Article here. Excerpt:

'The practice of circumcision has been so normalized in our society that we forget that the above statement is factually sound: we are allowing the systematic mutilation of the genitals of almost half of our population. If this is true, then why does America circumcise over 80% of its penis-slinging population while other developed countries, including those in western Europe and East Asia only circumcise approximately 20% of males?

America’s high circumcision rate is generally attributed to hysteria surrounding the practice. John Harvey Kellogg (maker of Kellogg’s cornflakes), who believed it would prevent boys from masturbating, succeeded in popularizing it in the early 20th century. Doctors in this era also believed it helped prevent syphilis, which has since been disproven, according to the National Institutes of Health. Because of this misinformed belief, circumcision became compulsory in the military during both world wars. Once such a high proportion of the population was circumcised, fathers would generally have their infants circumcised simply because they had been circumcised as well, causing a steady circumcision rate throughout the 1900s.

Article here. Excerpt:

'There was a time when rape and sexual assault were considered some of the most abhorrent crimes imaginable. No more.

Now, at least on college campuses, rape and sexual assault are considered mere disciplinary matters, no different than plagiarism or theft from a dorm. To non-college students, they are considered crimes.

You would think the issue was being taken seriously, given the mattress-carrying demonstrations and numerous marches with hand-made signs spouting catchy slogans like "non-consensual sex is rape." But according to the activists, the solution to this problem — this so-called rape culture — is not to send serious crimes to the police, but to campus courts where the worst an accused student can face is expulsion.

Press release here. Excerpt:

'Stop Abusive and Violent Environments, a national organization working to end campus sexual assault, is calling on producers of The Hunting Ground to remove a rape statistic featured in the movie that is known to be false. The Hunting Ground makes the claim that 20% of college women are sexually assaulted.

Numerous authoritative sources have refuted the 20% number:

1. The U.S. Department of Justice reports a college woman’s risk of sexual assault is under 1% each year.

2. The Washington Post Fact Checker assigned a single Pinocchio to the one-in-five claim.

3. The New York Times Editorial Board described the source of the statistic as “a flawed 2007 study based on undergraduates at just two unnamed public universities.”

Article here. Excerpt:

'I was arrested on Oct. 3, 2013 after 3:30 p.m. in the parking lot by Wilson Hall. According to the charges, I was accused of felony abduction with intent to defile and felony rape of my ex-girlfriend sometime between March 1 and June 1, 2012 in Fairfax County. At that moment, I faced the harrowing possibility of two life sentences for a crime I did not commit. Once in jail, I received a letter from Dean of Students Allen Groves, from which I learned that, in conjunction with the criminal charges, I was also put on an interim suspension and faced charges through the University Judiciary Committee, even though the University had contact neither with the complainant — who has never been enrolled at U.Va. — nor the Fairfax County police. I also apparently had 48 hours to appeal the interim suspension upon notification of my status, which seemed impossible to do from my jail cell and especially since my bail was not guaranteed.
...

Story here. Excerpt:

A woman who accused a football player recruited by the Alabama Crimson Tide of assaulting her has now recanted and was subsequently charged with filing a false report.

According to AL.com, the accusation led to the arrest Saturday night of Jonathan Taylor, a defensive tackle on charges of domestic violence and assault. She called police Monday to recant her accusation and confirmed she filed a complaint under false pretenses the next day.

She was sent to county jail, but has since posted bond.

Story here. Excerpt:

'Close to two months ago, Carole Thomas went public with a claim she had been raped in Longueuil back in October 2014.

She told Global News, and other media outlets in Montreal, she was attacked in the back seat of a luxury car on Parc Industriel Street.

What was particular about Thomas’ story is that she said the assault happened about 48 hours before the murder of Jenique Dalcourt, and relatively close to the bike path where the young woman was killed.

In a one-on-one interview with reporter Domenic Fazioli, Thomas also said detectives “ignored” her case.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Imagine yourself in an academic setting where somebody makes an offhand remark that male writers tend to be self-centered. With no evidence or argument, this statement is biased and uninformed, but people are entitled to their opinions.

Now further imagine that the same person then says that the first person singular “I” in the writing of male authors is like an erect penis directed at us from every page.

This incident happened the week before spring break in a discussion at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa.

For most in higher education today, an event like this would hardly be surprising. However, what made the scene difficult to believe is that nobody challenged it: We let it pass as though nothing had happened while a few heads nodded in polite approval.

Story here. Excerpt:

'The Uganda Catholic Medical Bureau (UCMB), the health arm of the Uganda Episcopal Conference, has been urged to promote safe male circumcision as a weapon to fight the spread of cervical cancer in women.

Safe male circumcision (SMC) is the surgical removal of the foreskin (prepuce), the fold of skin that covers the head of the penis, done by qualified health workers using clean (sterile) equipment in a clean environment.

