HOW BUREAUCRATS BUILD EMPIRES: Ashe Schow: Surprise, surprise: Campus sexual assault hysteria led to more reporting, now they want more money.
After years of claiming that large swaths of American college students will be sexually assaulted — and passing laws and directives to “solve” the problem — incident reports are up. And because of that, activists in Congress predictably want more money.
Democratic Sens. Barbara Boxer of California, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Tim Kaine of Virginia are calling for more money now that their campaigns have helped increase reporting. Of course, they don’t acknowledge that more reports doesn’t necessarily equal more assaults.
“This new data makes clear why the Education Department must step up its efforts to address the epidemic of sexual assault on college campuses, and why Congress must ensure it has the resources it needs to protect students,” Senator Boxer said in a press release emailed to the media.
Gillibrand echoed this sentiment: “These figures still don’t reflect even conservative estimates of the actual incidence of sexual assault and rape on campuses, and still the Department of Education lacks the resources to promptly investigate the few complaints against schools that are filed.”
These senators have been major proponents of getting colleges more involved in adjudicating sexual assault. That effort has led to kangaroo courts and colleges are being sued by both accusers and the accused over the lack of a fair process. For accusers, the best a campus court can do is expel a rapist, meaning he remains free to prey on others. For the accused, the Department of Education and activists have helped foster a “guilty until proven innocent” mentality that forces colleges to find against the accused without providing them a way to tell their side.
Because of the constraints put on colleges, more students are suing and filing complaints with the Education Department. And because of that, Sens. Boxer, Gillibrand and Kaine are asking for increased government spending.
Kirsten Gillibrand hasn’t even apologized for continuing to smear a Columbia student, who was cleared by the university and the police, as a rapist.