FWIW, this is an interesting critique:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100...mod=WSJ_article_comments#articleTabs=comments
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100...mod=WSJ_article_comments#articleTabs=comments
3 USNA Football Players Face Sexual Assault Probe
- Thread starter Luigi59
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Unfortunately you need to be a subscriber to read it. I was an online subscriber until this year when they just got too damned expensive.
That's odd. You're right, when you open the link in my post you can't read the article. But if you google "Lindsay Rodman" "Wall Street Journal" you can get to the article and read it. it is well worth the read in light on the issues discussed on this thread.
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Yup that worked. How strange. I'm guessing we're getting a Google cached copy by doing this. It was an interesting article. I always had doubts about the stats and this confirmed it for me.
In the same vein, the incident under discussion is mentioned in this Maureen Dowd editorial in the NY Times today.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/05/opinion/dowd-cut-the-strings-to-george-iii.html
All I can say is that when you've lost Sen. John McCain, you've lost middle America.
Yes, the Wall Street Journal piece was very good-- a rational explication of the facts and the reasons why the numbers in that sexual assault report are pretty much worthless; as opposed to all the overheated rhetoric coming from D.C. and other parts. McCain's response is really disappointing.
This issue touches a nerve for me because the potential for a witch hunt is so great and I fear a lot of lives are going to be hurt and destroyed. I know that it can be hard to discuss because no one wants to be accused of "blaming the victim" when pointing out that this is so often not a "black-and-white" issue. And while I understand the military interpretation of consent excludes consent given while intoxicated, most people don't know that and so that skews their interpretation of these statistics. And the fact that the term "sexual assault" in the report encompassed behaviors that most people would not consider to be rape (which is what most people think of when they hear the term "sexual assault") skews things even further. (I have a little experience with this. I remember a number being floated around years ago about the number of women who would be "sexually assaulted" in their lifetimes and it seemed incredibly high to me. On closer examination, it turned out that the term "sexual assault" included indecent exposure. I have had that happen to me twice and, while unpleasant, there is no way I have ever considered myself as being a victim of sexual assault. In fact, I feel like it trivializes rape to lump it in with things like indecent exposure.)
I also can't help but feel that this issue is being pumped up now to provide a distraction from other issues on Capitol Hill . . . but that is another story.
This issue touches a nerve for me because the potential for a witch hunt is so great and I fear a lot of lives are going to be hurt and destroyed. I know that it can be hard to discuss because no one wants to be accused of "blaming the victim" when pointing out that this is so often not a "black-and-white" issue. And while I understand the military interpretation of consent excludes consent given while intoxicated, most people don't know that and so that skews their interpretation of these statistics. And the fact that the term "sexual assault" in the report encompassed behaviors that most people would not consider to be rape (which is what most people think of when they hear the term "sexual assault") skews things even further. (I have a little experience with this. I remember a number being floated around years ago about the number of women who would be "sexually assaulted" in their lifetimes and it seemed incredibly high to me. On closer examination, it turned out that the term "sexual assault" included indecent exposure. I have had that happen to me twice and, while unpleasant, there is no way I have ever considered myself as being a victim of sexual assault. In fact, I feel like it trivializes rape to lump it in with things like indecent exposure.)
I also can't help but feel that this issue is being pumped up now to provide a distraction from other issues on Capitol Hill . . . but that is another story.
pathnottaken
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This whole issue to me is about are we letting the right people into the SA's and are we removing them when we find out they are not right for the SA.
An excellent article on this http://usnaorbust.wordpress.com/2010/03/26/what-is-the-usna-honor-code/.
I 100% agree with Dick Couch: "No, said Dick Couch, a retired SEAL captain who taught ethics at the academy last year and is a well* known writer on ethics in the mili*tary. “Honor is being treated as a teachable thing, as if there is some trial and error with it, and that’s the current stance. I don’t particu*larly agree with it,” he said."
I keep thinking for every well qualified excepted cadet there was 14 who were not accepted, and I am sure one of them would have demostrated they have honor, intergrety and discipline built into their core that all parties involved did not demonstrate.
The underage cadet lacked discipline and drank alcohol illegally. Her guilt stops there!!! The football players lacked discipline, intergrety for allowing underage cadets to drink at their party and for serving accessive amounts to an individual. They lacked honor by posting what they did on social media.
(I will not comment on other issue until evidence is provided)
Know of a kid who did not get accepted but had a great resume who on his own accord, would not give another boy a ride home from an event because he was only 17.99 years old (4 hours from turning 18) and you have to be 18.00 years old to legal drive with another sub-18 year in our state. He waited with the kid until his parents showed, than drove himself home...That is what SA should be looking for when it comes to honor, intergety, and discipline.
An excellent article on this http://usnaorbust.wordpress.com/2010/03/26/what-is-the-usna-honor-code/.
I 100% agree with Dick Couch: "No, said Dick Couch, a retired SEAL captain who taught ethics at the academy last year and is a well* known writer on ethics in the mili*tary. “Honor is being treated as a teachable thing, as if there is some trial and error with it, and that’s the current stance. I don’t particu*larly agree with it,” he said."
