The latest big sexual assault survey is (like others) more hype than science

Article here. Amazing the Post ran it, given it's so highly critical of it. The Post typically doesn't like to entertain criticism of itself. Still, anything to shore up lagging sales, even taking opposite positions on the same subject. Money talks. Excerpt:

'"Survey: 1 in 5 women in college sexually assaulted.”

This headline, on The Washington Post’s long Sept. 21 article about a large survey of students at 27 public and private universities across the country college, is false.

Although the survey, by the Association of American Universities (AAU), was itself deliberately designed to exaggerate the number of sexual assaults on campus, even the AAU said that “estimates such as ‘1 in 5′ or ‘1 in 4′ as a global rate” across all universities is [sic] oversimplistic, if not misleading.”

This is not to suggest that The Post misrepresented the AAU survey’s findings any more than did most major news media. Such advocacy-laden surveys on campus sexual assault — and breathless media reports overstating their already exaggerated findings — have become the norm in this era of hysteria about the campus sexual assault problem.

The problem is no doubt serious, if shrinking. But it has been vastly exaggerated by the Obama administration, anti-rape activists, their media allies and universities pandering to them. It’s no surprise to see the AAU joining this chorus.

Below are three ways in which the 288-page AAU survey report is grossly misleading, as are others like it and the credulous media coverage of them all.'