UVA and the alleged frat rape - Rolling Stone backpedals

I'm sure that chapter has alumni who are lawyers and PR types. By suing, that drags things out and causes more negative harm.

So the story has longer legs and, by not suing it doesn't keep the story percolating. I'd take issue with more the university's actions, sure the RS article caused UVA to act the way they did but they chose to act that way. They could have held off any types of punishment while they let the school's police department complete its investigation.

 

I've only been following the thread and not necessarily participating, but this one made me chime in.

I don't know what you are trying to say by singling out this stat. It sounds like you are scoffing at the fact that 1 in 5 college women experience some form of rape, attempted or completed, like that ratio isn't troubling. If I had a daughter that were about to enter college, that stat would scare the shit out of me.

I hope I'm misunderstanding, and I apologize if I am.

 

If 1 in 5 college women "experience some form of rape, attempted or completed," I will eat my shoe.

 

Ah, you were commenting on the credibility of the stat, not the abject horror of 20 percent of college women being raped.

Yeah, I've got nothing on that. Proceed.

 

Two sentences, neither of which contributes to the topic at hand. [/whyarethereallthesevoicesinmyhead?]

 

What started a lot of this was people saying the Obama administration had overstated the problem by claiming the now-infamous "1 in 5" stat.

What no one wants to admit is that number, produced by the DOJ, was largely inaccurate, but the very same number concluded by the public-health folks at CDC includes women who consumed alcohol or drugs willingly, which a lot of people don't believe constitutes "sexual assault." With which I vehemently disagree.

 

So you're a young college student out in the bars and drinking -- a lot. You meet a girl who's your age and also drinking a lot. You start making out. She grabs your ass. You get a handful of her ass and proceed to feel up her chest.

Has she just experienced "some form of rape, attempted or completed?" And how many of these are part of that "1 in 5" statistic?

 

That's only true of certain types of cases - mostly personal injury - and is not true of the typical defamation case.

No. Lawyers rarely take defamation cases on contingency. Almost every defamation case I've seen, consulted on or dealt directly with, the lawyer is getting paid - or in two odd cases the plaintiff is a lawyer who filed pro se. Defamation is too much of a bitch to prove for most lawyers to take it on contingency.

Now on a more run-of-the-mill personal injury claim there is a very high likelihood that the lawyer is in it for a percentage of the judgement/settlement.

 

I was not aware of that background. Thanks for that. I think I remember some discussion around that stat earlier in the thread, but it started so long ago that it slipped my mind.

There are enough gray areas in this debate that I'm just going to slowly back away into the on-looker role. Have at it, fellas.

 

I don't understand what Creosote is including in the stats. "Women who consumed alcohol or drugs willingly." And then had sex unwillingly? Or consumed drugs and alcohol willingly, and had sex willingly?

 

Based on just that, no. Perhaps sexual assault if there is a determination that she was incapable of giving consent. Think of that what you will. I'm just talking about legal definitions as they have been explained to me.

 

OK, but that still doesn't mean that a whole bunch of those aren't included in that 1 in 5 statistic.