Campus Rape Expert Who Misrepresented His Work Faces Powerful New Criticism

Article here. Excerpt:

'Dr. Mary Koss—a scientist, feminist, and acclaimed expert on the subject of campus sexual assault—says the psychologist who popularized the serial predator theory of student-on-student violence has misrepresented his research for years.

“It’s one of the most egregious examples of a policy with an inadequate scientific basis that lives on because it offers a simplistic solution,” said Koss, in an interview with Reason.

Her analysis supports the findings of a recent Reasoninvestigative series scrutinizing the work of Dr. David Lisak, a psychologist and former University of Massachusetts-Boston professor whose faulty 2002 study on undetected rapists persuaded advocates, policymakers, and even the White House that most campus rapists are serial predators.

Koss, an American Regents’ Professor in the College of Public Health at the University of Arizona, criticized Lisak for broadening his data and misapplying the serial predator theory to the majority of campus rapists.

Lisak’s 2002 study, “Repeat Rape and Multiple Offending Among Undetected Rapists,” produced the statistics he relied upon to make the claim that most campus rapists were repeat perpetrators rather than one-off offenders. But a detailed investigation spearheaded by Reason contributor Linda LeFauvefound significant flaws with the study, which was actually based upon surveys that had nothing to do with student-on-student violence.'