Colleges and Sexual Exploitation

For John, BLUF:  Bad problem analysis is pervasive.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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There is concern across the world over sexual abuse of women (not so much about men, although there are pockets where that is a problem).  India and Egypt have come in for global attention.  Here in the United States the focus has been on the military and on college campuses.  We are even seeing people propose legislation to fix the problems seen.  Legislation is good, but one wonders why we can't work this problem with existing laws.

Frankly, it seems to me that the existing statistics taken in a wholistic way, suggest that the military is seriously working this problem.

As for college campuses, the ongoing approach of treating sexual assault, and in particular, rape, seems to be "administrative" rather than criminal.  While it is admirable that the college administration wants to fix the problem and protect its students, it is actually not doing that.  For one thing, it is abusing the rights of "the accused" time and time again.  This has generated a backlash, where the Federal Bureaucracy is pushing for more action,♠ and, implicitly, less legal defense for the accused, but those who feel their rights have been abused have taken to the courts for protection.  At this blog post is a list of such lawsuits.

So, we have non-professionals investigating rape, which trivializes the crime.  The Police and the local prosecutor, who are supposed to be involved in such crimes, are excluded.  That is the first problem.

The second problem is that colleges and universities are (1) paying out big settlements to those wrongly accused and disciplined, or improperly disciplined and (2) the administrative overhead for institutions of higher education continue to grow, thus driving up the cost of education (and thus increasing student debt).  Apparently neither President Obama nor Senator E Warren can see this problem.  Hint:  Their solutions to student debt are not working.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  Here is the Federal Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights, 4 April 2011 Letter.  The letter is signed by Russlynn Ali, Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights.  The letter references back to Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 (Title IX), 20 U.S.C. §§ 1681 et seq., and its implementing regulations, 34 C.F.R. Part 106, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in education programs or activities operated by recipients of Federal financial assistance.  If you get the Federal dollar you dance to the Federal Piper.