The call was made last week by Dr. Patrick Tusiime, District Health Officer (DHO) of Kabale at the closure of the two-day annual general meeting of UCMB held at Sharing Youth Centre, in Nsambya, a Kampala suburb.
...
"Circumcision will make our women safe. Although there is vaccination that can administered against HPV among girls at an early age, it is important for men to be circumcised," said Tusiime.'

Story here. Excerpt:

'Urologists at Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem re-attached part of a baby's penis following a botched ritual circumcision, Israel Hayom reported today.

Five months ago, the mohel (ritual circumciser) cut part of the baby’s urethra during the circumcision and after the parents noticed profuse bleeding,the baby was rushed to Hadassah.

"The baby was admitted with severe bleeding, and we immediately proceeded to suture the affected area, under local anesthesia of course. The parents were understandably much more concerned than we were, and they had little hope. They have had a tormenting few months," Dr. Guy Hidas, a pediatric urologist, reportedly said, adding that 80% of the reattached tissue was successfully accepted by the baby’s body. "The baby will need at least one more surgery in the coming year, but it is unlikely that this will have long-term impact on his reproductive system," he said.'

Story here. Excerpt:

'Princeton University's new policy for handling allegations of sexual misconduct is bad for students, a university professor said Tuesday night.

Stanley Katz of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs said the policy, which creates a unique protocol for addressing sexual misconduct, is a departure from the way justice is typically administered in the U.S. legal system, as well as at universities.

"There are ordinarily generic norms and generic penalties," he said during a public discussion at a meeting of Princeton's literary and debating society.

On April Fools' Day, SAVE is concerned with only one lie in particular--the one embedded multiple times in"The Hunting Ground" that one in five women are sexually assaulted on campus.

Such false statistics help justify slapshod and overreaching new laws that make campus sexual assault cases worse for all students involved.

Help us tell the film distributor, Jason Janego at Radius TWC, to cut the false rape number out of the film. The Hunting Ground needs to cut the lies!

Call (212) 845-8600 or email radius.info@weinsteinco.com

Because we refuse to be taken for fools.

Truly yours,

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

Article here. Excerpt:

Vassar, that quintessential liberal arts college – its homepage today features “a pivotal figure from Vassar’s LGBTQ history.”

Also, it’s a haven for rapists.

That’s the takeaway from a confused columnist – not even at Vassar, but the University of North Carolina’s Daily Tar Heel – who scolds the school for following due process.
...
She claims the panel that heard her case judged the accused student not guilty because “there was [not] enough evidence to prove that my perpetrator was aware that I was incapable of consent.” (This is noteworthy because Vassar was actually sued by an accused student for how he was treated during the school’s rape investigation.)

Article here. Excerpt:

'None of it was real. Not the fraternity party at the University of Virginia one September night in 2012. Not the mysterious student named “Haven” who led a freshman named Jackie into a trap. Not the gang rape in an upstairs room.
...
Swept away with the fictions should be the federal law that bars school officials from calling the cops without a student’s permission when the student reports a sexual assault.

Similarly, New York’s Legislature should stop Gov. Cuomo’s drive to enact an overreaching and unenforceable “yes means yes” policy that would turn every college in the state into an overseer of student sex lives.

Federal law makes trouble enough — including through a prohibition written into the so-called Clery Act that played out absurdly at UVA.'

Article here. Eleven educators sentenced and over 100 still under investigation. Nearly all were female. The head of the operation, also a woman, died a month ago. Yet if you Google this story, many of the pictures show images of the very few men who were involved. Excerpt:

'In a dramatic conclusion to what has been described as the largest cheating scandal in the nation’s history, a jury here on Wednesday convicted 11 educators for their roles in a standardized test cheating scandal that tarnished a major school district’s reputation and raised broader questions about the role of high-stakes testing in American schools.

On their eighth day of deliberations, the jurors convicted 11 of the 12 defendants of racketeering, a felony that carries up to 20 years in prison. Many of the defendants — a mixture of Atlanta public school teachers, testing coordinators and administrators — were also convicted of other charges, such as making false statements, that could add years to their sentences.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'On Tuesday, a summary judgment was issued in favor of Vassar. The judge in the case, Ronnie Abrams, was recommended to the federal bench by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., who has no problem labeling young men as rapists without any due process.

Abrams' dismissal of Yu's charges are based on the fact that Title IX does not require adequate due process rights to students accused of sexual assault. Thus, a school following Title IX cannot, in theory, violate a student's due process rights. In the alternative, because Vassar is a private college, due process rights do not apply.

Basically, schools can get away with branding young men as rapists (and avoiding problems from the Obama administration) for what reasonable people would not see as rape because of a flawed law.'