Thanks to some excellent reporting by a collaborative effort between the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Reporting and the UW's Journalism School, the issue of sexual assault on campus-and how it's dealt with (or not)-was brought to light yet again in an article in Monday's Badger Herald.
Of course, despite the amount of coverage it's getting at any given time, sexual assault is an issue that, sadly, never goes away. And that it's happening at all, anywhere, to anyone, is reason enough for us all to be outraged.
The numbers alone are staggering:
An oft-cited federal National Institute of Justice study in 2000 estimated 35 rapes per 1,000 students each academic year.
For the UW System, with about 94,700 female students in 2008, that translates to about 3,300 rapes per school year. And that's not including male victims; a 2003 U.S. Department of Justice study estimated that 1 in 10 rape victims was male.
Also according to the article, while national statistics suggest that there were likely around 750 instances of rape on the UW-Madison campus in 2008, only 44 were actually reported. Those kinds of numbers should be mind-boggling to anyone with half a heart. Hard numbers are one thing; never forget that each one of those digits represents a real live human being-your friends, neighbors, and family members.
But why is there such low reporting? The problem is multi-layered: You've got the incredible (and disgusting) amount of victim blaming that goes on in our society. Couple that with how rare it is to see the perpetrators punished for their crimes and you've got a self-fulfilling prophecy on your hands.
After all, why bother reporting the incident if the only outcome you can expect is to have your name dragged through the mud and to relive the experience only to have your assailant walk away unscathed?
That's what happens in far too many cases, and that's simply unacceptable. Every single one of us needs to step up to change the way things are so that not one more rapist goes unpunished. We can also do something to prevent these crimes from happening in the first place.
It will take a combination of actions to see any real progress, though. Legislatively, we need to make sure that laws are passed that ensure the highest level of respect for and protection of those victims who do come forward. On both the state and campus level, we also need to make sure that the punishments fit the crimes-no more allowing perpetrators to remain in the same dorm or same classes as their victims (I've seen this happen). No more slaps on the wrist. No more of the "boys will be boys" or "they were drunk so it doesn't count" attitudes.
On the social level, too, there's much we can all do to help stop this endemic problem. When I was trained as a Peer Educator back in college, one of the biggest points they made to us was that, as a friend, you should always default on the side of believing a person when they tell you about an assault. There's a sizeable stigma in our society that tries to tell us to be wary that someone might be lying about a rape, but even statistics say that's not likely to be the case. The vast majority of people who say they've been assaulted have been assaulted, so it's best for everyone to just believe. That alone can go a long way toward mentally helping someone through the trauma, and toward making the decision to report the crime.
Before anything happens in the first place, though, we must also build a culture where there is simply zero tolerance for sexual assault or rape. We need to raise our children to be respectful of themselves and others, to know that consent is everything, and that type of clothing or level of drunkenness does not give anyone permission to make assumptions. We all need to speak up when we see something going wrong-at parties, out on the street, with strangers and with friends.
I am beyond sick and tired of reading these kinds of statistics, and even moreso of encountering these situations in the real world. I simply cannot understand how we've allowed our system to be set up in such a way as to make it as difficult as possible for the victims of assault to report and seek justice against their assailants.
It's a good first step that Wisconsin makes the university system file an annual report on sexual assault on campus-that's (unfortunately) relatively unusual among the states. But it's high time we took that even further and followed up with meaningful, lasting funding for 1) prevention services, 2) victim support, and 3) proper investigation and punishment of the perpetrators.
Zero tolerance.
April is National Sexual Assault Awareness Month and this year's theme is "Prevent Sexual Violence...on our campuses." Find out what you can do to help here.
Business should have a seat at regulative table, not the ultimate say
More good investigative journalism, this time on the part of Wisconsin State Journal, reveals that the state's biggest dairy farm operations have been exerting potentially undue influence on how their industry is regulated.
Specifically, the Dairy Business Association has been flexing its muscle in recent years, even taking a direct hand in writing legislation:
Correspondence and memos obtained through the state's open records law show the association is heavily involved not only in shaping policy but also has intervened in the state's handling of individual permit applications.
The DBA is the most powerful advocate on behalf of the state's biggest dairies, those with 700 or more cows, requiring them to get pollution permits from the state Department of Natural Resources. Each of the farms produces millions of gallons of liquid manure that is stored in large lagoons and spread on fields. In some cases, waste has run into nearby streams or polluted nearby wells.
Despite the volume of waste, an investigation by the Wisconsin State Journal found inspections by the DNR have been spotty, with some farms being checked only once during the five-year life of their permit.
This is unacceptable. It's also yet another instance of deference given to corporate interests at the expense of their smaller competitors and even average citizens.
The DBA was behind a change in DNR practice that streamlined the permitting process for factory farms that, among other things, now stipulates that the state agency "agree to issue approvals for farm building plans automatically if they aren't approved in a certain amount of time." Oh yeah, great idea guys.
I'd ask why adopting such shady tactics seemed like a good idea to the DBA-because they're pretty transparently nefarious-but then I remember, oh yeah, they don't give a crap what the public thinks of them. So long as they can muscle out smaller, independent competitors and use their money and influence to buy off politicians and regulators, what does it matter if regular folks think they suck?
Because regulation is anti-business and un-American! Which apparently means that health and safety standards are anti-business, and making sure our natural resources and environment are reasonably protected is anti-American.
I call shenanigans.
I'm not saying the permitting process should be require a Herculean effort to get through, but I think that keeping moneyed corporate interests fairly separate from the crafting of regulation makes sense. The DNR is supposed to be an independent body that makes decisions based on balancing the welfare of business with that of citizens and their environment. It's high time we made that so.
Worth watching
There's new noise being made about a potential Tommy Thompson run for Russ Feingold's senate seat. A post at The Sconz points to a Politico report that quotes Thompson spokesperson and colleague at Akin/Gump (one of the largest lobbying firms in D.C.) Jason Denby as saying that "lots of people in Washington" want the former governor to run.
If Thompson does enter the race, it's something Democrats would do well not to dismiss outright. Though Feingold is fairly popular, and though he could out-debate and out-good record Thompson with his hands tied behind his back, it's important never to underestimate the power of misplaced nostalgia.
Of course, we've yet to see if this is a serious idea on Thompson's part or not. "Lots of people in Washington" (i.e. your lobbyist friends) does not automatically mean that lots of people in Wisconsin are going to vote for you.