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Related: About this forumColleges Can Avoid Looking Rapey By Just Lying About Rape Numbers
Colleges Can Avoid Looking Rapey By Just Lying About Rape Numbers
When you go to college, you bring with you all of your hopes and dreams. Like the hope that you will enjoy challenging classes and the dream that you will meet interesting people. Also the hope that you will not be at high risk of sexual assault after you find out that your college has been lying to you about the number of sexual assaults on campus!
Think Progress reports that an American Psychological Association study released this month found that colleges and universities regularly engaged in a pattern of underreporting sexual assaults from 2001-2012. Oops! The study also found that during Department of Education audits, which are required under certain circumstances under federal law, the reported numbers of sexual assaults increased by approximately 44 percent on average from previously reported levels. But then, coincidentally, the reported numbers dropped again after the audits were concluded, which suggests, according to the study, that schools were only bothering to provide a more accurate picture of sexual assaults when the feds were paying attention.
Well, that is an extremely innovative approach to the problem of uh oh, students wont want to come here if they think they will be assaulted all over the place. Tell the truth, if you must, while you are being audited by the feds (and if you are being audited, it is probably because the feds already suspect you are undercounting assaults), but otherwise, just lie about the number of assaults that happen, and then students will not even know they should be worried and perhaps attend a slightly safer school! According to the studys lead researcher,
Colleges and universities still arent taking the safety of their students from sexual assault seriously. The study shows that many universities continue to view rape and sexual assault as a public relations issue rather than a safety issue. They dont want to be seen as a school with really high sexual assault numbers, and they dont want to go out of their way to report that information to students or the media.
Under the federal Cleary Act, schools can be fined $35,000 for each unreported crime, but the APA researchers think this isnt a deterrent, because it, uh, hasnt deterred schools with a history of undercounting and being fined from continuing to undercount and pay fines. The researchers suggest a fine of $150,000, plus surveying students directly about assault and making the results available in a public database. Sounds about right.
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Read more at http://wonkette.com/575080/colleges-can-avoid-looking-rapey-by-just-lying-about-rape-numbers#wdCs1bGlCg1ZutC7.99
jen1980
(77 posts)It's a good story. Don't ruin it with your off-putting spamming.
niyad
(113,325 posts)off-putting? wow. . .
many op's are cross-posted.
any comments on the actual content of the article?
brer cat
(24,572 posts)It is an important article, but I do wish they would stop the cutesy-poo when reporting something serious. "Rapey" sounds like Sarah Palin mocking PBO with "hopey, changey." "Oops" should follow a mistake, not a deliberate underreporting of the facts. It's juvenile. Not a complaint about you because I know you didn't write the headline. It just irked me.
I would love to see the higher fines implemented. If they are shrugging off 35K, hit them harder. The reports need to be accurate.
niyad
(113,325 posts)with you about the style--but it is wonkette's rather breezy signature, unfortunately.