I wrote a story whose message is obvious: The campus culture of binge drinking is toxic, and many rapists prey on drunk young women. I said that when women lose the capacity to be responsible for their actions, sexual predators target them for attack. As banal as these observations are, I knew this story would result in a torrent of outrage. Torrent it has been, so I wanted to characterize the responses and reply to some of my many critics. But it’s hard for me to know what to say when my story deploring the all-too-common sexual assault of women gets described in Feministing as “a rape denialism manifesto.” It’s also discouraging to see willful distortion of what I wrote, of which there was much. I never said in my piece that women shouldn’t drink, only that they shouldn’t get drunk to the point of incapacitation. So it’s baffling that that the Daily Mail would claim I said, “Don’t drink if you don’t want to get raped.”
The overwhelming majority of critics accused me of blaming the victim and promoting “rape culture.” They were outraged that my message about drinking was primarily aimed at women. I said in my piece, “The culture of binge drinking—whose pinnacle is the college campus—does not just harm women” and cited the injury both young men and women suffer. But I focused on a danger that overwhelmingly affects women: rape. Because of the strong evidence that intoxication and sexual assault are linked and that a kind of predator seeks out intoxicated women, I concentrated on informing young women that avoiding incapacitation could help them stay safe. But there was extreme offense taken to the idea that women should change their behavior in any way to protect themselves. One college professor summed it up when she wrote to me, “to reiterate the old Puritan line that women need to restrain and modify their pleasure-seeking behaviors is a big step backward.” Apparently I was mistaken that it is common sense to acknowledge that part of growing up for all is recognizing dangers and learning to restrain one’s pleasure-seeking behaviors in order to better avoid them.
Many others said I should have written a piece not focusing on women, but on men, who, after all, are the rapists. I did note in the story the importance of rape education—especially teaching young men and women what consent means and that a highly intoxicated woman can’t give it. But I agree with critics that the education of men is an important issue and I should have hit it harder. However, the argument went beyond that to declare that when it comes to sexual assault, women’s behavior is a verboten topic and the only thing to discuss is men. Many said college women don’t need to change their drinking habits—what has to change is a male culture of sexual entitlement. No doubt that culture should change, but at best it will do so slowly and incompletely. In the meantime, this weekend, some young, intoxicated women will wake up next to guys they never wanted to sleep with. I believe it’s worth talking about how keeping within a safe drinking limit can potentially help young women avoid such situations.
Critics, by the dozen, asserted my story should have consisted of the one simple, utopian message. Here’s a typical email: “Men should NOT RAPE. Period. End of story.” My Slate colleague, Amanda Hess, in her rebuttal to my piece, had a more sophisticated take. She wrote, “We can prevent the most rapes on campus by putting our efforts toward finding and punishing those perpetrators, not by warning their huge numbers of potential victims to skip out on parties.” I certainly think resources should be put toward finding and punishing rapists, but prosecutors, whose job it is to convict people of crimes, have a difficult time bringing cases of alcohol-facilitated sexual assault. Many college-student victims bring their complaint not to the police, but to campus authorities. It’s highly unlikely college administrators will do better than the criminal justice system at adjudicating these cases. So I remain puzzled why people would attack me for looking for ways to reduce the number of victims. And since I encouraged responsible drinking in my piece, it is simply a mischaracterization for Hess to say I said suggested women “skip out on parties.”
Hess writes that I harm college women by telling them that not getting drunk will decrease their chances of getting raped. She explains that this is because women who are raped suffer psychologically, often blaming themselves. That’s painfully true, and I want the blame squarely on the rapist. But it is a natural, human response after a terrible event to wonder if it could have been avoided. It seems counterproductive to say that in order to try to make victims less burdened by these feelings, we shouldn’t arm women with information about how to avoid being victims in the first place. I made a statement about wanting to warn women that there are rapists who use alcohol, not violence, to commit their crimes. In response, Hess says I’m trying to spread the idea that rape is not a violent crime if alcohol is involved. Let me clarify. I was describing a type of predator—not well enough known by the public and especially by young women—who does not brandish a weapon or twist arms to subdue his victim. She is already subdued by intoxication, and he often is able to simply lead her home where he then commits his assault.
