Colleges to Be Sued For Causing 46% of Campus Rapes - Natl Conference

WASHINGTON - Oct. 5, 2017 - PRLog -- Colleges are about to be sued for causing about 46% of campus rapes, and bureaucrats charged with investigating the charges may soon lose their jobs, hundreds of Title IX officials were told at their national conference.

       A featured speaker at the conference, who has been called "a Driving Force Behind the Lawsuits That Have Cost Tobacco Companies Billions of Dollars," and "The Law Professor Who Masterminded Litigation Against the Tobacco Industry," told attendees that by running anti-rape programs which are useless, and in reality little more than window dressing, while refusing to disclose - much less to use - programs which have been shown to slash collegiate rapes by 46%, they could be held legally liable for causing almost half of all campus rapes.

       They were also told by public interest law professor John Banzhaf that under a proposal which Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has just publicly praised, many of them could lose their jobs as responsibility for handling complaints of campus rapes are transferred from individual colleges and universities to regional centers.

         This change would end the conflicts of interest which occur whenever colleges investigate rapes on their own campuses, and provide results which are fairer and more likely to be accepted by both the accused and the accusers.

        Banzhaf noted a very recent report showing that there is only "one campus education program [has been] proven to decrease sexual violence"; that "little has been done that has resulted in effective, consistent, measurable prevention," and that traditional programs, like one-time only programs, "have also failed to demonstrate a decrease in violence."

        Prescribing a drug with no proven effectiveness, while ignoring one which had been proven to work very well, would constitute serious medical malpractice if done by a physician.

        Similarly, using unproven anti-rape programs, when one has been proven to slash rapes by almost 50%, would constitute a similar form of college malpractice which could make the institution liable for the many rapes which could have been stopped by using an effective program, Banzhaf told the attendees.

        The successful program, which was featured more than two years ago in the prestigious and peer-reviewed New England Journal of Medicine, showed that young female students could be trained to recognize and avoid dangerous situations, and to effectively resist attempts at sexual intercourse, rather than being reluctant to voice strong objections for fear of offending their date, observes Banzhaf.

        The only logical explanation for the well observed fact that first year women are far more vulnerable to rape than women in other years is that they learn something: to recognize potentially dangerous situations, to avoid them, and to resist effectively if necessary.  This study shows that universities can teach the same skills and behaviors in time to avoid the dangerous "red zone" early in the freshmen year when young first year women are especially vulnerable.

        Banzhaf's warnings about potential legal liability are likely to be taken seriously, even though some may think them farfetched.  He has, after all, been called "The Law Professor Who Masterminded Litigation Against the Tobacco Industry," and "a Driving Force Behind the Lawsuits That Have Cost Tobacco Companies Billions of Dollars."

        He and his law students also put together the law suit, which many observers said would fail, which forced Spiro T. Agnew to return all the money he received in bribes, and the equally unlikely law suit which forced McDonald's to pay over $12 million for failing to disclose that its french fries contained beef fat.

        Unfortunately for audience members, Banzhaf's proposal to have alleged rapes investigated by third-party entities - which has also been featured in the New York Times, Chronicle of Higher Education, U.S. News, Washington Examiner, and National Public Radio, among others, and now endorsed by Secretary Devos - would largely eliminate the need for individual colleges to investigate (and, if necessary, prosecute) claims of date rape, thereby eliminating the need (and therefore jobs) for many Title IX administrators.

        The Association of Title IX Administrators, one of the sponsors of this national conference, says it is the "professional home for nearly 7,000 Title IX administrators," and it has been estimated that the cost of maintaining this huge bureaucracy on our nation's campuses is over $700 million a year.

        This does not include the litigation costs for allegations of campus sexual assaults which reportedly average $350,000 to defend each law suit challenging colleges' handling of such claims, nor the money courts are increasingly awarding to students found to be wrongfully disciplined by colleges.

        Indeed, according to a Risk Research Bulletin put out by insurance company United Educators (UE), student-on-student sexual assaults - which UE termed "a perfect storm - of "alcohol, mental health, and sexual violence" - cost its members more than $36 million in losses from 2006-2010" - an amount which will continue to balloon as courts become increasingly sympathetic to such legal actions, especially in light of DeVos' speech with its strong condemnation of many date-rape expulsions, argues Banzhaf.

      Banzhaf is a featured speaker at the joint ATIXA/SCOPE conference being held at the Sheraton Philadelphia Downtown Hotel, 201 N. 17th Street in Philadelphia, PA.

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, Wash, DC 20052, USA
(202) 994-7229 // (703) 527-8418
http://banzhaf.net/  jbanzhaf3ATgmail.com  @profbanzhaf