A review on Page 11 this weekend about “Blurred Lines: Rethinking Sex, Power and Consent on Campus,” by Vanessa Grigoriadis, refers incorrectly to her reporting on the issues. She does in fact write about Department of Justice statistics that say college-age women are less likely than nonstudent women of the same age to be victims of sexual assault; it is not the case that Grigoriadis was unaware of the department’s findings. In addition, the review describes incorrectly Grigoriadis’s presentation of statistics from the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network. She showed that there is disagreement over whether the data are sound; it is not the case that she gave the reader “no reason to believe” the statistics are wrong.Just above that correction are the last 2 sentences of Goldberg's review:
But if you’re going to challenge people’s preconceptions, you have to have your facts straight. “Blurred Lines” gives readers too many reasons not to trust it, even when perhaps they should.Does that mean that if you are confirming people's preconceptions, you don't have to get your facts straight?
ADDED: That question of mine is, I think, key to understanding the prevalence of "fake news."
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Michelle Goldberg is a complete moron. She must know someone or have connections. Or maybe left-wing women think she's "smart" and one of them.
Given "The View's" popularity, its probably the later.
And that retraction needs an editor. I had to read it three times just to figure out what needed to be "retracted".
"If we use proof in rape cases, we fall into the patterns of rape deniers” -- Emma Sulkowicz
We don't need no stinkin' proof.
NYT is pleading ignorance, or ambiguity, in the service to a moral but politically correct cause.
The proof is in the narrative.
rcocean said...
And that retraction needs an editor. I had to read it three times just to figure out what needed to be "retracted".
That's a feature, not a bug.
THere is an entire bureaucracy built on the premise that college campuses are sexual assault factories. The studies they rely upon are flawed, and the Department of Justice statistics show how flawed they are. Bureaucracies are really, really good at self-preservation. Since they have nothing to say to challenge the likely true DoJ statistics, they ignore it.
"If we use proof in rape cases, we fall into the patterns of rape deniers."
I don't think I've ever noticed that quote before. It might make some sense if it were inexorably paired with this corollary: If we seek justice from the authorities in rape cases, we fall into the patterns of the patriarchy.
"If we use proof in rape cases, we fall into the patterns of rape deniers” -- Emma Sulkowicz
That's the same argument progressives, liberals, and progressive liberals, use to justify operation of the abortion chambers and the Planned Parenthood corporate charter. As well as to reestablish diversity that denies individual dignity (i.e. judgment of people by the "color of their skin"), and redistributive change profiteering because the "Jews" didn't build it.
The "Rape Culture" industry on college campuses cannot afford to have any facts get in the way of their moral panic narrative that is used to justify intervention by authority and to jettison Constitutional protections of due process. A lot of activists and administrators would have to find something else to do if people were to actually discuss facts instead of fact free accusations and assertions about men being incipient rapists. The real issue is lack of enforcement of the law when it comes to underage alcohol consumption by students and hook up culture, combined with sexist college conduct rules that claim drunk men are rapists and drunk women are victims.
"Rape culture" assertions are fact free sexist propaganda aimed at college men by emotionally warped girls seeking to punish the world because of their daddy issues.
Time out. So we are supposed to read first, Goldberg's review, and then the NYT "correction" and the Wemple column, as well as the Grigoriadis book itself before we can figure out if the Goldberg review -- which by its nature is an opinion piece -- fairly characterizes the book, which itself is about how reporting on the issue is confused and distorted?
The mental illness and of Emma Sulkowicz is indicative of the entire 'Rape Culture" movements attention seeking behavior.
Does that mean that if you are confirming people's preconceptions...
Yes. Democratic, secular, and, generally, leverage rules. They wouldn't do it unless there was a cover and incentive for their works.
Correction: The mental illness of Emma Sulkowicz is indicative of the entire 'Rape Culture" movements attention seeking behavior.
Emma Sulkowicz? Oh, you mean the chick that makes fake rape accusations and butt fucks on the first date? That Emma Sulkowicz?
@Ann ALthouse: I have heard variations of the quote. A quick google search revealed it has been bandied about in light of Secretary DeVos' decision to introduce fairness into the process. It has also been commonly used against anyone who challenges the "1 in 5 college women are sexually assaulted" narrative. The DoJ statistics completely undermine that canard. Since the most extreme voices have nothing to say DoJ is wrong, they go to biggest stupid insult they have: ANyone who thinks accused should be treated with fairness is a rape denier. It means nothing but it sounds very bad.
