approval. A guy who makes his “approval” continent on getting sex is not a gentleman, but he’s not a rapist either (at least if that’s all he does).

Another stupid statement coming from Marquette was in the “training” module required of all employees and faculty. It flatly asserts that rape is “not about sex, it’s about power.” If that’s true, why is it “sexual assault” rather than “power assault?”

Check on Image to Enlarge

Another stupid statement is found in the “Teal Poster.” It tells students:

Consent. If you want to have sexual contact with someone, it is your responsibility to make sure they consent...enthusiastically!

No, grudging consent will do. A guy who gets only grudging consent from his date really ought to back off. But he’s not rapist if he fails to.

Making stupid statements about rape encourages students to blow off the “training” that Marquette offers as politically correct indoctrination, rather than good advice and information.

Marquette Compromised

Then there is the fact that Marquette is badly compromised in dealing with campus rape, having covered up two serious cases of sexual assault during the 2011 school year. Both were reported by the Chicago Tribune. Here is one report. And here is the other.

Conclusion

If Marquette is backing off of bogus claims about campus date rape, good. But it would be better if the University admitted that the numbers it has been giving students are badly inflated, and that a sober view of the situation requires good data.

Debunking Myths About Campus Sexual Assault

Hypocrisy: Marquette on Sexual Assault Awareness

It’s now “Sexual Assault Awareness Month” at Marquette, and here is the video that talks about it:


As is always the case on college campuses, the issue is framed in terms of needing to “raise awareness.” Presumably, if everybody is “aware” that some guys would like to rape (or otherwise sexually assault) a woman, the problem will go away.

The people promoting this campaign, of course, continue to simply lie about the incidence of campus rape. For example, they cite a 2000 Department of Justice Report to support the claim that “It is estimated that nearly 25 percent of college women have been victims of rape or attempted rape since the age of 14.” We have analyzed this report, and it in fact shows no such thing.

Other studies of the issue show a vastly lower incidence of sexual assault among college women.

But of course, if you are trying to “raise awareness” why not get everybody as overwrought about the issue as possible?

Then there is Marquette’s rhetoric about how sex without “consent” is sexual assault.  That sounds reasonable on its face, but unfortunately, the definition of “consent” is warped.   Some of what the university says about consent is sensible (“Giving in or going along with someone . . . to avoid being hurt is not consent”). But some of it is absurd. For example: “Giving in or going along with someone to gain approval . . . is not consent.” So if a girl allows a guy to have sex with her because she wants his approval he has raped her.

Then there is “Silence and passivity do not equal consent.” So if a woman allows a guy to fondle her, or have sex with her, without any protest or resistance, he has raped her.  This may be true in the fever swamp that is feminist academia, but it’s not true in the real world.

Such absurdly broad definitions of rape cheapen the meaning of the term “rape” and trivialize real rape.  This feminist tendency to call every unfortunate sexual encounter that a woman may, in the morning, feel unhappy about “rape” is the reason that a vastly lower number of college women say they have been raped than are classified as rape victims by feminist researchers.

But at least, Marquette is taking a forthright stand against date rape, right?

But what happens when women on campus are the victims of actual sexual assault? Especially, what happens when the assailants are members of the basketball team? Marquette covers it up. One case involved a woman who began consensual intercourse with a male student, and then told him to stop. Not only did he refuse, but he roughed her up badly in the process.

The woman met with Student Affairs staffer Stephanie Quade. According to the Chicago Tribune:

The woman said she met with Quade, who encouraged her to focus on her schoolwork and mental health rather than pursuing charges, the woman said. Quade also asked if she had thought about praying about the situation, the woman said. She said she left the meeting in tears.

“I felt like they were trying to get me to be quiet and disappear,” she said. “I’ve never been made to feel so dumb, so stupid and so much like I didn’t matter.”

Marquette, which was legally required to report the incident to local police, failed to do so.

Another article in the Chicago Tribune described a separate incident:

One of the woman’s friends told police she became uncomfortable as the night wore on. The friend said an athlete poured alcohol into cups for the women and called them “big girl shots.” She told police that athletes were “dancing inappropriately” and that she overheard one say, “We’re (going to have sex with) these bitches tonight.”

At some point that night, the 19-year-old woman said, one athlete trapped her in a bedroom before grabbing her by the ears and forcing her to perform a sex act, police records show. The athlete told police the sex was consensual.

After leaving the room, the woman encountered another athlete who gave her two more shots of alcohol and started dancing with her. Minutes later, the woman went to a different bedroom with three other athletes. She recalled one slamming the door shut in the face of a friend who was worried about her safety. A second athlete put her hand in his pants, and another put his hand inside her pants, according to her statement to police and school officials.

She recalled that the encounter ended when a friend found another athlete to unlock the door, records show. The 19-year-old woman said she was slumped down in a chair with her pants undone and an athlete standing over her when her friend entered the room.

When the woman shared her account with campus security officers, they discouraged her from going to Milwaukee police by telling her the allegations would draw news media attention, she said.

This is what we would expect from the modern, politically correct university. Marquette bureaucrats will recite all the politically correct cant about sexual assault, will display ribbons and subject undergraduates to all sorts of indoctrination. But when faced with real sexual assault, they cover it up.

The problem, quite simply, is that Marquette has too many bureaucrats. They specialize in mouthing fashionable clichés, setting up “offices” for this and that, having workshops, subjecting students to all kinds of exercises to “raise awareness,” and declaring that this is “Sexual Assault Awareness Month.” Yet all this is fundamentally irrelevant, bureaucratic busywork, essentially. A genuine response to sexual assault would involve reporting it to the police and actually punishing the offenders.

Bureaucratic make-work, in other words, can’t substitute for actual moral integrity. The latter has been sorely lacking at Marquette.

Sexual Assault at Occupy Wall Street