I quoted University of Virginia Law professor Anne Coughlin in the piece about the need to tell young women they should protect themselves. After the article came out, a young woman wrote to Coughlin expressing concerns about this message. Coughlin replied to her in part:
Heavy consumption of alcohol and rape go hand-in-hand. The correlation is staggering, much too significant to ignore. And the women who are raped are hurt—very, very badly—so I have come to believe that I must give that practical advice, when people ask me the question … Over the years, I have had students tell me that feminists were doing them a disservice by not raising these questions. One student told me that she had been taught that we were living in a brave, new world for women, that women could drink as much as they wanted and that the women would be safe, that the law would somehow keep them safe. She and her friends learned, through hard experience, that the law—and new feminist views—could do no such thing, and she wished that she had received a more subtle, nuanced message about how to proceed in a changing culture.
Since the initial backlash against me, there’s been a growing backlash to the backlash. I am starting to hear from people who agree with me. One mother wrote, “My gut was to scream ‘victim blamer,’ then I read the article. I’m putting it aside for my girls when they get older.” Another woman thanked me and said she has to keep quiet about her reaction. She is a rape crisis advocate who’s worked with many intoxicated victims. She wants to warn young women about the perils of getting drunk but doesn’t know how to tell students “such risky behaviors can get them into trouble.” She says, “It shouldn’t be a controversial message, and the fact that it is disturbs me so much.” She acknowledges, “It’s an issue that’s so fraught with defensiveness and fear that it makes me feel like I’m walking on eggshells mentally.”
If this woman were to speak up, she’d be accused of being part of the “rape culture”—one of those elastic terms that’s used as a cudgel to shut people up. But when a woman who is counseling victims of rape feels constrained from giving practical advice to young women about the beneficial effects of keeping their wits about them, we really have a problem in the culture.
The need to close down discourse on difficult subjects was another popular response to my piece. This was best summed up in Jezebel’s rebuttal to my story, which stated: “DON'T write ‘how not to get raped’ columns in the first place.” It’s unfortunate that instead of wanting to engage in discussion of complicated, sensitive topics, a fellow journalist would prefer to dictate that only certain points of view are ideologically acceptable. As I was working on this story, several of my friends counseled me not do it. Talking about things women can do to protect themselves from rape is the third rail, they said. But why be a journalist unless you’re willing to dig into difficult subjects and report your findings? My story churned up a lot of outrage, but I remain hopeful it will start some conversations and prevent at least some sexual assaults.
As Professor Murphy predicted, the talk was controversial and emails immediately began to circulate calling for some sort of protest. Prominent among these was a message from Victoria Nevel ’16 that asserted:
We know that:
Dartmouth is tied with Yale for highest Sexual Assault rate in the Ivy League and third highest in the 27 AAU colleges surveyed.
That 48 students reported being raped at Dartmouth in the last academic year, the highest of any Ivy.
Men here are survivors, too.
The email then made the claim that, “Yoffe… blames victims, denies that survivors exists, and implies that men can’t be victims, too.” Ms. Nevel then asked the recipients of the email to, “get involved in our WISE donation booth or silent protest.”
This email and others proved successful, and a conspicuously timed WISE event occurred before and during the lecture. The lecture itself saw both a visible presence of Safety and Security officers and a sizeable contingent of protestors, who lined the back and the sides of the lecture hall. In addition, a number of senior administrators were in attendance, including Vice Provost Ameer and Dean Amanda Childress.
Yoffe’s lecture itself was almost exactly what any reasonable person would have expected. She spoke in the firm yet neutral tone of a journalist and gave a precise yet passionate argument that followed the lines of her controversial article. She used many examples of men accused of sexual assault who have been unjustly prosecuted for sexual assault, found guilty by their colleges or by public opinion, and suffered the consequences despite their definitive lack of guilt.
Yoffe’s examples occasionally touched on Dartmouth. When she was discussing biased administrators, she brought up Dean Amanda Childress’s infamous quotation that asked, “Why can we not expel a student based on an allegation?” When the crowd began to giggle, perhaps due to Dean Childress’s presence at the back of the room, Mrs. Yoffe said, “If Amanda Childress is here, I would very much like to have a dialogue.” Dean Childress, however, did not take Yoffe up on her offer after the lecture.
