There's Nothing Academic About Campus Rape

Article here. Excerpt:

'"The price of a college education should never be the risk of a sexual assault," Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., told a Senate hearing Wednesday. Too many colleges don't treat rape, she observed, as "the violent felony that it actually is." Her solution is the bipartisan Campus Accountability and Safety Act, or CASA, which would require college campuses to designate confidential advisers to victims of sexual assault and establish rules for campus investigations of sexual assaults.

Gillibrand means well; there's no question about it. But Congress telling American universities how they should handle campus rape truly is an instance of the blind leading the blind. If the goal is to treat campus rape as the violent felony it is, don't expect deans and assistant deans to conduct investigations -- unless you want to over-politicize the process. If you want to treat rape as a crime, leave assault investigations to the police.'