Story here. Excerpt:

'A woman who made a false rape claim will not be charged, police said today.

The woman has now been given “strong words of advice” by officers after it emerged the incident never happened.

She told police she was sexually assaulted on Kenilworth Road in Billingham yesterday.

But Cleveland Police has decided against bringing criminal charges against her.

A spokeswoman said today: “The woman has been given strong words of advice by police for her actions.”

Police appealed for witnesses to the ‘incident’ after the woman claimed she was attacked in the early hours of yesterday.

A 32-year-old man was arrested but was released with no further action to be taken.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Just when did sexual conduct, not involving the crossing of state lines, become a concern of the federal government?

And what business do colleges have in passing judgment on whether adult students have observed proper sexual etiquette?

A petition for writ of mandate filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on June 29 prompts these questions—though these aren’t issues in the case. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge James Chalfant will be asked to decide whether Occidental College breached the “fundamental vested rights” of a 20-year-old male student who performed oral sex on a 20-year-old female student, not ceasing in response to an ambiguous utterance on her part that arguably constituted a directive to stop—and was expelled.

Article here. Excerpt:

'One of the most widely cited and uncritically questioned surveys on campus sexual assault has just unraveled.

No, it's not yet another 1-in-5 study, which purports to show that one in five women are victims of sexual assault in college. This one claims to show that the majority of campus rapes were perpetrated by a small number of repeat offenders. The study, authored by David Lisak, was first questioned last year by Slate's Emily Yoffe, who pointed out that the study's respondents were not limited to college students and couldn't be used as a representative sample of national college students.

Now, Reason contributor Linda M. LeFauve takes an incredibly detailed look at just how flawed Lisak's study truly is.

Article here. Excerpt:

'The public debate over the extent and causes of the campus sexual assault crisis is fraught with misleading information. The previously acclaimed work of psychologist David Lisak deserves that distinction as well.

The federal government, universities, and members of Congress have all used Lisak’s theories to justify rape adjudication policies that are biased against accused students. They should reconsider those policies in light of new discoveries about the inapplicability of Lisak’s work.

Article here. Excerpt:

'Colleges don't need any more sexual assault laws or policies, says Kevin Kruger, president of NASPA — Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education.

I would only disagree in that legislation might be needed to guarantee basic due process rights to students who are accused — sadly, the current campus culture ignores such constitutional rights.

Kruger, in an op-ed for the Washington Post, has taken issue with the notion that colleges were not previously taking campus sexual assault seriously.

"Advancing half-truths and twisting statistics for political gain does nothing to prevent incidents of sexual assault, help victims or make campuses stronger," Kruger wrote. "Public and private college and university administrators, advocates and other experts are working together proactively and students are safer now than they have ever been."'

The U.S. Senate HELP Committee will be holding a one-sided hearing tomorrow, July 29th, to discuss the Campus Accountability and Safety Act (CASA).

This bill does nothing to protect the due process rights of accused students OR get campus sexual assault cases back in the hands of criminal justice experts.

Help us contact the HELP Senators and tell them to vote against this bill before it leaves the higher education committee. This will be the best way to stop CASA.

Find the HELP Senators here to contact the whole list.

Make sure to call Chairman Lamar Alexander's office at (202) 224-4944 and Ranking Member Patty Murray's office at (202) 224-2621!

Tell the Senators to vote against CASA and to protect due process!

Very truly yours,

Gina Lauterio, Esq., Policy Program Director
Stop Abusive and Violent Environments
www.saveservices.org

Article here. Excerpt:

The current and former heads of U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) split last week on lifting the restrictions on women in combat in special operations and throughout the military.
...
In a separate panel at Aspen, retired Adm. Eric Olson, SOCOM commander from 2007 to 2011, said that the military and the nation must look beyond standards in making the decision and view women in combat in another context.

"I think that we are only having part of the discussion on women in combat," Olson said in a separate panel discussion at Aspen. "I think that we need to ask ourselves as a society if we are willing to put women in front-line combat units to take the first bullet on target."

