By Chris Scheren, scherecb@miamioh.edu
Over the last few weeks, Miami students have been in an uproar over the inclusion of George Will as a speaker in the Farmer School of Business's Anderson Lecture series. Stemming from his comments on sexual assault, reportedly nearly a thousand students threatened to protest Miami's administration for not removing him as a speaker. Regardless of this, Miami stood firm, and refused to give in to the protesters. As a student who heard his speech and actually read the controversial article, I can only say that Will has been largely misrepresented by our university's students. Not once has his side of the issue been considered, and the entire campus community is the worse off for it.
Many students, including myself, believed his negative image after reading the excerpts from his editorial that were printed in The Miami Student and other media sources. However, it is only fair to read the article in its original form before making judgment. Two passages have consistently been quoted as evidence of his wrong doing, though these have rarely been put into the correct context.
The first passage, quoted as seen in the Oct. 21 edition of The Miami Student, is as follows, "Colleges and universities… are learning that when they say campus victimizations are ubiquitous ('micro-aggressions,' often not discernible to the untutored eye, are everywhere), and that when they make victimhood a coveted status that confers privileges, victims proliferate". This quote appears to indicate that Will believes becoming a victim of rape is a coveted status and one that "confers privileges". This ignores some very important aspects of the quote. The first is that it has been abridged. Will actually begins by saying, "Colleges and universities are being educated by Washington and are finding the experience excruciating." When seen in the context of the title, "Colleges become the victims of progressivism", the quote shifts from being about rape to being about the intervention of government into universities.
But isn't he talking about rape victims? When asked this after his lecture, his reply was that, as the quote is the first sentence of the editorial, he had not yet introduced rape, and was speaking of people attempting to achieve victim status without cause. He explained this by reading a letter written by minorities attending Princeton University who said they "barely survived" Princeton. Will believes that, as they are attending an Ivy League university, they are privileged to such an extent that they do not have the right to claim victimization. He clarified again that he believes real victims of rape deserve all the help they can get, "regardless of the (financial) cost," and that false victims harm those who are true survivors.
The second quote alluded to in The Miami Student is one in which he questions rape statistics. In his own words, "The statistics are: One in five women is sexually assaulted while in college, and only 12 percent of assaults are reported. Simple arithmetic demonstrates that if the 12 percent reporting rate is correct, the 20 percent assault rate is preposterous. Mark Perry of the American Enterprise Institute notes, for example, that in the four years 2009 to 2012 there were 98 reported sexual assaults at Ohio State. That would be 12 percent of 817 total out of a female student population of approximately 28,000, for a sexual assault rate of approximately 2.9 percent - too high but nowhere near 20 percent." He never says rape is not a problem. In fact, he says that even the modest number of "approximately 2.9 percent" is "too high". When investigated further, his criticisms of the statistic have some backing. According to fellow Washington Post writer Glenn Kessler, the statistic is based off a single web-based anonymous survey at only "two large public universities."
According to Kessler, "This report showed that out of the subset of seniors surveyed (1,402 women), that 19 percent (about 287) had experienced sexual assault… In other words, information that is localized to the seniors at two colleges has now been extrapolated by politicians to the universe of college experience." This is not to say rape is unimportant, but rather that it is simply wrong to apply such a small sample size to include the entire college population.
Rape is a serious problem at Miami and other universities. Regardless of the accuracy of statistics, the role of government, or any other excuse given, rape should never be included as a tool in an argument. For this reason, George Will was out of line. However, academic debate is dependent on the mutual understanding of each party. By taking positions without hearing both sides, no accurate counterpoint can be made, and nothing is learned. Therefore, before taking a position, read and understand both sides, and make a deliberated decision on what to believe.