Would You Send Your Daughter To College If She Had A 25% Chance Of Being Sexually Assaulted?

For some time now campus rape alarmists have been touting polling which claims that one in five women are sexually assaulted on campus. This statistic has been used endlessly, including to justify a lot of dubious policy related to campus adjudication of sexual assault accusations and sexual consent policies.

But that data has also received a lot of criticism. So, in response, the Association of American Universities conducted a study of 150,000 students and concluded that even more women are being sexually attacked on campus.

[mks_pullquote align=”right” width=”300″ size=”24″ bg_color=”#ffffff” txt_color=”#000000″]If Americans really bought into that number, shouldn’t we be firing campus administrators en masse for rampant failure to protect the kids on their campuses? Shouldn’t we be urging young women to avoid college campuses?[/mks_pullquote]

Their number is 1 in 4, or 25 percent.

Color me skeptical, for all the reasons Washington Examiner reporter Ashe Schow lays out in this review of the numbers. The definitions sexual assault are too broad, the sample is too skewed, and does anyone really believe that 25 percent of women are being sexually assaulted on campus?

Think about that. If you sent your daughter off to college this fall she has a one in four chance of being sexually assaulted according to these people. If Americans really bought into that number, shouldn’t we be firing campus administrators en masse for rampant failure to protect the kids on their campuses? Shouldn’t we be urging young women to avoid college campuses?

Nobody is doing those things because, let’s face it, nobody really believes the numbers are that bad. If we did, we’d be behaving very differently.

Rather, the polling numbers are a talking point. An exaggeration to be deployed to trump any dissent to absurd campus policies like those denying those accused of sexual assault due process and the protection of legal counsel. As if that sort of thing would be ok even if 25 percent of women on campus were being assaulted.

This is all so unfortunate, because the safety of students on campus is extremely important. But wild claims about campus sexual assaults that are formulated more to please the politics of feminist studies majors than to inform the public distract from the real issue of safety.