This whole thing is an exercise in obfuscation. In so many things with the media, we go round and round and round and round with readers never knowing what the hell the truth is. That's your modern-day journalism.
"If we seek justice from the authorities in rape cases, we fall into the patterns of the patriarchy."
So are these campus rape tribunals just a dressed up form of vigilante justice?
Grigoriadis is a graduate of Wesleyan, and the "Weslyan Argus" has an interesting op-ed, rather than a review, of her book.
http://wesleyanargus.com/2017/09/15/sex-at-wesleyan-what-vanessa-grigoriadis-95-got-wrong/
@Althouse
So...do you believe that 20% of the women who attend the University of Wisconsin-Madison will be raped?
Are you aware that the constantly quoted fake statistic that 20% of women attending college would mean that you are 1000 times more likely to be raped on a US college campus than in South Africa the rape capital of the world?
If we seek justice from the authorities in rape cases, we fall into the patterns of the patriarchy.
So where should we seek justice from in rape cases?
"If we seek justice from the authorities in rape cases, we fall into the patterns of the patriarchy."
Would lynching a few feministas fall into the patterns of the patriarchy?
@Curious George, point of information. I believe it was their third date.
eye-popping correction
"Popping" meaning "glazing".
If we use proof in rape cases, we fall into the patterns of rape deniers. If we seek justice from the authorities in rape cases, we fall into the patterns of the patriarchy.
So in other words, accusation equals conviction, and conviction should result in a lynching?
Does this sound familiar to anyone else?
sex-at-wesleyan-what-vanessa-grigoriadis-95-got-wrong/
Grigoriadis was a progressive activist. Monotonic change. Forward! She is engaged in "clean" wars for the cause (omitted, committed, and exploited).
Emily Yoffe's series at The Atlantic was very good, and was much more informative than this critique/correction.
Read wemple. The nyt response at the end is incredibly lame.
Gahrie said...
@Althouse
So...do you believe that 20% of the women who attend the University of Wisconsin-Madison will be raped?
Are you aware that the constantly quoted fake statistic that 20% of women attending college would mean that you are 1000 times more likely to be raped on a US college campus than in South Africa the rape capital of the world?
New defenition of rape;
“The penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim.”
For the first time ever, the new definition includes any gender of victim and perpetrator, not just women being raped by men. It also recognizes that rape with an object can be as traumatic as penile/vaginal rape. This definition also includes instances in which the victim is unable to give consent because of temporary or permanent mental or physical incapacity. Furthermore, because many rapes are facilitated by drugs or alcohol, the new definition recognizes that a victim can be incapacitated and thus unable to consent because of ingestion of drugs or alcohol. Similarly, a victim may be legally incapable of consent because of age. The ability of the victim to give consent must be determined in accordance with individual state statutes. Physical resistance is not required on the part of the victim to demonstrate lack of consent.
So where should we seek justice from in rape cases?
How about the "if-it-floats" rule.
Althouse I really hope that you are not going to start crediting Donald Trump for any serious battle against liberal bias in the mainstream media. Because that war predates any involvement in the part of Trump by three or four decades. And there are many people -- you prominently among them -- who routinely fight that culture war better than Trump could ever dream of.
Down with rule of law ... Lynch perpetrator du jour ... End game of identity politics.
Does that mean that if you are confirming people's preconceptions, you don't have to get your facts straight?
Given the number of people who cite the 20% number, or who continue to argue that women are paid less than men.......yes.
As always, this entire matter is due to the American peculiarity wherin universities are held to have some rather bizarre responsibilities in loco parentis. Such as it seems regulating sex.
A university is a place for adults. Students should deal with their own personal troubles themselves and appeal to the civil authority as required. Universities should provide facilities for teaching and research and make these available for students and teachers, and if they own cafeterias and dormitories, they should run these as hoteliers.
The global opinion on these controversies is quite confused, because outside the US universities are hands-off, as above.
They misunderstand what they are hearing. People get impressions along the lines that the US police will never investigate rape, or that the authorities will not prosecute rape, or that, as said by so many in these things, rape is particularly common and acceptable in the US.
