1. Welcome to SportsJournalists.com, a friendly forum for discussing all things sports and journalism.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register for a free account to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Access to private conversations with other members.
    • Fewer ads.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

UVA and the alleged frat rape - Rolling Stone backpedals

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by Big Circus, Nov 19, 2014.

  1. doctorquant

    doctorquant Well-Known Member

    Assume that the overall probability that a woman (of college age) will be the victim of a sexual assault is 0.05. Further assume that two-thirds of all college-age women go to college. Finally, let's assume that we have a random sample of 10,000 women from which the college-goers go to a college that's equally male-female. At this college, 20% of the men are members of a fraternity.

    If college women are 70% less likely to be the victim of sexual assaults, 184 of them will be sexually assaulted (p = 0.028). Among the non-college women, 316 will be assaulted (p = 0.093).

    Now, regarding these 184 sexual assaults of college women ... If a sexual assault is three times more likely to come at the hands of a fraternity member than it is at the hands of a non-fraternity member, fraternity members will be expected to be responsible for 80 of those sexual assaults. Non-fraternity members will be responsible for the rest.

    If only 10% of this college's men are fraternity members, we would expect that two out of three sexual assaults are committed by non-fraternity members even if fraternity members are three times more likely (than their non-fraternity classmates) to commit sexual assault. If only 5% of this college's men are members of a fraternity, the expected ratio of non-fraternity assaults to fraternity assaults would be in excess of 6 to 1.

    Suppose you are a member of one of those campus tribunals that are being proposed to adjudicate sexual assault? Would the fraternity status of the accused (member vs. non-member) enter into your "preponderance of evidence" calculations?
     
  2. Amy

    Amy Well-Known Member

    The Slate piece referred to a study finding non student females are victims of violence at rates 1.7 times greater than women in college. Crimes of "violence" is a much broader class than rape or sexual assault.
     
  3. MisterCreosote

    MisterCreosote Well-Known Member

    This was a formal questionnaire sent out by the fraternity chapter to each of its members.
     
  4. PW2

    PW2 Member

    Right. I believe the piece said it was doing a back-of-the-napkin extrapolation that the ratios are likely similar.
     
  5. da man

    da man Well-Known Member

    Except the percentage of "greek" students is way higher than five or 10 percent isn't it? At more than a few campuses it's the majority. A quick Google search shows several links using the figure 9 million students in fraternities or sororities, while the National Center for Education Statistics said the total number of students expected to attend American colleges and universities in Fall 2014 was 21.0 million. Some quick division shows that's about 43 percent nationwide.
     
  6. LongTimeListener

    LongTimeListener Well-Known Member

    I thought that too, da man, but it isn't. (dq uses the figure 20 percent anyway.) UVA says it's 29 percent among frats and sororities (sorors?). I checked Mizzou, big Greek life, and it's 22 percent. When I was there it was one of the highest percentages of Greeks anywhere. The best numbers I could find showed it was rare for a campus to get above 30 percent.

    I think that number is a little fudgy because it's only a three-year window, when in reality a lot of freshmen are part of Greek life even if they aren't in a frat yet, but for those calculations the 20 percent is reasonable.
     
  7. PW2

    PW2 Member

    (1) "Missed details" are not evidence of lying; and

    (2) Kudos to UVA for staying the course on its fraternity ban.

    I wonder how Hanna Rosin feels about getting kneecapped by her own publication?

    http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2014/12/10/uva_response_to_the_rolling_stone_fiasco_teresa_sullivan_and_tommy_reid.html
     
  8. Big Circus

    Big Circus Well-Known Member

    WaPo interviews the friends. This shit is getting truly bizarre. Shades of Manti Te'o if this version is accurate.

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/u-va-students-challenge-rolling-stone-account-of-attack/2014/12/10/ef345e42-7fcb-11e4-81fd-8c4814dfa9d7_story.html?tid=HP_more?tid=HP_more
     
  9. LongTimeListener

    LongTimeListener Well-Known Member

    That is fucking weird.

    And led to this great comment, by someone who might be toggling our threads:

    derekcrane
    3:49 PM PST
    I believe that Jackie has watched too many episodes of "Girls" on HBO.
     
  10. PW2

    PW2 Member

    She likely made it all up, and planned to make it all up in advance. To make Randall sympathetic or guilt-ridden, I'm guessing?
     
  11. qtlaw

    qtlaw Well-Known Member

    Damn shame of this is that this tears at the already limited credibility that society gives those with the courage to come forward and who were actual victims of sexual assault. From my family members who have survived this, they hardly shout it from the tree tops.
     
  12. LongTimeListener

    LongTimeListener Well-Known Member

    I think you hit on this awhile ago -- because you're clairvoyant on this -- but I think they're dealing with a severe mental illness that renders logic irrelevant in figuring out "why."

    Schizophrenia, bipolar ... something bad is happening inside that head.
     
Draft saved Draft deleted

Share This Page