Subject: The great leftist campus rape hoax Sun Dec 14, 2014 10:16 pm
The truth - that rape on campus is becoming less common - doesn't fit the left's narrative.
Americans have been living through an enormously sensationalized college rape hoax, but as the evidence accumulates it's becoming clear that the entire thing was just a bunch of media hype and political opportunism.
No, I'm not talking about the Rolling Stone's lurid and now-exploded fraternity gang-rape story. Whatever the truth behind that story, it's now clear that basically nothing that Rolling Stone reporter Sabrina Rubin Erdely told us happened, actually happened. But the hoax is much bigger than one overwrought and perhaps entirely fictional tale of campus goings-on.
For months we've been told that there's a burgeoning "epidemic" of rape on college campuses, that the system for dealing with campus rape is "broken" and that we need new federal legislation (of course!) to deal with this disaster. Before the Rolling Stone story imploded, Sens. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., and Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., were citing the Virginia gang rape as evidence of the problem, but now that the story has been exposed as bogus, they're telling us that, regardless of that isolated incident, there's still a huge campus rape problem that needs to be addressed as soon as possible.
And that's the real college rape hoax. Because the truth is that there's no epidemic outbreak of college rape. In fact, rape on college campuses is — like rape everywhere else in America — plummeting in frequency. And that 1-in-5 college rape number you keep hearing in the press? It's thoroughly bogus, too. (Even the authors of that study say that "We don't think one in five is a nationally representative statistic," because it sampled only two schools.)
Sen, Gillibrand also says that "women are at a greater risk of sexual assault as soon as they step onto a college campus."
The truth — and, since she's a politician, maybe that shouldn't be such a surprise — is exactly the opposite. According to the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics, the rate of rape and sexual assault is lower for college students (at 6.1 per 1,000) than for non-students (7.6 per 1,000). (Note: not 1 in 5). What's more, between 1997 and 2013, rape against women dropped by about 50%, in keeping with a more general drop in violent crime nationally.
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Upshot: Women on campus aren't at more risk for sexual assault, and their risk is nothing like the bogus 1-in-5 statistic bandied about by politicians and activists. So why is this non-crisis getting so much press?
It's getting press because it suits the interests of those pushing the story. For Gillibrand and McCaskill, it's a woman-related story that helps boost their status as female senators. It ties in with the "war on women" theme that Democrats have been boosting since 2012, and will presumably roll out once again in 2016 in support of Hillary Clinton, or perhaps Elizabeth Warren. And University of Virginia President Teresa Sullivan hasn't apologized for her action in suspending all fraternities (and sororities) on the basis of a bogus story in Rolling Stone. Nor has she apologized for the mob mentality on campus that saw arrests, vandalism and protests at a fraternity house based, again, on a single bogus report. Instead, she's doubling down on the narrative.
This kind of hysteria may be ugly, but for campus activists and bureaucrats it's a source of power: If there's a "campus rape crisis," that means that we need new rules, bigger budgets, and expanded power and self-importance for all involved, with the added advantage of letting you call your political opponents (or anyone who threatens funding) "pro rape." If we focus on the truth, however — rapidly declining rape rates already, without any particular "crisis" programs in place — then voters, taxpayers, and university trustees will probably decide to invest resources elsewhere. So for politicians and activists, a phony crisis beats no crisis.
At least until people catch on. As George Washington University law professor John Banzhaf notes, "After a while, the boy who cried wolf wasn't believed, and the women who cry rape may likewise not be believed, especially with the accusations of rape at Duke University and the University of Virginia fresh in people's minds."
Even one rape is too many, of course, on or off of campus. But when activists and politicians try to gin up a phony crisis, public trust is likely to be a major casualty. It's almost as if helping actual rape victims is the last thing on these people's minds.
Subject: Re: The great leftist campus rape hoax Sun Dec 14, 2014 11:48 pm
Here Are EIGHT Campus Rape Hoaxes Eerily Like The UVA Rape Story
In a now-infamous Nov. 19 story in Rolling Stone, disgraced journalist Sabrina Rubin Erdely asserted that at least five members of the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity gang-raped a freshman named Jackie at a frat house party, then left her in a bloodstained dress to exit via a conveniently vacant side staircase. The Washington Post’s reporting now suggests that Jackie fabricated huge swathes of her gory rape tale, and that Erdely abrogated her duty to properly investigate it.
Erdely’s career is rapidly disintegrating with each freshly revealed fabrication, as it becomes more and more evident that no rape occurred.
Why did Erdely commit career suicide? Writing at Slate, Hanna Rosin provides the likely answer: Erdely hoped her wildly implausible 9,000-word, agenda-driven excuse for journalism would emphasize “the larger theme of a university culture and social scene indifferent even to the most brutalized victims of rape.” This motive explains why Erdely went to such great pains to present Jackie’s friends weighing whether to rush a gang-rape victim to the hospital. Sure, it might be good for Jackie, but would such a move devastate their social reputations on frat row? Whatever Erdely’s motive, her discredited piece begs the question: Is it remotely true that American college administrators and college students are indifferent to the allegations of rape victims? What about the exponential growth of rape activism on campus? What about the routine occurrence of “take back the night” vigils? Could this perceived indifference actually be warranted skepticism? In fact, the number of completely fraudulent rape allegations made by women on American college campuses is far from trivial. With very little effort at all, The Daily Caller has found eight twisted, totally false and especially astonishing rape hoaxes proffered over the years by female college students. In each case, the cruel hoaxes were initially accepted as true. In some cases, real lives were ruined. Note the eerie similarities among these fake rape cases with the tale spun at the University of Virginia by Jackie and by Erdely, her willing Rolling Stone accomplice.
1
In February 2013, Morgan Triplett, 20, visited the University of California, Santa Cruz for a lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender conference. While there, she claimed that she had been raped in broad daylight on the Santa Cruz campus. Triplett’s story was a hoax. The bizarre truth is that she successfully used Craigslist to locate a stranger who agreed to beat her up in exchange for sex. In a failed ad, which found no takers, sought somebody to shoot her in the shoulder. A second ad, seeking someone willing to “punch, kick and bruise her” panned out.
Triplett met her unnamed mangler in Santa Cruz. He beat her up. They had sex. She used a cellphone screen reflection as a mirror to see if the injuries were sufficient. She then directed him to pummel her some more. With fresh bruises to substantiate her sick tale, Triplett then informed 911 that a mysterious assailant had raped and battered her while she was walking on a path looking for banana slugs — the UCSC mascot.
2
In November 2004, Desiree Nall, a student at Rollins College in Winter Park, Fla. told police that two men raped her in a bathroom on campus. Nall was the president of the local chapter of the National Organization for Women and it was during Sexual Assault Awareness Week. The allegations caused police to warn student at the tiny school to stay inside as much as possible to avoid a team of rapists on the loose. Police became skeptical of Nall’s claims after she couldn’t keep her story straight and was unable to provide descriptions of the two men, according to Fox News. Also, an examination of Nall at a sexual assault treatment center showed no evidence of any sexual assault. Nall, 23, eventually recanted her fake rape allegations. Police suggested that Nall could have been attempting to “make a statement” about sexual assault. Local police ultimately spent $50,000 investigating Nall’s imaginary claims. After the hoax was exposed, Nall was charged for making a false statement to police. Her husband defended her. He said cops targeted her not because of her lies but because “she is a women’s-rights activist.”
Subject: The great leftist campus rape hoax 
Sun Dec 14, 2014 10:16 pm
