Do colleges ignore sexual assault claims? Of course not

From the always great Emily Yoffe:

The Hunting Ground asserts that even when a victim pushes past the roadblocks and makes a formal report to administrators, it will do no good. Lawyer and activist Colby Bruno says, “The message is clear: It’s don’t proceed through these disciplinary hearings. No matter what you do, you’re not going to win.” The film follows this quote with a graphic showing a paltry number of expulsions of male students at six top schools. But let’s examine this assertion that colleges would rather leave perpetrators unpunished than acknowledge there are any. The higher education insurance group, United Educators, just released a study of 305 sexual assault claims they received from 104 member schools for the three years ending in 2013. I spoke to the organization’s director of risk research, Alyssa Keehan, who said, “The most common narrative you hear is that institutions don’t care about sexual assault. Our data suggests otherwise.” UE’s findings show that when a formal complaint is brought against a student, in 45 percent of the cases he is found responsible. When that happens, more than 80 percent of the time he is given the most severe penalty available—either expulsion or suspension. The study found in 25 percent of the cases the accused is found not responsible. In 23 percent of the cases the school did not adjudicate, not because of a cover-up, but because in the majority of these instances the accuser either asked the school not to investigate, became uncooperative, or could not identify the accused. In the remainder of cases, the accused withdrew from school.

http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2015/02/the_hunting_ground_a_campus_rape_documentary_that_fails_to_provide_a_full.html

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By Stephen

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Professor and quant guy. Libertarian turned populist Republican. Trying to learn Japanese and play Spanish Baroque music on the ukulele.

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