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<p>Michigan has around 42,000 students. Harvard has 21,000…What’s the matter with Harvard is a better question.</p>
<p>Things are getting pretty scary at Harvard:
[‘Enthusiastic</a> Consent’ at Harvard - FIRE](<a href=“http://thefire.org/article/13762.html]'Enthusiastic”>Newsdesk | The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression)</p>
<p>"Under most legal definitions, forced sexual intercourse can be considered rape or sexual assault only when the victim said “no” or was incapable of doing so due to the influence of drugs or alcohol, according to Meier.</p>
<p>Meier said that she and other students on the committee hoped to push the University instead toward an “enthusiastic consent” model, in which an incident can be called rape in the absence of affirmative agreement.</p>
<p>“The only people who lose out in this model are the rapists,” said Lila S. Schreiber ’12, who had also intended to serve on the committee." [Student</a> Role on Assault Delayed | News | The Harvard Crimson](<a href=“http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2011/10/14/student-reps-assault-committee/]Student”>Student Role on Assault Delayed | News | The Harvard Crimson)</p>
<p>Toughyear - Just out of curiosity, why did you cherry pick the selections you did? I clicked on the link expecting to be horrified that where my son is would be the 20th most dangerous – and it’s #49 on the full list. You omitted a whole bunch of schools; the only commonality being, apparently, that they aren’t the highly selective ones. But isn’t that odd? Doesn’t the safety of kids at less selective school count too? You can’t put any of this in context without seeing the rest of the list, and taking into account where schools are located (urban, rural, good or bad neighborhoods, etc.).</p>
<p>@PG, as the OP was about sexual assaults on campus, I only listed those with relatively large ‘forcible rape’ numbers. If you look through the omitted schools their numbers are small in that category. IF you like, you could copy/paste and list and add to it to complete the list. </p>
<p>PG, it’s not about understanding in context; the fact that these crimes occur on college campus in such a significant number should be a huge concern for parents in and of itself. (the numbers may approach the downtown metro area numbers). What context do you want to find? Crimes don’t need context. they need to be stopped, particularly on college campuses.</p>
<p>One thing, which you may see as context, is that the two elite schools in Cambridge, MA (Harvard and MIT) are both ranked in top ten or twenty n the most dangerous college list nearly every year. It may be because of the high concentration of college students within a walking distance of those two campuses. Sexual crimes are a big concern to parents with prospective college age girls. Violent crimes and suicides should be a big concern for all college parents.</p>
<p>Believe me, I’m not feeling great re crimes, given that S’s bike (properly secured in front of his dorm) was stolen and there was a robbery (kid got jumped / knocked down and smartphone stolen) outside his dorm last Saturday night. I certainly am under no delusion that where he is is a bubble - it’s a town with lots of affluence with some seedy parts and he has always been duly warned to be aware of his surroundings - but these were both on what would reasonably be considered “the main drag” / safe, well-trafficked parts of the campus so my antenna is up.</p>
<p>Having said that - the very things that make campuses exciting places (access to downtown, clubs, activities, easy access to public transportation, affordable off-campus housing) are the things that make them also dangerous. D’s college town most likely has much less college crime than S’s – hers is a mostly-residential, upscale suburb – but it’s also more boring from the perspective of a college student.</p>
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<p>What do you mean by a “free” campus atmosphere / dorm arrangement that is markedly different from any other similar school?</p>
<p>Regardless of the numbers, rape is a man bites dog issue. When did you last see a drunk group of female athletes rape a male fellow student?</p>
<p>Caution is advised here. Most of the time, the girl is probably telling the truth, but not always.</p>
<p>I say this because women sometimes do make false accusations.</p>
<p>Like in the Duke rape case.</p>
<p>In my own case, I actually have had two such incidents in my life.</p>
<p>When I was in my 20’s, I had a girlfriend who was a heavy drinker, and one time, we were having an argument on a street corner, and she suddenly flung herself down on the ground, and started yelling “he is beating me, he is beating me !!!” She got up when no one had seen this, and did it a second time.</p>
<p>Then, 20 years later, when my wife and I were talking about getting divorced, my wife informed me that I had better do exactly like she says, or she would accuse me of child abuse, and then I would never see my son again. Then, just 10 minutes later, she was all lovey dovey again.</p>
<p>And I have a friend, who is a high level executive at a big corporation, who was getting divorced, and he was advised by his attorney to never be alone with his ex-wife during the divorce, because it supposedly was very common for wifes in such situations try to claim the husband hit her, or something like that.</p>
<p>And remember, in the movie To Kill a Mockingbird, where the white girl falsely alleged she was raped by the black guy, when in actuality, she had been attracted to him, and came on to him. While only a novel, such a narrative did not come out of left field. </p>
<p>So yes, most of the time the woman is probably telling the truth, but not always.</p>
<p>Floridadad55, do you have night vision?</p>
<p>PG (#46), students can walk out from campus into surrounding neighborhood ‘freely’, people from the neighborhood can ‘freely’ walk onto the campus and dorms and not suspected. There is this illusion of ‘safe’ college town in Cambridge. I think this is the different feel that Harvard and MIT have, as opposed to Penn or USC which are located surrounded by the tough neighborhood. This may contribute to the Harvard’s large number of sexual crimes. . Penn and USC students ‘know’ to be careful about the town. Harvard and MIT kids probably do not have such heightened sense and caution as those urban campuses. Some large college campuses are physically detached from the town that students and people need car to go into town, and I bet these schools probably have less problem. Now off to watch the world series.</p>
