Slate.com
2.24.15 | Mark Joseph Stern
State legislatures are debating surprisingly smart laws to bring justice to campus.
There are few things we know with certainty about rape on college campuses, but here are two: It happens, and universities lie about it. A study published by the American Psychological Association shows that universities consistently underreport sexual assaults on campus and often seem reluctant to acknowledge rape when it occurs. Universities have everything to lose by admitting they have a rape problem—prestige and funding, for starters—and very little to gain by being honest. By underreporting statistics and treating victims with skepticism, schools can keep sexual assault quiet, even secret. And there’s one more thing we know about rape on college campuses: It thrives in secrecy.
Everyone agrees that the status quo is unjust. But nobody is quite certain how to fix it. Under President Obama’s direction, the Department of Education has launched a massive investigation into 94 colleges for mishandling campus sexual assault. By forcing compliance with existing rules, the feds could prevent administrators from spectacularly botching their response to rape charges—by, for instance, forcing victims to draw a diagram of anal rape. But there’s a growing consensus among civil libertarians and rape victim advocates alike that universities are irredeemably terrible at dealing with rape charges. In response, an unlikely collection of red- and blue-state legislatures is considering a series of bills this year to help victims seek justice. And here’s the shocking thing: Some of them might actually work.
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