If you are a foreign person with money, and are considering US universities for your kids, this is going to give you second thoughts.
The whole world is listening. This is extremely poor marketing for US universities.
A university is a place for adults. Students should deal with their own personal troubles themselves and appeal to the civil authority as required. Universities should provide facilities for teaching and research and make these available for students and teachers, and if they own cafeterias and dormitories, they should run these as hoteliers.
Who is allowed to handle accusations of wrongdoing in-house, and those that are treated as criminal if they do so, depends on who is politically favored and who is not.
@buwaya ... Leaving aside students for the moment ... Are any adults left on campus? Many are encouraging student tantrums.
The awfulness of the Wemple column is that he writes as if everyone knows who these people are.
That this should be considered "eye-popping" tells us much about the state of the MSM. Sad!
Godfather, that was an interesting piece.
Grigoriadis patronizingly suggests that we are unable to cope with the real world and its complexities.
That sentence struck me because they are denying it and we all know better.
We had an interesting example of the bias against men in Los Angeles last night. The USC football team had to rely on a freshman walk-on kicker to beat Texas lst night. who had never kicked a college field goal. Why?
The regular kicker, the hero of the Rose Bowl game last January was suspended and removed from the team this season because of an unsubstantiated claim that he abused his girlfriend.
The girlfriend of former USC kicker Matt Boermeester said Sunday that the Title IX investigation that led to his removal from the school's football team was "horrible and unjust" to her and Boermeester.
Zoe Katz, 22, a senior, said in a two-page statement her attorney emailed to The Times that Boermeester "has been falsely accused of conduct involving me." Katz confirmed that the statement was hers. Her attorney, Kerry L. Steigerwalt, said that USC alleged that Boermeester shoved Katz outside her home.
USC suspended Boermeester in February while the school investigated what it called a “student-conduct issue.”
Mark Schamel, an attorney representing Boermeester, said Boermeester was not permitted to return to USC following the school's investigation, in which USC alleged that Boermeester assaulted Katz. Katz has denied this, as did Boermeester, through his attorney.
Once again, the university takes action even though there is no complaint for the "victim."
The only remaining affection I hold for the institution from which I have two degrees and have served as a faculty member for 40 years, is the football team.
They have even fucked that up. A lot of alumni are as angry as I ma and if they had lost that game last night there would have been an alumni uproar.
There still should be.
Needs a Leftwing nonsense tag.
The Left wants to portray campuses as privileged, white, male rape factories. This will help get more females, minorities, women's studies classes, transgender chess club organizations, etc, etc.
The truth is young males and females, away from the parents for the first time, go to parties, drink alcohol, get drunk and often "hook up". The "hook-ups" are not cost-free. Sometimes the males take advantage of the females. Not defending this. Sometimes there are miscommunications or hurt feelings or Sunday morning regrets. As a legal criminal matter, though, it's nearly impossible to prove a rape case in these circumstance, with so many reasonable doubts.
So, without legal recourse, what's an aggrieved woman to do, what's a university to do?
In decades past, nothing and nothing.
But Now, they have overcompensated. The pendulum has swung too far. We have hordes of rape counsellors, activists and kangaroo courts - an "empower the victim" cottage industry -- that's seeks to pillory any drunken frat boy they can find.
If the Left would acknowledge this context, and then appoint the equivalent of a public defender for the accused, they would go along way to restoring balance, due process and common sense.
Campuses, generally. are totally safe. The problems arise with drunken escapades.
"if they had lost that game last night there would have been an alumni uproar."
See, there's your problem right there.
Chuck said...
"Trump...
Trump...
Trump..."
A sad case. Every time he shows signs of recovery, it's followed by a devastating relapse.
Goldberg is clearly arguing an obverse opinion to some of the author's more converse positions regarding a complex issue that requires a more polyhetero awareness that all parties to this dispute seem to lack. I hope this statement clarifies matters.
Yesterday's discussion of boobs was far more interesting and enlightening.
yesterday's discussion of boobs was far more interesting and enlightening.
So it was and so shall it ever be.
"So are these campus rape tribunals just a dressed up form of vigilante justice?"
No. The are exercising authoritarian power and should be bound by the requirements of due process. I'm saying if you don't want to be bound by the limits of due process, don't appeal to the authorities. Use speech, social pressure, self defense, something else. I'm not recommending violence except as self defense.