This was not the only time that her remarks elicited a strong reaction from the audience. While Mrs. Yoffe is a journalist, and her remarks were largely facts and observations drawn thereof, many students and protestors became agitated when her observations clashed with their worldview. At one point, she asserted that there was a generation gap when it came to the definition of sexual assault. She asserted that younger people think one element of an encounter can be consensual, while latter occurrences may not be. She then claimed that her generation saw it differently, and that it “knows” that regret does not equal a lack of consent. At that remark, the protestors raised and wove their signs, mumbling about how, exactly, Mrs. Yoffe was wrong.
Mrs. Yoffe, however, is often objectively right. After discussing her experience researching sexual assault on campuses, she revealed that after reading the infamous Rolling Stone story of a young woman’s alleged sexual assault at the University of Virginia, she immediately knew it was false and went on record saying so. This comment, unlike others, witnessed a stark silence on the part of the protestors.
After her short lecture, Yoffe opened the floor for questions, saying, “I would love to hear from you, young people, in the Q and A.” Unlike many controversial speakers, Yoffe did not shy away from answer questions asked by protestors or taking second questions from those who had previously made challenging remarks. The questions spanned a wide range of topics and a variety of levels of discourse. Some asked intelligent questions regarding Yoffe’s research or her thoughts on current legal initiatives. Others demanded that Yoffe, a journalist, solve sexual assault on College campuses then and there. A stalwart few questioned Yaffe’s statistics. One went as far as getting out of his seat, crossing the stage to the podium, pulling up a webpage on the projector, and Googling the statistic. The results were inconclusive due to the inherent bias in many sites.
Some students implied that Yoffe was on the “wrong side of history,” and that her views were outdated. She responded by pointing out that the striking down of sodomy laws was, “seen as liberal triumph,” while current liberals want to enact affirmative consent laws, which she saw as similarly prudish. She even went as far as saying, “These affirmative consent laws seem to be written by people who have never had sex themselves.”
When students spoke to her as if she was a lawyer or politician who owed them a solution to sexual assault, she pointed out that her job was only to report on the facts and that solutions should be left to experts and educators. Unfortunately, as she pointed out, educators have not proved overly competent at this task. As she put it, “I found it odd that the President’s number one suggestion for ending what he said was an epidemic of sexual assault on campus was a survey.”
She compared the alleged sexual assault rates on college campuses to those of war-torn countries in Africa, where rape is used as a weapon of war. She said that if sexual assault rates on campuses were truly that high, a more appropriate response than a survey would be segregated dormitories, a complete alcohol ban, and mass expulsions.
When asked to comment on the Association of American Universities study on sexual assault that was conducted this past spring term, she stated, “Dartmouth’s purported numbers were fairly high and track generally with the Ivy League.” She paid especial attention to the fact that the most popular reason given by people who chose not to report an incident defined by the survey as a sexual assault was, “I did not think it was serious enough to report.” She pointed out that this indicates many people whom the survey considers victims of sexual assault (and therefore includes in its tallies) do not consider what they experienced to be sexual assault.
While some protestors implied that Mrs. Yoffe gave no thought to the wellbeing of College students, she focused on the many ways in which the miscarriage of justice hurts instead of helps them: “We are teaching a generation of young women that they are malleable, weak, and helpless in the face of [young men].” In response to criticisms of the title of one of her articles, “College Women, Stop Getting Drunk,” she pointed out that she did not write the title and that her goal had been to incite a culture shift regarding binge drinking in the vein of widespread condemnation of drunk driving and smoking. In response to accusations that this constituted “victim blaming,” she quoted Safety and Security Chief Harry Kinne, who had stated that the bulk of burglary at Dartmouth occurs in unlocked rooms and that students should do their best to lock their rooms. She said that encouraging a proactive application of measures such as locking your door or refraining from binge drinking is not victim blaming but common sense. When further pressed, she argued that young men are the victims of a double standard when it comes to alcohol consumption, as the man is often found guilty when consensual intercourse between two intoxicated persons takes place.
