One of the main "fundamental problems" Harris said exists in the Title IX adjudication process is that by adopting criminal law terminology institutions are labeling something as sexual assault when it clearly is not.

...Teresa Manning, noted that the use of terms such as "victim" and "survivor" are in fact "conclusive" terms that should only be used at the conclusion of an investigation but are often used from the onset of the complaint.

"We're gonna give you a fair trial, followed by a first class hanging." ~ Cobb (Silverado)

Once you accept the oft-repeated claim that 1-in-5 women is sexually assaulted while in college, you must take steps to prevent 20% of the women on your campus from being assaulted.

Accepting the claim at face value breeds panic and that "...panic over 'sexual predators' has led colleges to endorse overly broad definitions of sex crimes and an over-eagerness to punish perceived transgressors."

So, are American campuses really hotbeds of sexual predation?

The claim that one in five women will be victims of sexual assault or attempted sexual assault (and some claim even higher numbers) is based on a number of surveys. This is a complicated issue that can’t be even close to fully addressed in a single blog post. These surveys suffer from many serious technical problems. These will be discussed in future posts. For now, it is worth noting that few of these surveys actually ask students if they were sexually assaulted.

Rather than asking students if they were sexually assaulted, these surveys ask students if they were subjected to certain behaviors. If a student responds that they were, that student is reported as a victim of sexual violence. But these surveys are asking about breathtakingly broad swaths of behavior. They ask if students ever had sex after their partner ‘expressed displeasure’ or criticized their attractiveness. They ask if students had sex with someone after they “show[ed] they were unhappy.” Students who answer affirmatively are counted in the one-in-five statistic.

The situation gets even murkier when alcohol is added.

The way the surveys define “alcohol-facilitated” rape or sexual assault is also very broad. ...it asks them if they were unable to consent because they were "drunk" or "passed out," which obviously invites students to answer "yes" if they ever engaged in sex while drunk, even if they were neither incapacitated nor passed out. ... So, it is very unclear what students mean when they answer these questions in the affirmative. It is healthy to have a discussion about how drunk is too drunk for sex, but these surveys are skipping that discussion. Of course, the reported numbers are high.

So what's the truth?

By contrast, a 2014 survey by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (the research wing of the Justice Department) asked students if they had ever been raped or sexually assaulted. (It provided fairly broad definitions for these terms.) The survey produced results far lower than the surveys discussed above: less than one percent of women reported that they had been sexually assaulted in any given year.

Many caveats belong here. Just as the broad questions of other surveys may have produced unrealistically large numbers, the BJS survey may have repressed reported numbers if women were reluctant to label themselves as victims of rape or sexual assault. The truth is most likely somewhere between these very high and low numbers.

Even if the truth is only 1% of women on campus facing actual or attempted sexual assault, that's still too high. The linked article points out that there are 10 million women enrolled in college today. So, 1% is 100,000 women facing actual or attempted sexual assault - not the "epidemic" that advocates would have you believe, but still a number to be taken seriously.

At what number does treating all men as predators-in-waiting and stomping on the rights of the accused become a rational response?

I prefer Che: execute him today, we can have the trial tomorrow. Che liked shooting defenseless people in the head, so he might have been prejudiced in his thinking.

Maybe to protect all the college women and their crushing burden of emotional labor, we should segregate workforces so that there are perfect, safe spaces for the women, and then somewhere else there's some "male" space for work. Segregate the colleges and schools that way, too. For the women's safety - if it saves one woman from having to bear that label of "survivor" for having to hear about some man's having proposed to his wife at a strip club, isn't it worth it?

Gee, I wonder why so many women are having trouble finding a "good man"?

The only ones who can't find a good man are the ones who unironically post Marilyn Monroe's If you can't handle me at my worst you don't deserve me at my best quote.

https://imgur.com/gallery/7jUBtBA

See also "You won't like me when I'm angry," to which the correct response is "Does anyone like you as it is?"

Feminists do not want to be held accountable for their own behavior. They want college women (and all women) to be able to get blind drunk, go home with a stranger, and they call it rape later. That is not adult behavior. If you are delicate and have feelings that are easily hurt, don't hook up with strangers. If you easily give in to charm or pressure, don't hook up with strangers. etc.

The idea that you could get a reprimand as a prof for saying fuck or rolling your eyes makes me glad I'm not on a campus.

cc, leaving aside whether or not false accusers call themselves feminists, I'd love to know if the number of self-described feminist college graduates who actually believe that "regret equals rape" number more than a dozen, if that. (Including non-famous women, I mean.)

Granted, the saying "regret is NOT rape" needs to be said, frequently, by feminists, because when men - or people like Camille Paglia - say it, too many young people suspect them of not taking actual acquaintance rape seriously either. However, offhand, I can think of at least four famous feminists who fit the bill, even if they take more than four words to say it: Susan Faludi, Margaret Atwood, Katha Pollitt, and Wendy Kaminer.

Btw, many would also say that if you're a female who's likely to change your mind about having sex once the bedroom door is closed (as in, you're still a teenager), then it's just plain dumb to be alone in a house with any man or teen boy, even your long-term boyfriend. (Even so, of course, if he gets angry at hearing "no" and forces you, that's still a crime.) In the same vein, while a false accusation is a crime, it's just plain dumb for a man to mess with a teen, even an 18-year-old, male or female, because those are the ones most likely to MAKE a false accusation for one "reason" or another. (One is, they're often terrified of their parents finding out they had consensual sex.)

And again, when parents and teachers talk to young people about alcohol, they'd be less likely to provoke hostility - and make a bigger and better impression on their minds - if they would focus on the non-political, non-criminal reasons not to drink heavily. As in, whether you're male or female, you could stumble off alone and freeze to death; you could fall into traffic or onto subway tracks; you could suffer alcohol poisoning, or you could put yourself on the road to alcoholism. Not to mention that alcohol is fattening - and being visibly or audibly drunk is just plain undignified. (Adults don't need to say those exact last nine words; they can simply focus on the positives of dignity instead, on a daily basis. My mother never talked to me about alcohol, but she was a stickler for dignity - no question.)

Lenona,
It was indeed a war zone when I was in high school and first year college. Lots of guys died from alcohol: car wrecks mainly but also falling off things.

While you may not think many girls call changing their mind rape, on campus many do charge the boy with sexual assault because after the fact they weren't happy about it.

Read that again. I said "college graduates."

And, of course, half the undergraduates are teens. As I was saying...

Not to mention that alcohol is fattening - and being visibly or audibly drunk is just plain undignified.

Forgot another one: "if you have to get drunk to have fun, it's not fun."