Olson continued: "Are we willing to cause every 18-year-old girl to sign up for selective service? Are we willing to cause women to serve in infantry units against their will as we do men?"

Article here. Excerpt:

'Regarding the colossal farce of the Tim Hunt affair, about which I wrote previously on this site, more remains to be said about the doubling down of Hunt’s dissembling critics and delators. Connie St. Louis, his principal and most effective accuser, whose pre-redacted CV has now been rumbled as a document full of misrepresentations and “downright falsehoods,” is unrepentant about the snuff job she helped foment. Berating Hunt for sexism and old-boyism while bowdlerizing his text and excerpting only the “problematic” portion of his pre-luncheon toast, she essentially reverse-triggered the larger context of his speech. In this way she tampered with evidence in order to convict her prey.

For this piece of skullduggery, she suffered no qualms of conscience. “I’ve no regrets about breaking a journalistic story,” she boasted.

Article here. Excerpt:

'It’s long been recognised that the teenage years are a particularly troubling time. During these formative years, young adults become more engaged in the external and online world; the nature of their relationship with the opposite sex – and their own – changes, all while they are striving to find their own identity.

Article here. Excerpt:

'One of the (very frank) stories I posted from the International AIDS Society conference in Vancouver last week pertained to a device used by nurses to circumcise men in Africa. The story (which you can link to here or read below) drew plenty of feedback, mostly from those in the circumcision-is-mutilation camp.

Some commenters doubt the validity of research showing that medical circumcision cuts the risk of HIV/AIDS transmission in heterosexual males. However, randomized, controlled studies like this and this (among others) have been done and the World Health Organization has based its recommendations on such research. This is an excerpt from WHO:'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Not only will students ignore new rules regarding how to have sex, but those rules also promote "discriminatory enforcement," according to author and lawyer Wendy Kaminer.

Kaminer, in a new op-ed for the Boston Globe, reminds readers that just two decades ago, the notion that students need to follow a strict question-and-answer session template for each sexual encounter was mocked by "Saturday Night Live."

"These days, no one's laughing," Kaminer wrote.

Kaminer is quick to point out that there is nothing wrong with teaching students about consent, but cautions against the "yes means yes" approach of imposing such teachings as "quasi-criminal laws on campus" that pose "serious risks of expulsion to students accused of not obtaining consent for every move or for acting on mistaken impressions of implied consent."'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Earlier this month, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed the “Enough Is Enough” legislation, which aims to increase protections against sexual assault on college campuses statewide. While there is a lot that is good in the new law, I remain very concerned about the broader implications of state-by-state legislation to address sexual assault—particularly as the District of Columbia takes up its own legislation—and find Governor Cuomo’s comments about the reasons for advancing the law quite flawed.

Cuomo asserted at the bill signing that campuses have not previously acknowledged issues like domestic violence and campus sexual assault and that institutions are putting their reputations before the needs of their students.

Cuomo is flat-out wrong.

Story here. Excerpt:

'The U.S. Senate is planning a hearing Wednesday on the issue of campus sexual assault. Not invited: advocates of due process rights for the accused, or anybody else who is likely to question the narrative that campuses are rife with “rape culture.”

A surprisingly candid story about the invisible problem of violence against men in a mainstream paper, the Times of India (even though the tile has a question mark). Also, an open letter to feminists by a Pakistani female journalist reminding them that "anti-feminist" is not equal to "anti-women". The Indian subcontinent is slowly but surely taking on feminist hypocrisy.

Article here. Excerpt

'POLICE investigating a reported rape in the Kenilworth Road area of Billingham have been stood down after a woman confirmed that her earlier rape report was a false allegation.

A 32-year-old man arrested in connection with the allegation has been released from police custody with no further action.

Cleveland Police said there will be no ongoing police involvement and officers are no longer appealing for witnesses.'