Independent Women's Forum - Research Areas > Sexual Harassment

The Campus Rape Myth

info@iwf.org (Allison Kasic) — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 16:55:00 EST

In the winter edition of City Journal, the Manhattan Institutes's Heather MacDonald has a lengthy piece on the campus rape industry. As MacDonald points out, the central tenet of the campus rape industry is the one-in-four statistic. This stat alledges that one quarter of college women will be raped or will be targets of attempted rape by the end of their four years in college. Like others before her, MacDonald shows the statistic to be severely inflated. But that doesn't stop campus feminists from declaring a rape crisis:

If the one-in-four statistic is correct-it is sometimes modified to "one-in-five to one-in-four"-campus rape represents a crime wave of unprecedented proportions. No crime, much less one as serious as rape, has a victimization rate remotely approaching 20 or 25 percent, even over many years. The 2006 violent crime rate in Detroit, one of the most violent cities in America, was 2,400 murders, rapes, robberies, and aggravated assaults per 100,000 inhabitants-a rate of 2.4 percent. The one-in-four statistic would mean that every year, millions of young women graduate who have suffered the most terrifying assault, short of murder, that a woman can experience. Such a crime wave would require nothing less than a state of emergency-Take Back the Night rallies and 24-hour hotlines would hardly be adequate to counter this tsunami of sexual violence. Admissions policies letting in tens of thousands of vicious criminals would require a complete revision, perhaps banning boys entirely. The nation's nearly 10 million female undergrads would need to take the most stringent safety precautions. Certainly, they would have to alter their sexual behavior radically to avoid falling prey to the rape epidemic.

MSNBC Live: Students disciplined for hugging a friend.

info@iwf.org (Allison Kasic) — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 17:21:00 EST

Allison Kasic joins MSNBC Live to debate two recent news stories of students being disciplined or held in detention for hugging a friend.

These stories are yet another example of the flawed sexual harassment policies that permeate all levels of American education.

Also read:
When Policies Cry Wolf: A Look at Sexual Harassment Policies on Campus

The Hug Police

info@iwf.org (Allison Kasic) — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 12:17:00 EST

IWF recently highlighted the shenanigans that often come along with sexual harassment policies on campus. Two news stories today, indicate similar problems exist on the K-12 level.

First, from Illinois:

A 13-year-old junior high school student was given two days of detention after school officials spotted her hugging friends after school last Friday.
Megan Coulter, an eighth-grade student at Mascoutah Middle School, was hugging her friends goodbye after school Friday when vice principal, Randy Blakely, saw her and told her she would receive two after-school detentions.

Then, from Alabama:

The debate of public displays of affection in school is hitting home in Alabama. The mother of a student in Autauga County says her daughter was disciplined for simply hugging a friend....
She says the hug wasn't meant to be sexual. She says her daughter was consoling a male friend who recently lost a parent.

The goal of a harassment policy isn't to be the hug police, it is to stop legitimate harassment. When schools include activities such as hugging in these policies, they are trivializing harassment and doing a disservice to their students.

Harassment on Campus

info@iwf.org (Carrie L. Lukas) — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 21:56:00 EDT

It should come as little surprise to anyone familiar with modern academia that many sexual harassment policies on college campuses are unclear, overly broad, and selectively enforced. But the consequences of these bad policies are seldom discussed. IWF's campus director, Allison Kasic, and an IWF former junior fellow, Kate Schindler, explore this topic in a new IWF policy brief, "When Policies Cry Wolf: A Look at Sexual Harassment Policies on Campus," and urge campuses to embrace clear, common sense policies that target true harassment.

Here's the executive summary, but don't miss the whole report which includes examples of some of the most outrageous sexual harassment policies around:

According to Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 (Title IX), the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights (OCR) requires that every college and university receiving public funding have a sexual-harassment policy. It also describes exactly what constitutes sexual harassment. However, a growing paternalistic trend among university administrators results in vague and overbroad policies that do more harm than good:
They violate students' clearly defined First Amendment rights to freedom of expression.
They induce a chilling effect on campus, inhibiting students' normal interaction.
They foster a culture of dependency for women, as administrators begin to protect them from what they find distasteful.
A survey by the American Association of University Women indicates that many students are unaware of the true definition of sexual harassment. To solve the problem, colleges and universities need to get their policies in line with the OCR guidelines on sexual harassment in order to educate their students about the true nature of sexual harassment and what to do about it.

IWF Policy Brief #6:When Policies Cry Wolf: A Look at Sexual Harassment Policies on Campus

info@iwf.org (Allison Kasic) info@iwf.org (Kate Schindler) — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 12:59:00 EDT

Download the complete Policy Brief below.

Executive Summary

According to Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 (Title IX), the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights (OCR) requires that every college and university receiving public funding have a sexual-harassment policy. It also describes exactly what constitutes sexual harassment. However, a growing paternalistic trend among university administrators results in vague and overbroad policies that do more harm than good:

They violate students' clearly defined First Amendment rights to freedom of expression.
They induce a chilling effect on campus, inhibiting students' normal interaction.
They foster a culture of dependency for women, as administrators begin to protect them from what they find distasteful.

A survey by the American Association of University Women indicates that many students are unaware of the true definition of sexual harassment. To solve the problem, colleges and universities need to get their policies in line with the OCR guidelines on sexual harassment in order to educate their students about the true nature of sexual harassment and what to do about it.