Last week we reported that the White House had announced a new task force to deal with sexual assault on college campuses.

Cathy Young of Minding The Campus is skeptical.

The White House Overreaches on Campus Rape

Wednesday’s announcement of a White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault is the culmination of the Obama Administration’s years-long efforts in support for the feminist crusade against campus rape.  It is too early to tell what new remedies for sexual assault on campus the task force will propose.  So far, however, the initiative relies on the same old approach: wildly inflated numbers, the rhetoric of female victimhood, and complete disregard for any rights that the accused may have.

The report from the White House Council on Women and Girls, “Rape and Sexual Assault: A Renewed Call to Action,” asserts that one in five female college students are sexually assaulted during their college years, with one 12% of these victims reporting the assault to law enforcement.  These figures draw on the Campus Sexual Assault Study, conducted in 2005-2007 at the request of the National Institute for Justice, and a 2007 federally sponsored national study of rape from the National Crime Victims’ Research and Treatment Center.

I analyzed the CSA and its numbers nearly three years ago when the administration launched its first initiative to combat campus sexual assault in April 2011, with the “Dear Colleague” letter to college and university presidents from the Department of Education Office of Civil Rights.  The vast majority of the incidents counted as assault involved what the study termed “incapacitation” by alcohol (or, rarely, drugs).  But “incapacitation” is a misleading term, since the question used in the study also measured far lower degrees of intoxication: “Has someone had sexual contact with you when you were unable to provide consent or stop what was happening because you were passed out, drugged, drunk, incapacitated, or asleep?”  This wording does not differentiate between someone who is unconscious or barely conscious and someone who is just drunk enough to go along with something he or she wouldn’t do when sober.