Yale Daily News

I live 5 minutes from Hanover. At dartmouth College, if a male employee of the school looks at a girl for more than X number of seconds, he is disciplined up to and including firing. Ivy league chastity belts for the eyes?
Big brother is now Arthur Dimmsdale. Haven't we gone too far?

Without getting through the whole article--and without meaning to minimize the importance of this topic--I do rather wish that the YDN could avoid tabloidism.

Let us look at just the progression of the first few paragraphs:

1st: "Sexual assault" three times more prevalent than reported.

"Assault" is a VERY broad term; in the US, assault "may refer only to the threat of violence caused by an immediate show of force," i.e., with no physical contact.

2nd: SHARE reports 24 calls to its hotline, which it counts at "24 reported incidents of sexual assault."

We have NO information as to the nature of the calls: our minds, of course, jump to date rape drugs et al. (at least MINE does--before logic leaps in).

3rd: Yale reports just "eight alleged forcible sex offenses."

I would argue that "forcible sex offenses" is a bit more specific than the broader "assault." Indeed, the numbers COULD be exactly correct, i.e., 24 calls to the hotline, 8 (alleged) forcible offenses.

4th: Notes DoE INVESTIGATION (eek!), beginning back in 2004. Of course, YDN slyly fails to note the results, reporting only that Yale has changed its policies (leaving the reader to infer bad badness from Yale admin baddies!).

To further illustrate the issue of alleged underreporting, we now move to the next section. Is it a case of sexual harrassment? Murky responsibility of drunken dating? NO!

It. is:

RAPE! MURDER! FROM 22 YEARS AGO! (eek!) And, just like Yale (despite 22 years of review and post the DoE's INVESTIGATION! and reforms) failed to report "38 violent crimes" (a narrower definition than "assault" which, as noted, need not include physical contact). BTW: Bethlehem PA in 1986 (you know, what with the collapse of steel and all) was NOT a very nice place...

Sorry: this is where my statistical sensibilities were just overwhelmed...

Coupla remedial tomes leap to mind:
How to Lie with Statistics
Between the Lines: How to Read a Newspaper
A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper

So... I jumped to the end section, where "assault," "rape," and "sexual crimes" are used interchangeably.

Then, looking for the 2001 DoJ report, I came across their 2005 update, which cites a likely 3% rate of "rape or attempted rape" (again, note the broader category), and adds that "half of all student victims do not label the incident 'rape'." Hmm...

BTW: Yale, apparently, has some factors mitigating its likely rate of sexual assault, e.g., downplaying of a sports culture (i.e., jocks), lack of a strong Greek system (i.e., frats), and a prevalence of, well...geeks (i.e., scholars). Not claiming zero incidents, just trying to place Yale appropriately among averages (you know, mean, median, mode, that sort of thing).

So: all I am pointing out is a lack of clarity, a play towards populism (or hysteria). Even the headline grates: "Sexual Assault More Prevalent than Reported!" Yup--it's everywhere. Better break out those old "potential rapist" posters ripped from Facebook (you know, with all male frosh highlighted)...

I rather wish the article had started with its end thought (which many might never reach), however pompous it sounds:

"But even if Yale’s reported figures are no longer too low as a legal matter, they remain low as a practical matter, and too high as a moral matter."

Sexual assault is a very serious concern, worthy of deliberation and debate; hysteria, however, is not helpful.

Sort of in response to Hieronymus:

The biggest problem when the YDN does stories like this is that the reporters don't usually seem to have any knowledge of the topic before they report on it, and thus write articles that can be incomprehensible, misleading, and suspect to those of us who DO have some knowledge of the topic. Hieronymus is right to call the reporters out on using terms (ie, assault) which they fail to define, though the usage does seem to be in accordance with CT state law definitions--which I have read but imagine the vast majority of YDN readers (and Hieronymus) have not. Defining the term, citing the source of their definition, and using the same term consistently would be helpful, especially since there continues to be debate over who is the responsible party in instances of non-stranger rape.

Second, the article provides little information as to what the SHARE center actually does-- its only role is not to document rapes which occur. They also offer support to those who are confused about an experience they may have had, curious about how to help a friend, or who may have experienced rape many years ago. Thus, I took the number 24 to mean the number of reports specifically of rape which occurred within the time span indicated. What I am confused about is whether or not the SHARE centers numbers include instances of assault which occur on non-University owned premises.

Another issue which the article fails to address is that the numbers in the official Yale security reports don't include reports from visitors who experienced sexual assault while visiting from another school. I would also doubt that those numbers are included in the SHARE center report either, given that those who would call the SHARE center are probably associated with Yale.

