Accurate rape statistics ensure credible arguments

Article here. Excerpt:

'On April 20, The News-Letter ran a piece titled “Sexual assault at college: Confronting the rapists in our lives.” Although it is perfectly understandable where the author, a female senior undergraduate student studying International Studies, is coming from, there is a lack of some key points that provide the necessary context to fully comprehend the issue that King, the writer, brought forth.

Beginning with the study from the Bureau of Justice Statistics that she refers to in the first paragraph. King accurately states that the study “found that one in five undergraduate women will experience sexual assault while in college.” While her statement, taken straight from the study, is accurate, she continues on with, “That means you probably know someone who was raped at Hopkins. It also means you probably know a rapist.”

Now let’s look at the facts more carefully. King just extrapolated that there are rapists in our friend circles while citing a statistic that deals with sexual assault. Sexual assault is not the same thing as rape. Let’s make that quite clear. In fact, a quick check of the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ website will show a well-defined difference between sexual assault and rape.'