Former University of Virginia associate dean Nicole P. Eramo won her defamation lawsuit against Rolling Stone magazine, and the implications are significant. Successful defamation suits are rare in the U.S., in large part to protect the freedom of speech and press. I think, however, the jury verdict was correct in this case. Indeed, the…
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Brock Turner, the Stanford University student convicted of sexual assault last summer, left jail after serving three months of his six month sentence, setting off a firestorm of outrage and protest in the popular media over his light sentence. Amidst the rage, no one seems to be asking the more important and fundamental question:…
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As studies refine our understanding of college sexual assault, more and more observers recognize that sexual assault and rape are serious problems on many campuses even if the scope isn’t large enough to be called an epidemic. In an academic year, a recent analysis completed for the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics covering nine…
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Perhaps the most striking void left in the aftermath of the Brock Turner sexual assault trial—the Stanford rape case—is the utter lack of resolution for the victim and the degree to which the human harm created by his actions has gone unaddressed. This is extraordinary given the apparent success of the case. Fewer than…
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Today’s article is a qualified mae culpa. One of the first comments on an earlier post on campus rape and sexual assault challenged the veracity of a datapoint used frequently by anti-sexual assault advocates: one in four women will be sexually assaulted by the time they leave college. It’s a number I’ve referenced in…
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College campuses are placing a stronger emphasis on reducing sexual assault. Unfortunately, universities and colleges often adopt heavy-handed policies to punish alleged offenders based on abstractions or simplistic understandings of college student attitudes and behavior. One of the more problematic overgeneralizations is the concept of the “rape culture”, and the pervasive use of the…
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