And what is probably the most glaring absence of the article is any attempt by either the writer or any of those interviewed to justify how knowing the exact number of assaults which occur helps educate people about these crimes and how they can be prevented or avoided. What does Yale use the data for? How should students use this data? Hieronymus seems to think that someone involved with these numbers wants to spread some sort of hysteria. I tend to sit on the other side, and first concluded that Yale was trying to make its campus seem safer (which could, unintentionally, push people towards not taking the possibility of either experiencing or committing a sexual assault seriously) by filtering which reports from which sources make it into the numbers. But that's only because of opinions we had before reading the article. What have we learned from this article? A couple of numbers, but nothing really useful.

And it seems to me, as Hieronymus pointed out, that the most important thing anyone said, which could have been a central turning point of the article, is breezed over in the last two paragraphs.

See Heather Mac Donald, "The Campus Rape Myth," for more.

http://www.city-journal.org/2008/18_1_campus_rape.html

Feminist victimologists are motivated to blur as much as possible any distinction between, on the one hand, horrible violent crimes like what happened to Clery, and on the other, the self-exculpating morning-after remorse experienced by adult women who regret their irresponsible drunken exploits from the previous night.

Good comments. Please know: I do not dismiss the prospect of Yale's "fudging" the numbers; indeed I have first-hand experience with certain limiting factors (e.g., what constitutes "campus").

That said: although this article is indeed more of a case of incompetent journalism, the bandying of stats (esp. by such interedted parties as the Women's Center) often skews the view of Yale into a place of dark and constant deeds--which it is not.

Good point about the lack of practical advice ("constant vigilance!").

This article is way too long and covers too many topics in a very disorganized manner. Needham, Arnsdorf, you two normally write good articles. What happened?

Also, it would be nice if it were titled something a little less eye-popping. Its very anticlimactic to grab the newspaper with the headline "Sexual assault more prevalent than reported" and come away with nothing.

There are issues with the reporting. One problem that is briefly mentioned is that there is no tracking of off-campus incidents between two university associated individuals. If one wants to track campus culture, that is surely a necessary number to have.

every mention of "sexual assault" should include the disclaimer "alleged"...unless it is proven, it is only alleged...

the Duke Lacrosse case (and countless others) has shown us that "alleged" doesn't necessarily mean anything actually happened.

Is sexual assault more prevalent than reported because it's so badly reported?

Heartsurgeon-
Perhaps this was unwitting on your part, but you very much come off as if you doubt the credibility of anyone and everyone who reports a rape. Why just rape? Why are people so much quicker to doubt the "allegations" of rape victims, than the victims of, say, muggings, or assault of a non-sexual nature? I don't doubt that it is because of these sentiments that rape remains by far the most under-reported crime.

To be fair, in the United States, we are innocent until proven guilty. So I guess, following heartsurgeon's advice, any mention of a crime that hasn't been resolved by a trial in court should always carry the qualifier "alleged."

Feminist victimologists?

That's how it's done, actually. Any time a newspaper reports on a person being put on trial, they are reported as an "alleged criminal" who is "reported to have committed X crime."

What about the victims? Do they say "the self-proclaimed victim of an alleged X crime"? Because that's what heartsurgeon seems to want, at least when the crime is sexual assault.

The point is that not believing victims is a big impediment to their safety and well-being.

If memory serves, they usually refer to the victim as "the accuser" and use phrases such as "claims to have been Xed."

I marvel at the blithe intellectual dishonesty of persons who automatically and with knee jerk reliability, assume that every woman who claims in a survey that she was raped but didn't report it MUST be telling the truth.

The fact is, objectively verifiable data indicates that at least 9 percent and probably closer to half of all rape claims are false. (See, e.g., S. Taylor, K.C. Johnson, Until Proven Innocent.) That is for reported "rapes." Why on earth would that percentage not be the same, or more likely much higher, when it comes to women who claim they were raped but never reported it? In fact, the percentage is likely much higher because none of the personal turmoil associated with actual reporting plagues a woman who merely tells a surveyor she was "raped." In any event, the surveys traditionally classify matters that are not necessarily rape as "rape." Yet paid sexual assault advocates routinely cite the "proof" that rape is rampant by chanting that rape is "the most underreported of all crimes." How do we know it's underreported? We know it's underreported because no one is reporting all these rapes that must be occurring. Which proves, of course, that rape is rampant.

Yes, rape is far too prevalent, but why must we constantly fight rape with lies? And why must we ignore men falsely accused of rape? The crime of making a false rape report has become so embroiled in the radical feminist sexual assault milieu that it has been improperly removed from the public discourse about rape. Sexual assault counselors often disingenuously refer to the fact of false rape accusations as a "myth." Denigrating the experience of the falsely accused by dismissing their victimization as a myth is not merely dishonest but morally grotesque. My Web site is among the few places on the internet that gives voice to the wrongfly accused: http://falserapesociety.blogspot.com/

Good comments all around. I hope someone ballsier than I writes a scathing op-ed the next time the 1-in-4 stat is bandied around.