EDITORS' CORNER
OPINION: Treat issues of sexual assault seriously, but not sensationally
The allegations concerning a reported group rape at Cornell University have relit a disturbing trend of campus rape sensationalism.
By this I don’t mean claims of sexual assault themselves, which all should be treated seriously and with a commitment toward justice for both the accuser and the accused. Rather, I mean the media’s tendency to feast on lurid accusations and create a panic around campus sexual assault. The Cornell lawsuit’s claims converge with the annual release of campus Clery crime reports, which are due by October 1 each year.
“Over 8k rapes were reported at US colleges in one year,” blares one headline. “Here are the schools most plagued by sexual violence.”
The University of Utah, we’re told, is the worst place to be a woman.
“The 36,894-student public university in Salt Lake City recorded a shocking 146 rape accusations in 2024, according to data from the US Department of Education,” the New York Post reported.
However, what the reporter left out is some important context – almost all of these reports came from one person accusing someone else of intimate partner violence.
As the University of Utah reported, the high number “is due to one survivor reporting 110 rapes during the course of a multiple-month relationship plagued by interpersonal violence (IPV). Both people in the relationship were students; both have graduated.”
Rape is serious. Interpersonal violence is serious. Criminal prosecutions and concurrent school sanctions would be justified if the evidence pointed to clear guilt. But the average University of Utah student is not in danger.
A similar situation played out at University of Colorado Boulder, which “had the second highest count, with 96 rapes reported in 2024,” according to the Post.
But again, a little checking into the school’s annual Clery crimes report gives better context. “Statistics under the Sexual Assault & Stalking categories for the 2024 reporting year are notably higher than prior reporting years, due to one perpetrator committing multiple acts/strings of violence against victim(s),” a note says. In 2023, the school reported 36 rapes.
Again, all serious, worthy of investigation, but does not say anything about a broad problem across the board of CU-Boulder students being at risk of being raped or otherwise attacked.
The third worst university is, according to the New York Post, Ohio State University, where 67 rapes were allegedly reported.
However, the Clery report for main Columbus campus does not list 67 rapes – it lists 58 in 2024 (and 35, but of course the decrease isn’t newsworthy!). Even adding in the Mansfield campus (one) and Wooster (three), only gets to 62. Again, all rape is serious, but this is a fairly low victimization rate across 66,000 students plus professors, staff, and visitors.
The return of ‘1 in 4’
The sensationalist reporting is compounded with the return of the highly questionable “1 in 4” claim.
Based on poorly interpreted surveys, activists will claim that 1 in 4, or 1 in 5 women are the victims of sexual assault on campus.
NBC News reported on Oct. 1 that “More than 35% of female undergraduates surveyed at Cornell University reported experiencing nonconsensual sexual contact involving physical force, threats of force or incapacitation, according to a poll conducted last year.”
Likewise:
Washington University in St. Louis reported a result of 26.9% of respondents saying they had experienced nonconsensual sexual contact involving physical force or the inability to consent or stop the actions. Georgetown University reported 25.3% on the same issue in the same survey. Yale University and the University of Pennsylvania, which reported rates of 14.4% and 16.7%, also account for nonconsensual “penetration or sexual touching.”
Cornell says that its questions are generally similar to others, so a brief examination of what the school asks students will illustrate the problem with other universities.
“Nonconsensual sexual contact” can include force, like choking, but also unwanted touching, like rubbing someone’s leg. “Sexual touching” is the most commonly reported form of nonconsensual sexual contact.
Look, as a practicing Catholic I don’t think people should use drugs, drink to excess, or have sexual contact with someone that is not their spouse. Everyone involved with Cornell controversy needs serious psychological, substance abuse, and spiritual counseling.
But, I don’t think that the general public or the student body needs to be worried about being a victim to nonconsensual sexual contact if alcohol is involved when about 55 percent of victims were drinking. Most of the incidents occur in “residence halls (29%), fraternity chapter houses or annexes (20%)” or off-campus residences (34%).
In other words 83 percent of nonsexual contact occurs at someone’s house or dorm, and in a majority of cases, alcohol is involved. In 1 in 4 cases, the perpetrator was “a current intimate partner.” That someone’s current intimate partner touched them while they were drinking in a dorm room is not incredibly interesting, nor surprising. NBC News, to its credit, included some of this information.
Cornell has gone down this road before. Back in 2015, it faced a lawsuit after withholding a student’s diploma for two years after he had sex with a woman who invited him into her bed, claiming German “sailboat community values.” The school and the student ultimately settled.
This case could take a long time, but I’m begging my fellow journalists – be honest, realistic, and seek justice – not just clicks.
