Students and administrators have been rather abuzz lately with the release of the results from a sexual assault survey from the Association of American Universities’ (AAU) that covered 27 schools, including Cornell.
President Elizabeth Garrett initially sent every student an email regarding the study’s findings and the numerous highly effective and meritorious actions the University is taking to reduce the prevalence of sexual assault on campus. That week, the Cornell Sun devoted a section of its front page Tuesday and Wednesday to related coverage and President Garrett and Vice President Ryan Lombardi discussed sexual assault at the Student Assembly meeting.
But how many “concerned” Cornellians have actually read the survey, or at least browsed some of the more important sections? By important, I am referring not so much to the numbers, but to the definitions, because if the definitions behind what the survey is intending to measure are faulty, nonsensical, or don’t make sense, then the numbers themselves don’t really mean anything.
For example, did you know the AAU considers unwanted kissing a crime (sexual battery)?
For example, did you know that persistently asking someone out on a date or for dinner is sexual harassment?
For example, did you know that telling “offensive” jokes is sexual harassment?
For example, did you know that if your partner has ever made a decision for you, you are a victim of intimate partner violence?
For example, did you know that the words “rape” and “assault” were never used in the survey questions—only vague terms like “sexual touching”?
If you answered mostly or only “no” to these questions, don’t feel bad. Campus administrators have no vested interest in elucidating these facts and challenging these types of studies for their vague or ridiculous definitions and methodologies because that would mean (1) coming to terms with the true cases of sexual assault on campus (over-drinking, hookup culture, lack of law enforcement, and reluctance to incur bad PR from publicized expulsions) and (2) giving up on their legal power grabs (e.g. trying to eliminate due process rights for the accused).
A good analysis of the study’s numerous shortcomings can be read here: “The latest big sexual assault survey is (like others) more hype than science”.
One commonly cited flaw is the low response rate of 19%. While such a response rate does not preclude statistical conclusions, last year former Vice President Susan Murphy ’73 PhD ’94 said a response rate of 40-50% would be needed for an accurate picture of Cornell. Either way, a more substantive problem is the response bias inherent in a voluntary survey: those who are victims or think they have been victims of sexual assault are naturally more likely to respond to a voluntary survey. In fact, the AAU survey authors themselves admit this response bias, writing, “Two of these three analyses provide evidence that non-responders tended to be less likely to report victimization. This implies that the survey estimates related to victimization and selected attitude items may be biased upwards.”
But to belabor the point, it is the efficacious definitions that are most egregious. When the survey basically defines sexual harassment as any social activity imaginable, it is no wonder 50% of Cornell respondents reported being victims of sexual harassment since coming to Cornell. As another example, consider the finding that 88% of Cornell respondents have been victims of intimate partner violence, which only makes sense if students think they’re victims of intimate partner violence because their partners once told them to wear a coat because it’s cold outside.
Even then, of those who said they were victims of nonconsensual sexual touching due to physical force, 83.7 percent felt the incident was not serious enough to report.
While Garret is correct when she writes “Even one instance of sexual assault on our campus is one too many”, crafting policy based on such an egregiously bad survey and its worthless findings would be a major mistake and a disservice to victims.
Casey, I take it you’ve never been kissed without permission or been touched suggestively without your consent. It seems to me you’ve never turned someone down- and then turned them down again, and again, and then had to wonder how far they would go to get the answer they want. Your complete lack of empathy and total dismissal of those examples reveals how oblivious you are to the seriousness of those situations. I genuinely hope you are one day capable of understanding the full range of unwanted sexual advances people have to experience and just how unpleasant, demeaning, and threatening they can be.
Ivy, I can’t speak for Casey — and for that matter neither can you. However, I’m fairly certain most people — especially in high school or college — have at least once been kissed or even touched suggestively (whatever that means) without their having given a signed and notarized consent slip or even said the word “Yes” first.
People are poor mind readers and sometimes decide to go for the kiss or the arm around the shoulders…heck, they may assume people (of either sex) are adults who can say “No, please don’t” and who won’t be traumatized if it ends there. That’s not sexual assault or sexual harassment, not by a long chalk, and often isn’t even bad behavior.
As for being asked out more than once…if your response is “I’d love to, but I’m just too busy right now,” well, again, not everyone is a mind reader and even if you *meant* “No, not ever” not everyone will realize that. So you need to put on your big girl panties (or your big boy knickers) and take the bull by the horns before you conclude that the other person is a harasser.
For example, personal safety expert Gavin de Becker suggests this kind of response:
“No matter what you may have assumed, and no matter why you may have assumed it, I have no romantic interest in you whatsoever. I am certain that I never will. Therefore, I will understand if you direct your attention elsewhere…because that is what I intend to do.”
Finally, I wonder if someone who had survived, say, a rape or a forced “fingerbanging” might question your empathy if you compare being kissed, “touched suggestively” or even, heaven forbid, asked out more than once to her (or his) experience.
PS: In my early days at Cornell, I met a guy, we exchanged phone numbers…and then he kept calling me even though I never called him back. Then he visited my group house — uninvited, mind you — to play the living room piano (he was a musician). And let me know he was interested in me as more than a friend.
Well, I decided to put an end to it. One fine evening, during one of his uninvited visits, I confronted him privately and told him nothing was ever going to happen between us.
He thanked me for being up front with him, and never visited or called me again.
People would do WELL to learn that LOVE is from God and revealed to us by His Son Jesus. Jesus would will never ever demonstrate rudeness, let alone be sexually inappropriate. We live in a world saturated in sexual evil. Unwanted kissing is a sexual evil. Why is that? Why are we sexually perverse, why do almost all of us snicker about these things publically or privately? We cannot even conceive of a world where sexual innuendo, immodest dress and hooking up are not the norm. Jesus will come and change things. Let Him change you now. If we would all let Him change us now we would not have these vile issues to deal with. Eroticism and love have nothing in common.
The survey points to the infestation and intellectual corruption of institutions by gender Marxists (Feminists). They use these institutions to promote their agenda by any means. Of course lying about sex comes rather naturally to a woman, individually or apparently as an advocacy group. The underpinnings of Feminism are lies.
Casey, Ivy, and Jeffry: I cannot speak for any of you. However, I have on many occasions asked some woman or other out, usually suggesting some show or other public happening. In nearly every case, the answer I have received has not been something like “not if you were the last man on earth!” but something more like “I don’t like the star of that movie,” or “I’m busy this week.” Needless to say, the response I did not receive was the true one. In nearly every case, the response I received was an encouragement to ask again. Now, these universities are stating (in the phrasing of the questions) that I am GUILTY of having been lied to, and that these various women HAVE BEEN VICTIMIZED BY ME by lying to me.
Inasmuch as my institution has clearly stated that it will not tolerate any man who has been treated the way I have, and inasmuch as I am unwilling to admit that I am guilty of having been lied to by a woman, I choose to remain anonymous.