FWI - "F*cking While Intoxicated" - Is New Crime on Campus, Reports College Fix

WASHINGTON - Aug. 4, 2015 - PRLog -- WASHINGTON, D.C. (August 4,  2015): There's a new crime on campus - or at least a new definition of an existing crime - which can lead to a student being expelled, and it can be abbreviated as FWI, according to a popular higher education website known at The College Fix.  Here's how that site describes what it calls "College students’ new hook-up snag: FWIs.”

    "Most have heard of DWIs, or Driving While Intoxicated. And some have heard of similar acronyms – DWB means 'Driving While Black,' for example.  Now a new acronym has emerged thanks to many universities’ new sexual consent rules, which generally state that students cannot give consent for a sexual tryst if they are super drunk.“

    ”FWI – or F*cking While Intoxicated – has become the latest sex SNAFU at some colleges – as students who drink before sex can credibly claim they were raped, and their partners (who may have been equally intoxicated) can be expelled. The term was recently coined by George Washington University law Professor John Banzhaf,” who noted that, if some college rules are applied literally, “millions of hookups which begin in bars would all have to be classified as ‘rape.'”

        For example, Banzhaf notes that one college [Coastal Carolina] does require all students to be cold sober - saying "It only takes a single drink to ruin your life." - and at least three schools [Stanford, Cal-Santa Barbara, and Illinois] clearly state that if the usually-female accuser was "intoxicated" at the time, the male can be branded as a rapist.

        In a "Minding the Campus." report entitled "If She Had Drinks, You Might Be a Rapist," Brooklyn College history professor KC Johnson reports that “many colleges have such a vague definition of consent to almost certainly be arbitrary.”  After studying the policies at over fifty major universities, he concludes that: “[A]t many of these institutions, the role of alcohol in establishing consent is so vague as to at least, on paper, deem as rape acts that few outside of campus would consider sexual assault.”

        Since the only clear definitions of “intoxicated” are found in state statutes prohibiting driving after too much drinking, and Breathalyzer tests obviously aren’t feasible, college disciplinary boards have been forced to try to determine her degree of intoxication by noting, for example, whether she could walk in high heels, was she able to text before or after the tryst, etc.

        Unlike on college campuses, most state laws would not find the male guilty of rape even if the woman was very clearly intoxicated since the standard is “incapacitated” - literally passed out and unable to communicate.  The fact she was unsteady on her feet, slurred her speech, or did things she ordinarily would not do unless drunk would not render her consent legally invalid, says Banzhaf, noting that the consent provided by obviously drunk females in “Girls Gone Wild” was nevertheless held to be legally valid.

        Equally troubling, says Banzhaf, is the practice of holding only the male liable for sexual assault if both parties are equally intoxicated, and even if she initiated the sex and/or was clearly the aggressor.

        Title IX requires equal treatment for both sexes, so it’s hard to see under that standard why only the male should be held liable for a night of drunken campus sex, says Banzhaf.

JOHN F. BANZHAF III, B.S.E.E., J.D., Sc.D.
Professor of Public Interest Law
George Washington University Law School,
FAMRI Dr. William Cahan Distinguished Professor,
Fellow, World Technology Network,
Founder, Action on Smoking and Health (ASH)
2000 H Street, NW
Washington, DC 20052, USA
(202) 994-7229 // (703) 527-8418
http://banzhaf.net/ @profbanzhaf