Oregon college posts flyers for Sexual Assault Awareness to evoke fear, using incorrect data, misleading facts
According to Clackamas Community College’s three-year security report states that were no reports of sexual assault or fondling on its main campus or two satellites in 2015 or 2016 with the last such report among 26,000 students –a fondling case –in 2014. The Associated Student Government and Title IX office appear to be ignoring that stats, circulating flyers around the main campus that claim 1,201 out of 6,005 female students there “have or will experience sexual assault” at some point, and that make a variety of sexual-violence claims without citing sources.
The College Fix published a report outing their message of “Believe survivors. Challenge victim blaming. Respect boundaries.”
Two main flyers that gave statistics about sexual assault and victimization were posted for Sexual Assault Awareness Month, which is spearheaded by the National Sexual Violence Resource Center. It sells merchandise that reads “Believe survivors” and “End victim blaming” among other slogans.
The Fix saw the first flyer posted on the quad, around a patch of grass, on the main Oregon City campus and on the Harmony campus.
The flyers call for a planting of 1,201 “survivor flags” to represent the approximate number of CCC women who have or will experience sexual assault, as well as to plant one for themselves or someone they know.
The Fix:
It’s not clear how the student government determined CCC has 6,005 female students out of a total student population of 26,000. The Fix did not notice different survivor estimates between the Oregon City and Harmony flyers. A spokesperson for CCC did not immediately respond to a Fix query seeking an explanation.
The green flyers have logos of ASG, the Title IX office and the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, as well as Title IX officials’ contacts.
“Sexual violence thrives when it is not taken seriously and victim blaming goes unchecked,” it reads. The flyer’s tagline echoes the immediate judgment of accused celebrities by the #MeToo movement: “Believe survivors. Challenge victim blaming. Respect boundaries.”
The Fix:
Regardless of how many women attend CCC, the 1,201 estimate is based on the 1-in-5 figurefor sexual assault of college women first popularized in a Justice Department-funded studyin 2007. The study’s authors have publicly disavowed that their work is nationally representative and acknowledged its methodological shortcomings.
Even if that stats are only partially wrong, the raw data shows ZERO reports of sexual assault or fondling over the previous two years, with one fondling case in 2014.
While those are tragic and the campus must have a plan in place to deal with those case, involving law enforcement where they are needed, that is a far stretch from the fearmongering on those flyers.
Those same research authors followed up with a 2016 survey of nine schools.
About one in 10 undergraduate women across these nine schools, responding to an opt-in online survey, reported “completed sexual assault” (“one or more incidents of unwanted sexual contact”) during the 2014-2015 academic year. This rate varied from 4.1 percent at one school to 20 percent at another. The male estimate average was 3.1 percent, ranging from 1.4 percent at two schools to 5.7 percent at another school.
Full coverage at The FIX
photo/ Rolling Stone’s bogus rape coverage
