I think we can all agree that a study by the Department of Justice is much more likely to be accurate than a random survey. And the following DOJ study reports that the recent historical rate of sexual assault among female college students is 0.6% per year.
www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/rsavcaf9513.pdf
Let’s multiply by 4 for the years in college and call it 2.5%. So how do get from 2.5% to 50%?
Why do you anticipate arguments no one will make? I noted the stats were bad enough as it is-why on earth would you make up contrary arguments that no one is claiming? Can we just maybe base the discussion on the facts-16% said rape or attempted rape, another 15% said some other type of unwanted contact. Those numbers are bad enough; it does not help anyone’s credibility or arguments to inflate that into half the women are raped. To effectively deal with the problem, it helps to have a realistic sense of its scope and degree, and proceed from there. The emotional rant against misogynistic patriarchy does not accomplish much of value, but does explain those with an agenda against Sullivan. And while I agree that domestic violence is a serious and terrible problem, I fail to see what that has to do with this issue-I don’t believe Sullivan has been accused of violence by his wife, nor know of any Harvard students claiming domestic violence by their spouses, do you?
I agree with @momofthreeboys that the young woman who led the student push to get Sullivan fired sounds like she is experiencing a little paranoia. I would add that her writing is disorganized and overly dramatic. Of course, she is only 21. Maybe she will learn to channel her strong emotions towards gaining the ability to help our society prevent sexual assaults, through research, education, policy, or law, rather than continuing this quest to somehow eliminate whatever she perceives as “making people feel unsafe".
No one accused the Sullivans of rape so that discussion of college rape statistics is completely off topic anyway. The complainers just didn’t “like” that he was defending an alleged harasser who may or may not have committed technically rape through the years and in some ways. according to Harvard, were complaining that the environment in that house was “toxic” to students, although it sounds like from reports that the leader of the gang didn’t live in that house so it’s not clear to me who was experiencing the toxic environment and whether it was people in the house or people outside.
I am truly stunned by the lack of empathy toward young women being displayed on this thread.
Here’s a good Harvard Business Journal that explains about complaining. https://hbr.org/2018/05/the-next-time-you-want-to-complain-at-work-do-this-instead Personally I have no empathy for the mob because i’m still not exactly sure what their issue was…other than trying to make a statement by complaining and make trouble for the Sullians. Hard to feel empathetic for the playground bullies regardless of their sex…
There is a psychology today article about why complainers deserve compassion. If I get bored this afternoon I’ll go read it.
Do the women in other houses feel more protected by their Deans? That they get more support or are less likely to be sexually assaulted?
Perhaps the fight shouldn’t be to replace a Dean who MIGHT not be the person a woman who is assaulted would want to report to (and he set up a system for them to report to a woman), maybe the focus should be on preventing the assaults from happening, in setting up a program where 2.5% or 25% or 50% of students aren’t going to be assaulted.
There was a woman at Harvard who discovered that rape kits in Mass were thrown out after 6 months if the vicitm did not ask for the evidence to be retained. And every 6 months thereafter. So she had the law changed. Opps, she was a member of one of the evil sororities so we can’t talk about her. Oops.
Maybe the other Deans make their students feel psychologically safer and that the House is their safe home, but it doesn’t seem that they really ARE safer. In fact, Harvard seems like a very dangerous place if 25% of student are likely to be assaulted on campus or off during their time there, and the administration is accepting those numbers.
Empathy is the least of it. Do parents understand that sending their daughters to Harvard could end up in them being raped or are they just blinded by the prestige and willing to roll the dice?
That is not what is being discussed here. Start a new thread if you want to argue about statistics of sexual assault on college campuses. The Sullivans were not accused of sexual assault.
I am truly stunned that some assume Prof. Sullivan’s service as Dean somehow increases the sexual assaults on campus. Sexual assaults are a problem, regardless of who serves as Dean. I really do not think there is any rational relationship between addressing the underlying problem and his appointment, unless you believe that all men are disqualified from such service as they are potential predators.
And does the identity of the Dean somehow change that, misty88981?
Of course not. I think there is an attempt at the gross simplification of the issue here. No one is suggestion that having the Sullivans as heads of Winthrop impacts the actuality of sexual assault. But the tremendous vulnerability of a young woman (or man) who has been violated should be considered. Sexual assault is a bomb, and a person who has experienced it navigates the world in a different way. Having a head of house who is actively looking for ways to discredit the women who have themselves been victimized (which is literally the job of Weinstein’s lawyers) is unlikely to aid in the healing process. Frankly, there is nothing I can say that hasn’t already been stated in this thread. If people are unable or unwilling to see the devastating emotional impact of this situation, then there’s nothing that can be said that will change that.
That is NOT the job of a defense attorney.
Now that Sullivan is no longer representing Weinstein, should he be allowed to stay on? Or is guilty for simply having intended to be his defense attorney, and therefore irredeemable?
And if you decide that Sullivan has to go, where do we draw the line on what constitutes sufficient trauma to remove the Dean? Is it only limited to sexual assault? Or is it anything that some non-zero number of students determine is traumatic to them?
Maybe Harvard needs to hire more therapists to “aid in the healing process”, I don’t expect that is in the job description or skill set for any Dean, or really anyone outside the mental health clinic.
I’ve wonder if a younger Alan Dershowitz, a staunch defender of Israel, would be acceptable today as it is likely that more than one house resident might be a supporter of Palestine…
Great! Let’s get recent numbers from the Department of Justice. They developed and tested a Campus Climate survey to determine the levels of sexual violence on campus. The report, issued in 2016 but covering the 2014-15 academic year, is here: https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/ccsvsftr.pdf
They ran the study at 9 colleges that they deemed would be representative.
Topline results:
For female students, the average rate of sexual assault over the nine colleges surveyed was 176 per thousand. (Page 87, Figure 16 and the text). That’s sexual assaults per thousand women, not women assaulted per thousand, so the victimization rate would be a bit lower.
“Across all sexual assault incidents involving female victims at the nine schools, 90% could
be classified as either rape or sexual battery based on responses to Survey Item ILF2” (page 89) In this context, rape is defined as including penetration. Sexual battery is unwanted contact with an intimate part of the body (genetalia, breast, buttocks). Thirty percent of the sexual assaults were rape, so that means about 5% of female students in this study report they were raped that year.
As far as sexual harassment, an average of 28% of women reported they’d been sexually harassed. Sexual harassment here was defined as unwanted sexual advances, unwanted flashing or exposure, showing or sending unwanted sexual pictures or sexual videos, being watched or videoed during sexual activities without consent. p. 137
I’m glad to read that you accept this data, @hebege.
I’m trying to figure out the numbers- so if 5% were raped in any given year, I guess roughly around 20% were raped sometime during their college career, which is pretty consistent with the Crimson survey of 15% saying they had suffered thus. Maybe Harvard is a bit safer for a variety of reasons.
Not sure what to make of the 28% figure-were those specific actions the ones referred to by the Crimson survey of 16%, or were there other actions? Hard to compare when the definitions might not be the same, isn’t it? But it seems Harvard’s survey is fairly consistent with your info. So yes, Harvard should address that problem directly, on that we have agreement.
I thought that was a fabulous suggestion @momofthreeboys But based on some of the posts after, some other users still seem to think that ToS compliance is optional, so I’m requesting a mod to step in.
MODERATOR’S NOTE: Post #148, “That is not what is being discussed here. Start a new thread if you want to argue about statistics of sexual assault on college campuses. The Sullivans were not accused of sexual assault,” should be taken as an instruction, not a suggestion. Please stay on topic.