Attorney Camille Lee told 60 representatives from nearly 20 colleges across the state of Indiana that about 1-in-4 women will be sexually assaulted while in college. (iStock photo)
In what should come as a surprise to no one, blatant misinformation about the prevalence of campus sexual assault was peddled to college administrators attending a conference on March 24.
The misinformation peddler, predictably, is a federal attorney with the Education Department's Office for Civil Rights, which has been bullying colleges into adjudicating campus sexual assault or risk losing funding. Attorney Camille Lee told 60 representatives from nearly 20 colleges across the state of Indiana that about 1-in-4 women will be sexually assaulted while in college.
Lee acknowledged that her numbers may be a few years old, but insisted that meant that the current share of women who get sexually abused in college is higher than one in four. Actually, in recent years the preferred scare statistic is that 1-in-5 women will be victimized, so Lee clearly chose an even more frightening number to assert her agency's authority.
But even the 1-in-5 statistic is riddled with flaws, as it is a self-reported survey with a broad definition of sexual assault (that includes everything from a stolen kiss to rape). Even with those flaws (and many more), the authors of the surveys have to apply the "victim" label to respondents, as more than 70 percent of those who answer affirmatively to receiving unwanted sexual attention say they didn't report the incident because it wasn't serious.
Of course, Lee's job depends on colleges believing that sexual assault is an "epidemic" that must be combatted by any means possible. The solution provided by OCR has been an evisceration of due process rights and a campus mentality that prefers "guilty until proven innocent."
The conference Lee spoke to was titled "Preventing Sexual Violence One Mindful Action at a Time." One mindful action would be to acknowledge that the problem does not amout to an epidemic and does not require the draconian, accusation-equals-guilt response currently spreading across the country.
Lee also discussed the impact a sexual assault can have on an accuser's life, such as poor academic performance, depression and even suicide. At no time did she acknowledge the effect an accusation can have on a student's life, which would require that utmost care be taken when assessing whether a sexual assault actually occurred.
But this is the grievance culture we live in, where faulty statistics are used to remove constitutional rights from students simply because of where they are accused. People like Lee perpetuate this culture and share responsibility for the nearly 100 lawsuits from accused students that have arisen because of it.
Ashe Schow is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
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