Give Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., credit for candor: He doesn’t think statistical integrity is important when it comes to devising policy responses to campus rape.
In a Q&A with USA Today (which repeatedly uses the prejudicial term “survivor” to refer to accusers), the co-sponsor of the Campus Sexual Violence Elimination Act (signed into law) speculates that hordes of students aren’t reporting the crimes against them, so the policy response should be completely untethered from rigorous measurement:
The number is important. Even if the argument proves true that it’s not (valid) — that it’s 1 in 6, 1 in 7, 1 in 10, 1 in 20 — that is still way too high. … We could spend all day debating numbers. I’m much more concerned about taking action.
What I worry about isn’t whether the 1-in-5 statistic is accurate, but about underreporting — that young women who are victims are alone or feel like they’re alone. The ones who don’t engage in a system that they feel won’t bring about justice or treat them with the respect they should be accorded as a victim of a horrific crime.
He ducks a question about two bills in Congress that would restore some measure of due process to students accused of rape, instead answering why administrators are so annoyed by the boatload of federal regulations they deal with around the issue:
I invite college and university administrators to come to me after a responsible period of time — at least a year — so that if there are problems we (can address them). This bill wasn’t something I sat in my office and came up with off the top of my head. We talked to advocates and organizations to help shape the bill … they saw a need to fill gaps in transparency and information.
RELATED: Legislation to involve police in campus sexual assault claims gains momentum
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