The lecture and following question-and-answer session proved informative, though it would have been more educational if students could tell the difference between a journalist and policy-maker. Not all people who come to lecture at Dartmouth have the same profession. As a consequence, they all have different forms of bias and different motivations. Emily Yoffe, as a journalist, is concerned with reporting on the facts of a situation, not advocating a comprehensive solution, reporting on all the world’s ills, or winning a popularity contest. It is not only unfair that students expect guests to exceed their areas of expertise, but it is counter to the experience of other students who wish to take full advantage of the many amazing guests that come to speak at this small college.
http://www.chron.com/news/crime/article/Fraternity-files-25M-defamation-suit-against-6620039.php
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — The fraternity that was the focus of a debunked Rolling Stone article about a gang rape filed a $25 million lawsuit against the magazine Monday, saying the piece made the frat and its members "the object of an avalanche of condemnation worldwide."
The complaint, filed in Charlottesville Circuit Court, also names Sabrina Rubin Erdely as a defendant. It is the third filed in response to the November 2014 article entitled "A Rape on Campus: A Brutal Assault and Struggle for Justice at UVA." Three individual fraternity members and recent graduates of the University of Virginia are suing for at least $225,000 each, and a university associate dean who claims she was portrayed as the "chief villain" is suing the magazine for more than $7.5 million.
Rolling Stone spokeswoman Kathryn Brenner said the magazine has no comment on the lawsuit.
The article described in chilling detail a student's account of being raped by seven men at the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity house in September 2012. It portrayed university officials as insensitive and unresponsive to the plight of the student, who was identified only as Jackie, and suggested that the attack was emblematic of a culture of sexual violence at the elite public university.
The story horrified university leaders, sparked protests at the school and prompted a new round of national discussions about sexual assault on U.S. campuses.
However, details in the lengthy narrative did not hold up under scrutiny by other media organizations. For example, Phi Kappa Psi did not host any social event at its house on the day of the alleged gang rape as the article claimed. Additional discrepancies led Rolling Stone to commission an examination by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, which said in a blistering report that Rolling Stone failed at virtually every step, from the reporting by Erdely to an editing process that included high-ranking staffers.
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An investigation by Charlottesville police also found no evidence to back up Jackie's claims. Rolling Stone retracted the article, and the magazine's managing editor and Erdely both apologized. The fraternity said the damage was already done.
"These allegations did not concern harmless fraternity pranks," the fraternity said in the lawsuit. "These were allegations of ritualized and criminal gang-rape that Rolling Stone knew were the predicates for annihilation of Phi Kappa Psi and widespread persecution of its members."
The complaint alleges that the magazine set out to find a story of "graphic and violent rape" at an elite university and rejected other possible stories that were not sensational enough.
"Rolling Stone and Erdely had an agenda, and they were recklessly oblivious to the harm they would cause innocent victims in their ruthless pursuit of that agenda," the lawsuit said.
But between July 2014 and June 30, the university expelled three students for sexual assault, according to the office’s first annual report published today. The university also suspended two students for violating the university’s sexual misconduct policy.
“In the one year that [Title IX Officer Catherine Carroll] has been here, set up this office, set up this elaborate set of machinery, policies and procedures,” university President Wallace Loh said, “this is the first time I’ve been faced with three expulsions in one year.”
As the federal government sought to address sexual assault on college campuses nationwide, the university created its Office of Civil Rights & Sexual Misconduct. Carroll assumed her position as the university’s first Title IX compliance director in March 2014.
From July 2014 through June 30, the office fully investigated 13 of 48 complaints, including seven cases of Sexual Assault I (rape), three stalking and sexual harassment cases, two sexual harassment cases and one relationship violence case
I re-opened this thread, but have to leave it again. Bye.
And now I’m done. This is a bittersweet day, but I know it’s the right time. When you get a letter about a boyfriend who has committed bestiality with farm animals and you think, “Oh, at least this one isn’t about house pets,” you’ve probably been Prudie long enough.
There are so many people for me to thank. I have had the pleasure of working for every editor of Slate, starting with the founding editor, Michael Kinsley. He’s only responsible for my entire career—thank you, Mike. Then Jacob Weisberg (now chairman of The Slate Group) and David Plotz conceived of the Human Guinea Pig series, which occupied me in humiliating endeavors for almost a decade. Next they chose me to be Prudence. Julia Turner, the present editor in chief, and John Swansburg, deputy editor, have for the past year supported me as I reported on college sexual assault. This is a highly contentious issue and Julia and John never wavered in their belief that it was worth covering. They made every piece better and John is one of the finest editors, conceptually and line by line, I have ever worked with
What if bears only killed one on five people.
