OPINION:
As progressive politicians and much of the media continue to promote the moral panic surrounding campus sexual assault — replete with Title IX-driven policies that demonize men, removing constitutional protections from those accused — a real rape culture has emerged across Europe and will arrive soon on our own shores as Muslim migrants stream into cities.
The Daily Mail reports that officials have advised women to be wary of “dark alleys” after sexual assaults have been carried out in Sweden, Finland, Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Police in Germany are investigating more than 500 cases of violent sexual assaults across five German cities where women have been attacked by what law enforcement has called “organized Arab or North African gangs.” Cologne had been at the center of the problem with hundreds of cases of sexual assault and gang rapes on New Year’s Eve.
Beyond Germany, growing numbers of coordinated sexual assaults have been perpetrated against women in Denmark, Finland and Sweden. In Denmark, more than half of convicted rapists are Muslims. Sweden has become the “rape capital” of Europe — ranking No. 2 on the global list of rape countries. From 1975 to present, rape in Sweden has increased 1,472 percent. In Vienna, the police chief has advised women “not to go outside alone.”
It seems that Europe itself is becoming a “dark alley” for women. In an attempt to protect themselves, women have turned to pepper spray guns — the only means of self-defense allowed for ordinary citizens in Germany. But demand far outstrips supply, and even pepper spray guns are illegal elsewhere in Europe. Blame for the violent sexual attacks in Germany has been placed on Muslim migrants — the more than 1.1 million asylum seekers from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan who arrived in the country last year. Cologne police have identified those suspected of sexual assault in the New Year’s rampage near the city’s railway station as “asylum seekers and illegal migrants from North Africa.” Separately in Hamburg, police said they had received 133 criminal complaints for similar violence on New Year’s Eve. Witnesses describe “terrifying scenes of hundreds of women running a gauntlet of groping hands, lewd insults and robberies in the mob violence.”
This is what a real rape culture looks like. Yet for more than a decade in the United States, college campuses have waged a war on constitutional protections of due process in disciplinary proceedings when they involve allegations of campus sexual assault. And in the past four years, the Obama administration broadened the mandate of Title IX to give the federal government authority to oversee campus disciplinary procedures in which accused perpetrators — nearly always men — are presumed guilty.
The Chronicle of Higher Education points out that Title IX forces colleges to resolve all reports of rape — including alcohol-fueled sexual encounters in which the facts are often murky — whether or not an alleged victim reports the incident to the police. If a college fails to handle cases promptly and fairly, the U. S. Department of Education can find that it has created a hostile learning environment. The department is now investigating 76 colleges for possible Title IX violations — announcing harsh settlements requiring institutions to strengthen their policies. The number of sex crimes reported by colleges rose by 52 percent between 2001 and 2011, to 3,300. Time magazine has called campus sexual assault a “crisis,” citing a University of Michigan study that concludes that women have become victims of “verbal coercion” — pressured into having sex because their partners “threaten to end the relationship, threaten to spread rumors about them, show displeasure, criticize sexuality or attractiveness or getting angry.”
Title IX mandates have had a devastating impact on the lives of hundreds of those falsely accused — creating a hostile environment for males. Although we might have expected help from conservative lawmakers, the moral panic that has emerged has kept most of them silent on the issue. A recent National Review article points out that Republican Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida, Charles Grassley of Iowa, and Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, have actually teamed with Democratic demagogues Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Claire McCaskill of Missouri in co-sponsoring a bill that would make matters even worse.”
This is not to suggest that “real” rape does not occur on college campuses. It does. In October, four male Johnson and Wales University students, all Saudi Arabian nationals, were accused of drugging and sexually assaulting two first-year female students. The two women claim that they met the alleged perpetrators at a Providence, R.I. nightclub adjacent to campus and agreed to accompany them back to their residence, where they were drugged and gang-raped by the four men.
It is not a coincidence that in the aftermath of a growing culture of gang rape throughout Europe, four Brooklyn teenagers took turns raping an 18-year old woman last week. The woman was with her father in a Brooklyn playground when one of the young men pointed a gun at the pair, demanding that the father leave. The father managed to bring police back to the park but by then, all four — and perhaps a fifth man — had raped his daughter.
This is what rape culture looks like, and it is time that political leaders — including those running for president — begin to understand that.
• Anne Hendershott is director of the Veritas Center for Ethics in Public Life and professor of sociology at Franciscan University. She is the author of The Politics of Deviance (Encounter, 2004).
Please read our comment policy before commenting.