Even if false rape reports are rare, they shouldn't be ignored

Article here. Excerpt:

'Whenever a high-profile account of alleged campus sexual assault comes crashing down – such as Rolling Stone's gang-rape accusation – activists predictably fall back on the claim that only 2 percent of rape accusations are false.

This isn't accurate. First, the 2 percent figure refers to false reports made to the police. Making a false police report carries a penalty, which exists to deter people from doing so (although sometimes that penalty isn't enforced, such as with the Duke Lacrosse rape hoaxer). No such penalty exists on college campuses. (Indeed, even the accuser in the Rolling Stone article, though proven to have lied, did not face any punishment from the school.)

Not having that penalty is meant to make accusers feel more comfortable coming forward, although it's difficult to see how being punished for lying would make truthful victims fearful. Regardless, a lack of consequences makes it easier for student accusers to come forward and punish fellow students who may have hurt them or with whom they had a previous regretted encounter that has come to be seen as assault.'