This is like a discussion about raising the quota of tire imports from China. I suppose there's a correct opinion, but how much of your life are you willing to set aside to become properly informed. I suppose someone in this thicket of restrictive clauses and and ambiguous phrases is right and someone is wrong, but year by year the syntax slides away before us like the far horizon glimpsed from the poop deck of a becalmed ship on a vogage to nowhere.
They have even fucked that up. A lot of alumni are as angry as I ma and if they had lost that game last night there would have been an alumni uproar.
There still should be.
I was thinking the same exact thing Michael K. I didn't notice Traveler last night either...did they cave on that too?
Rape is a serious crime and should be reported as a crime and left to the criminal justice system. Due process cannot be left to be defined or enforced in a university. To do so reduces rape to a case of plagerism.
"The girlfriend of former USC kicker Matt Boermeester said Sunday that the Title IX investigation that led to his removal from the school's football team was "horrible and unjust" to her and Boermeester."
The USC case really takes things to a whole new level, doesn't it? The supposed victim has said repeatedly that she was not raped, that she and her boyfriend were engaged in playful wrestling. But now it doesn't matter what the "victim" says; some joyless, spiteful busybody saw them, interpreted what was going on as "rape" and reported it. Apparently, young women are now considered too stupid or not "woke" enough to know when they're being assaulted; the word of some meddling third party overrides the girlfriend's assessment of what happened.
Only 2-10% of rape accusations are proven false. GOP look like rape apologists to centrists!
Ann Althouse said...
"So are these campus rape tribunals just a dressed up form of vigilante justice?"
No. The are exercising authoritarian power and should be bound by the requirements of due process. I'm saying if you don't want to be bound by the limits of due process, don't appeal to the authorities. Use speech, social pressure, self defense, something else. I'm not recommending violence except as self defense.
Were the colonists in Concord & Lexington exercising 'self defense' c. April 1775?
Thomas Jefferson - "I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical."
Misandry sure is prevalent among higher education administrators today.
Too bad they don't have equal interest in due process.
So we're now reviewing reviews?
that's seeks to pillory any drunken frat boy they can find.
The embarrassing truth is that the majority of rape accusations are against black students. This is intensely un-PC.
Also the real statistics are not what idiot Alex alleges.
Only 2-10% of rape accusations are proven false. GOP look like rape apologists to centrists!
You are a long way from a "centrist."
The full study, which was published by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, a division within DOJ, found that rather than one in five female college students becoming victims of sexual assault, the actual rate is 6.1 per 1,000 students, or 0.61 percent (instead of 1-in-5, the real number is 0.03-in-5). For non-students, the rate of sexual assault is 7.6 per 1,000 people.
The SC alumni who, like me, have been around the campus the past ten years, have had it with everything but the football team.
Too bad. It was a great place to go to college when I was there. Also incredibly cheap for a private U.
Michelle Goldberg came to the New York Times from Slate, which was formerly a decent training ground for journalists but now resembles BuzzFeed and the late Gawker. A good measure of how far it's fallen is to compare Goldberg's reporting on the alleged campus sexual-assault epidemic with Emily Yoffe's.
Alex believes centrists believe the 1 in 5 claim, or else Alex believes centrists think Democrats look like crazies because Democrats push the 1 in 5 claim.
Potato. Spud.
To Michael and exiled:
There was a similar case at the University of Michigan.
In 2009, a coed reported to friends that while she had been at a frat house party with Michigan kicker Brendan Gibbons, they went upstairs together consensually and that they had sexual intercourse together nonconsensually. (There was an additonal matter in which both individuals appeared to agree that she had performed oral sex upon Gibbons consensually, but that the intercourse -- she said -- was not consensual. Gibbons' position was that the woman consented to all of the sex, but he did say that afterward she had said to him, "We shouldn't have done this.")
She told her friends that she felt that she had been sexually abused; they encouraged her to report it to Ann Arbor police. She did. They opened an investigation, including an arrest and questioning of Gibbons that very night. According to the police report, Gibbons agreed to be interviewed without counsel. Gibbons story was as I summarized it above. In the police report, detectives challenged Gibbons as to whether he would take a polygraph. He said he would. (They never administered one, and surely never intended to; it was likely a questionikng technique.) Gibbons fully cooperated with the investigation. His position was simply that they had sex, and that it was consensual.