<p>Parent 1986:</p>
<p>I have four college degrees, but I am still unable to understand the meaning of your question “do you have night vision?”</p>
<p>The title of this thread is beyond obnoxious. Is that what some people really think of boys? Rape and violence are not “boy” things, and boys are not animals as a matter of nature. The vast majority of men and boys never commit rape or other acts of violence.</p>
<p>Ok… Lots of schools are integrated into a city the way H and MIT are; I guess i don’t see that as particularly unusual or out of the norm. People can walk onto Penn’s campus the same way, IMO. USC is entirely different in its setup.</p>
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<p>Thank you, zoosermom. It makes it difficult to discuss this subject when we start off with an assumption that all of our sons are rapists, or wannabe rapists.</p>
<p>The behavior of guys involved was disgusting and criminal, and the girl who went to the police is very brave. The reaction of some of her fellow students–the social ostracism–is almost as vile as that of the rapists.</p>
<p>I noted in the article that one of the girls overheard one of the guys saying something to the effect that “we’re going to [have sex with] these *****es tonight.” One wonders why this was not a signal to LEAVE.</p>
<p>Don’t get me wrong: I am not saying that it was in any way the victim’s “fault.” </p>
<p>But why oh why do some girls, mostly freshman girls apparently, have so little respect for themselves that they would obediently down the “big girl shots” and listen to guys call them “*****es” and talk about what they were going to do to them and not just get their friends together and get the hell out? I find it so very disturbing. Have decades of modern feminism been for naught? Are they so afraid of not pleasing men, that they would submit to the degrading treatment that preceded the rape?</p>
<p>Consolation, I completely agree with everything you just posted–from the ill-advised naming of the thread, to the disgust of this incident, and the bemoaning of the self respect of some adolescent girls that end in their placing themselves and remaining in unhealthy and dangerous environments, It seems founded in an almost romanticism of thug culture / life in certain circles: Gangbanging behavior by males…females right there participating and cheerleading it too…referring to women as <strong><em>es (by both males/females)…a readily accepted sporting attitude toward sex (again both sexes)…reality TV shows like “Girls Gone Wild”…all done with an undercurrent of violence, physicality, and the promotion of a loss of control. The vibe of this subculture permeates into all of our existences–news, TV, websites, writing, Did anyone read the best seller “I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell”? A male making millions by being a complete, total utter </em></strong> and writing about it, and then being sought out by males and females. It’s Been on the best seller list since 2006, yes the sardonic lines are funny–but the subject matter really isn’t. Not at all. And the guy has groupies wanting to participate to be in his next book. Unbelievable.</p>
<p>I was so afraid something awful would happen to my physically beautiful daughter when she went off to college that it became a family joke the number of times I went over the rules of parties and how to keep yourself safe. </p>
<p>I had this long laundry list of instructions starting with never take a drink from someone else unless you made it yourself, hold your own “red cup” at the keg, never do shots. Never leave your friend at the party. Never go upstairs at a frat house. blah, blah, blah.</p>
<p>My kids would chime in in unison when I got started on it. (and I got started on it long before the summer before college). By the time my oldest left for college, ALL of her friends, including the boys, could recite the list with me. They rolled their eyes, but, interestingly, never walked away or stopped me.</p>
<p>Paranoid Mrs. P.</p>
<p>But, something really, really awful happened to my best friend in college, and it happened cuz she was naive and trusting and beautiful, and it ruined her life for many years. </p>
<p>“Bear with me,” I used to say. “It makes ME feel better to say it.”</p>
<p>I’m not saying bad things will not happen or cannot happen, but there are things a young woman can do to stay safer.</p>
<p>^^^I did the same with D1 when she went off to college. I am repeating myself now with D2. They may roll their eyes, but their ears are open.</p>
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<p>Sadly, yes.<br>
For all the positive good “modern feminism” has done, the culture has very forcefully IMO, presented young women with the notion that to be sexually selective in their behavior means that they are beset with “hang-ups” and that being sexually available in all situations is somehow, “empowering”.</p>
<p>Honestly, I don’t know what can be done by individual families to combat this other than forcefully presenting the message to both our sons and (particularly) daughters that the current culture is toxic and sick and that decent people don’t buy into these standards. Still, they are only 17-18 when they leave home and their brains haven’t fully developed so I guess that appalling as this is, it isn’t really surprising.</p>
<p>And of course, there’s the underage drinking which is almost always a factor in these incidents.</p>
<p>On a flight back from a Tufts campus visit with older s, we happened to sit next to a woman who worked for the Tufts PD- I forget her exact title, but she was involved in the tracking/data collection of any and all campus crimes. She said (IIRC, this was many years ago) that they worked diligently to get students to report any and all incidents, and they may have been ahead of some other schools in this, such that their numbers, by having increased reports, made them look comparatively less safe. She was hopeful that all schools would encourage students to report all incidents.</p>
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<p>Thank you, Zooser. It’s called sexism and it’s important to call people on it.</p>