The Campus Rape Epidemic That Doesn’t Exist
Minding the Campus has published the transcript of an important panel on campus rape. Here’s the description.
‘The Rape Epidemic on Campus Does Not Exist’
This is the edited transcript of Manhattan Institute’s March 10 panel discussion of “The Truth About Campus Sexual Assault” featuring Heather Mac Donald (City Journal), KC Johnson (Brooklyn College, Minding the Campus) Amy Wax (U. of Pennsylvania Law) and moderator Howard Husock, (Manhattan Institute).
And here’s an excerpt.
HOWARD HUSOCK: We have been told that a crisis of sexual violence grips college and university life. By some accounts, including that of President Obama himself, one in five female undergraduates is said to be likely to experience a sexual assault over the course of their college years. Prominent feminist and Guardian columnist, Jessica Valenti, has referred to the epidemic levels of rape on university campuses. Others, however, see the cry of crisis as exaggerated, and point to the debunking of such stories as that which appeared in Rolling Stone alleging that the University of Virginia had failed to act on a woman student’s charges of fraternity gang rape.
I’m going to turn first to Heather Mac Donald. Put this in context for us, Heather.
HEATHER MAC DONALD: Let’s look at these numbers, Howard. The most common statistic thrown out these days by President Obama, Vice President Biden, on down is that one in five women will be the victims of sexual assault during their college careers.
Detroit is America’s most violent city. Its violent crime rate for all four violent felonies—that’s rape, murder, aggravated assault, and robbery—is 2%. Its rape rate is 0.05%. A 20% crime rate for any crime, much less one as serious as rape, is virtually unheard of. Not even in Africa’s most brutal civil wars has anything been experienced in human history like a 20% crime rate. And yet despite a rape rate that is allegedly 400 times that of Detroit’s, sophisticated, highly educated baby boomer mothers are beating down the doors of campuses to try to get their daughters in.
Read the rest at the link below.