For weeks thereafter, three Ann Arbor detectives investigated the case. In the course of the investigation, the complainant stopped cooperating with police. By all accounts, the police had no obstruction from the University, from outside attorneys, or from the Michigan Athletic Department. At the end of the investigation, they concluded that no charges would be referred to the Washtenaw County Prosecutor and the investigation was closed. The Prosecutor's office examined the file and agreed that no charges would be filed.
And further, the alleged victim did nothing more to make any claim with the University or the office of student conflict resolution. She did not file any civil claim; she did not pursue any Title IX claim.
And that is where the matter rested, until AFTER April, 2011 and the Obama DoJ-OCR "Dear Colleague" letter. After that time (it is believed) a gadfly local blogger, Tea Party activist, football program critic and former litigant against the University Regents filed a Title IX claim in the matter. Without any direct involvement by the alleged victim. A U-M administrative committee conducted a hearing and recommended expulsion for Gibbons two weeks before the 2013 Michigan-Ohio State game. (Gibbons did not play in the game.)
Gibbons had never been convicted, tried, arraigned or even charged with anything in the matter. He had never been sued by the supposed victim. He was only subjected to an administrative hearing, and that being initiated by a third party, and it being initiated years after the fact, after the Obama Administration threatened de-funding any universities that failed to adopt the new, lowered, "preponderance of evidence" standards in alleged sexual assault cases. There was never so much as a hint, or a whisper, of any obstruction of any investigation by the football program. No one ever made such a claim and there was never any evidence, claim, or serious thought that there had been any such obstruction. The criminal justice investigation basically ended because the purported victim abandoned her claim.
Whenever I read a piece by Goldberg, I am reminded of the Bloggingheads.tv episodes featuring you and her so, I am usually prepared for her particular brand of blinkard leftist nonsense.
Is Goldberg writing about rape-rape?
I guess moderation just be on as my comment has disappeared.
Interestingly enough, Goldberg actually seems to be objecting to Grigoriadis' cavalier downplaying of facts that dispute the campus rape epidemic. And despite the correction, at least according to other reviews of the book I've seen, Goldberg is actually correct on this.
" The criminal justice investigation basically ended because the purported victim abandoned her claim."
The SC kicker case DID NOT involve any accusation of sexual behavior, He was supposedly pushing her outside a house.
The Yale starting quarterback and Rhodes Scholarship candidate had a similar experience a few years ago.
In September, according to people with knowledge of the situation, a female student went to Yale’s Sexual Assault Harassment and Response and Education Center, claiming Witt had assaulted her in her dormitory room. The woman later made a complaint to the University-Wide Committee on Sexual Misconduct, created last July as part of Yale’s new approach.
Like many colleges and universities, Yale offers accusers a choice between making a formal complaint and an informal one. This student chose the informal process.
And she ruined his life.
Are fake news and "fake news" two different things?
There was a story in the Raleigh, NC paper a couple of days ago about sexual assault allegations made by three women against five men, all freshman football players at NC State. (http://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/crime/article173586621.html) The women and the football players all attended a party at a student apartment back in July. One woman said that she became inebriated after consuming alcohol and smoking marijuana and believed “she may have had sex with between 7-10 men, but she is not certain.” A second woman said she was approached from behind and groped by somebody while at the party, but she was able to leave. A third woman said she felt pressured to have sex with one of the men. The campus police investigated the allegations, and the Wake County DA has reviewed the results of that investigation and has just determined not to bring charges against the five football players. The University is continuing to investigate. Two of the players have been dismissed from the team, and the other three have been suspended.
What struck me as interesting was that the newspaper printed the names and photographs of all five accused football players (they are all Black), but the names of the accusers were not given. I know that it has been a convention for many years not to publish the names of rape victims, but it seems incongruous somehow to follow that convention while publishing names and photographs of people who won’t even be criminally charged.
Reason #(I've lost count, it's so high) why I distrust the NYT.
By the contrapositive, if you don't have your facts straight, you won't challenge people's pre conceptions, which may or may not be true.
"the newspaper printed the names and photographs of all five accused football players (they are all Black), but the names of the accusers were not given."
This is the hidden scandal of the whole college rape frenzy,
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