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'Last semester, Spectator reported on data suggesting that one in every five women on campus has experienced “sexual assault” since enrolling at Columbia. This statistic was derived from results of a survey conducted by the Association of American Universities, and was propagated alongside calls for additional support services for victims of rape.

In the wake of the Emma Sulkowicz mattress protest, this statistic seems to corroborate popular sentiments that Columbia is indeed a bastion of rape. But is it really?

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Kesha Sebert [link added] said in a 2011 deposition that her producer never made sexual advances toward her or drugged her, which contradicts what she alleged in a 2014 lawsuit.

TMZ obtained a video of the deposition.

The 28-year-old singer, known simply as Kesha, accused her producer Lukasz Gottwald of emotional and sexual abuse, but a judge recently denied her request to break her contract with Sony that requires her to make four more albums with the label. Kesha alleged Gottwald drugged and raped her 10 years ago.

During a deposition in 2011, however, the singer swore under oath that her producer had never touched her.'

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'The University of Missouri Board of Curators on Thursday fired a communications professor who was captured on video scrapping with a police officer and a student journalist during campus protests last year.

The board voted 4-2 in favor of firing Assistant Professor of Communication Melissa Click, who had been suspended with pay from the school since Jan. 27.

Click has the right to appeal the termination.

“The board respects Dr. Click’s right to express her views and does not base this decision on her support for students engaged in protest or their views,” said Chairwoman Pam Henrickson, who voted against Click’s termination, in a statement viewed by The Columbia Tribune. “However, Dr. Click was not entitled to interfere with the rights of others, to confront members of law enforcement or to encourage potential physical intimidation against a student.”'

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'The University of Cincinnati can discriminate against students accused of sexual assault because high schools can punish young men for growing long hair.

That’s one of the claims the public university is making to dismiss an Oct. 19 lawsuit brought by two former students who say they were prejudged in separate proceedings that didn’t follow UC’s own policies.

The lawsuit by the anonymous students – one an undergraduate who has since transferred and the other a recently graduated law student – claims they suffered “sanctions” by the university before investigations even took place, under accuser-friendly “interim measures.”

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'New York is one of the three states — along with California and Michigan — that have passed these new consent laws. The law requires a clear, affirmative agreement between partners. By stating the consent, it creates a victim’s bill of rights and boosts training for law enforcement, faculty and students.

However, students expressed concern that the new policy is ambiguous and makes it more difficult for those accused of sexual assault to defend themselves. While the legislation may have caused confusion among college campuses, experts say the increase in sexual assault reports reflect an increase in reporting incidents rather than a vague policy.

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'By a 23 - 15 margin, the Florida Senate has passed Senate Bill 250 that would establish the presumption that equal parenting time is in a child’s best interests. The bill, sponsored by Senator Tom Lee, allows deviation from the equal time standard in a number of different situations, including when parents agree to a different arrangement. Read about it here (Tampa Bay Times, 2/23/16).

"Under current law, judges are supposed to consider 20 criteria and “the best interests of the child” when they write an order. But Sen. Tom Lee, R-Brandon, who sponsored the legislation (SB 250) says the child’s wellbeing is an end goal and that to accomplish that, it’s in the best interests of kids to split time evenly with both parents whenever possible...

“As we look at other child welfare policies that we enact, we always start with the assumption that if it’s in best interest of the child, we want both parents involved and that we want both parents to take responsibility,” said Sen. Don Gaetz, R-Niceville."'

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'Catharine Lhamon, Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Education, told a group of college administrators Monday that she would have no reservations about pulling a university's funding if it showed a pattern of mishandling cases of sexual violence on campus.

Lhamon was speaking at a summit on sexual assault hosted at Dartmouth College, one of the 67 colleges and universities currently under investigation by Lhamon's agency over concerns that they did not properly handle sexual violence cases. Colleges are required under the gender equity law Title IX to address sexual assault and harassment on campus. The ultimate punishment for a school violating Title IX is a complete loss of federal funding. No disciplinary procedure has ever gone that far, but Lhamon emphasized that the option is always on the table.

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'An upcoming comedy festival in New York City is charging different rates for attendees in an apparent effort to check the privilege of straight white men.

The Cinderblock Comedy Festival will be held Sept. 15-18 in the hipster stronghold of Williamsburg, Brooklyn. With the festivities just seven months away, organizers are already urging potential performers to apply to perform.

But the festival has one very notable policy: Currently, only women, non-whites and those who identify as LGBT are allowed to apply for an early-bird price of $19.25. Straight white men, on the other hand, will only be allowed to apply starting March 15, and they’ll have to pay $25 to do so.

Festival director Coree Spencer said the discount was intended to closely match the oft-quoted and oft-criticized statistic that women earn just 77 percent of what men earn.'

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'North Carolina Congresswoman Virginia Foxx questioned the Education Department's overreach when it comes to campus sexual assaultduring a hearing on Wednesday.

The congresswoman directed her question to Dr. John King, the acting secretary of the Education Department, who is currently going through the confirmation process to officially become head of the department.

"I'm very concerned about what's happening within your department's Office for Civil Rights and its impact on college campuses across the country," Foxx said. "For too long the OCR has gone around Congress by legislating a new mission and I'm deeply concerned about the office's legitimacy and effectiveness on these issues and the potential negative impact on students and institutions."'

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'Harvard University remains at the forefront of the debate over campus sexual assault, even as a panel of Harvard students and professors meets to consider additional changes to the University’s disciplinary procedures under Title IX, the federal law that prohibits sex discrimination by educational institutions that receive federal funding.

The committee, convened earlier this month and chaired by former interim Dean of the College Donald H. Pfister, is charged with examining data from the campus climate survey released September 21. That survey, conducted by the Association of American Universities on behalf of Harvard and 27 other colleges, sought to assess the level of reported and unreported harassment and assault on campus.'

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'A federal judge is allowing to proceed a lawsuit accusing Brown University of gender-bias in its handling of a sexual assault investigation against a male student suspended by the Ivy League school following a probe.

U.S. District Chief Judge William E. Smith declined to dismiss a lawsuit brought by a former student, identified as John Doe, who alleges that Brown violated his rights and discriminated against him based on his gender in its handling of an alleged sexual misconduct complaint.

Doe filed suit in April after being suspended from Brown for 2½ years based on sexual misconduct allegations brought by a female student that he had fondled and kissed after meeting her at a dormitory party in October 2014. Doe was enrolled in the Class of 2017, earned straight A’s his freshman year, and hoped to pursue a career in neuroscience, the lawsuit says.'

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'A debate featuring controversial public figures Julie Bindel and Milo Yiannopoulos took place Tuesday night in the ballroom of the Michigan League.

During the debate, the two speakers exchanged arguments about feminism, debating whether the feminist movement impedes an individual's freedom of speech.

Hosted by The Michigan Review, the event drew a crowd of several hundred people, some of whom drove across state lines to hear the pair.

Engineering senior Hunter Swogger, one of the event organizers, said the Review wanted to bring Bindel and Yiannopoulos’ voices to the University’s campus in order to expose the campus to new ideas.'

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'An “Introduction to Linguistics” instructor at the University of Maryland allegedly accused a male student of “mansplaining” after he questioned her claim about sexism in job titles.

“Look, it’s really cute that you, as a white male, would tell me what I’m not allowed to be offended by, as a minority female,” the instructor tells the unidentified student in an audio recording posted on Reddit over the weekend. “Thank you so much for doing that; that’s called ‘mansplaining,’ so stop.”

The rebuke was prompted by the student’s attempt to understand her assertion that the suffixes “–ette” and “–ess” are “diminutive,” and therefore “infantilizing,” which was made in relation to the term “poetess.” The student says he understands that “-ette” has a diminutive root in French, but questions whether the same is true of the other suffix.

“The point is: same job, same title,” the instructor replies. “If she’s writing those poems with her cunt, then it’s a difference, but she’s not; she’s writing poems based on the fact that she has fought in two wars, which is more than her fiancée has ever done.”

“But you shouldn’t have a problem, I guess, with two different, like, titles, because—” the student attempts to respond, only to be cut off and accused of “mansplaining” before he could articulate his point.

The student gamely continues, saying, “I’m curious as to why you take offense.”

“I think I just told you,” she says. “I think I just told you that you’re choosing not to agree with me, and through that, you’re choosing to explain why I should agree with you, coming from a position of privilege, having never experienced what I’ve experienced.

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'The woman at the center of Rolling Stone magazine’s now-retracted story about a rape at the University of Virginia has been ordered to appear in court to answer questions as part of a civil suit.

“The court believes that a one-day, seven-hour deposition will be sufficient,” Judge Glen Conrad wrote in a court order this week, calling for the woman identified only as Jackie to appear in court on April 5, Newsweek reported.

Jackie will be deposed as part of an ongoing lawsuit filed by Nicole Eramo, an associate dean at the University of Virginia, against Rolling Stone, the magazine’s owner, Wenner Media, and Sabrina Rubin Erdely, the writer of the controversial story “A Rape on Campus.”'

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'If the House Education Committee wanted advice on topics to bring up with acting Education Secretary John King at its Wednesday hearing on the department’s “policies and priorities,” it got a targeted list from a former Ed lawyer.

Hans Bader, who served in the Office for Civil Rights, wrote a blistering analysis of a letter sent by that office’s chief to Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., who heads the Regulatory Affairs Subcommittee and has asked what authority OCR has to issue substantive new regulations in everything but name.

OCR’s Catherine Lhamon basically told Lankford that her office didn’t need to go through a notice-and-comment proceeding before issuing its controversial “Dear Colleague” letters because they only purported to explain current law, not enforce new regulations.'