I keep thinking for every well qualified excepted cadet there was 14 who were not accepted, and I am sure one of them would have demostrated they have honor, intergrety and discipline built into their core that all parties involved did not demonstrate.
The underage cadet lacked discipline and drank alcohol illegally. Her guilt stops there!!! The football players lacked discipline, intergrety for allowing underage cadets to drink at their party and for serving accessive amounts to an individual. They lacked honor by posting what they did on social media.
(I will not comment on other issue until evidence is provided)
Know of a kid who did not get accepted but had a great resume who on his own accord, would not give another boy a ride home from an event because he was only 17.99 years old (4 hours from turning 18) and you have to be 18.00 years old to legal drive with another sub-18 year in our state. He waited with the kid until his parents showed, than drove himself home...That is what SA should be looking for when it comes to honor, intergety, and discipline.
Luigi59
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I have a question, Please understand I am making no negative comments towards any of the Academies.
There have been several stories such as the one that started this thread regarding sexual assaults at various Acadamies. What I have not seen is articles about ROTC cadets being charged with sexual assault. I tried a couple google searches and could only find a couple cases that involved instructors with JROTC, disgusting in itself, but I could not find any for Senior ROTC.
Is the culture different at the acadamies, is it due to the large percentage of male to female ratio.
I am in no way claiming that there have not been any cases involving ROTC, I just couldn't find any, someone else may know.
There have been several stories such as the one that started this thread regarding sexual assaults at various Acadamies. What I have not seen is articles about ROTC cadets being charged with sexual assault. I tried a couple google searches and could only find a couple cases that involved instructors with JROTC, disgusting in itself, but I could not find any for Senior ROTC.
Is the culture different at the acadamies, is it due to the large percentage of male to female ratio.
I am in no way claiming that there have not been any cases involving ROTC, I just couldn't find any, someone else may know.
falconfamily
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Simple thoughts lead to simple solutions that don't work and don't address the problem. The issue with sexual assaults in the military is nothing like what you are proposing as a root cause. It has little to do with personal honor, lack of, theories about being teachable or not, those theories are suppositions without substance.
Sexual Assaults in the military is more about power, retribution, and the asymmetric nature of rank. It is more often than not the result of people becoming intoxicated, which can lead to behaviors that they would otherwise refrain from if they were sober. Drinking is no excuse for someone becoming a sexual predator, but the issue is not one of honor or being raised well by one's parents. To focus our attention on honor as a solution would be a colossal waste of time and energy.
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I think the service academies are the big shiny objects. Everyone there is in the military. For ROTC, the story is a college student raped someone... and in the story somewhere he was also an ROTC cadet. At an academy.... you already know they serve.
I have no doubt there are plenty of sexual assault cases involving ROTC programs. But like cheating in a civilian school, they don't make the headlines.
falconfamily
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ROTC students would have statistics rolled into the college statistics. They are not treated as separate from the student population. There are current studies that suggest that 1 in 5 to 1 in 4 women at civilian colleges are subject to sexual assaults, usually from an acquaintance and often while intoxicated. In fact at Yale the rate of sexual assaults is greater than that of the city of New Haven which is a city that ranks among the highest in the United States for crime. Another way of looking at it is that you would be safer from sexual assault in downtown New Haven at midnight than on the campus of Yale.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-combat-historic-sexual-misconduct-rates.html
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My guess is it is simply the media attention given to the academies. It's hard to pin something that happens at Big State U on the military even if a cadet or midshipman is involved.
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Well, posting what they did on social media would be just about the opposite of an "honor violation".
At CGA an honor violation is when a cadet lies, cheats, steals or attempts to deceive. Anything else is a conduct violation (or isn't a violation at all).
As for a kid not giving another kid a ride, you can either categorize that as doing the right thing, and following the rules, or leaving a kid behind. Now, let's say he leaves him on the side of a road and the kid is jumped and beaten. Well, not leaving that kid behind isn't so great. Yes he didn't break a rule, but someone suffered as a result (also as a result of someone else's decision).
Someone mentioned earlier that if people go to a party and a guy leaves a girl, who is passed out, behind, he should be sent home too. I would agree that shipmates have to watch out for their shipmates, and the safety and wellbeing of your shipmate is a concern, but we also get into some gray areas. What if they're doing something wrong? What if you stepping in to help could end up going south?
I had a classmate who was at a part and saw a guy mistreating a girl (not sexual assault, but being rough or abusive). He stepped in. The guy didn't back down, tried to get into it with my classmate and my classmate broke the guy's jaw. Sure he may have helped the girl, but he also was punished for his actions. Now, they didn't throw everything at him, and I think the general feeling was he did the right thing, but he was also responsible for his actions.
The conversation gets interesting when we start to discuss if following the rules is always the right thing, and if not following the rules should lead to consequences. It's not always cut and dry, and I doubt the academies are looking for the guy or girl who would hang their shipmate out to dry just to check the "I'll followed the rule" box.
Understand, I'm not advocating for breaking the rules, I'm only saying, once you break them, expect to, at some level, be held accountable. And yes, I have taken risks that could have backfired, but were taken on principle. Had they backfired, I would have expected to be held accountable.
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Not to pick on falconfamily but keep in mind that sexual assault includes but is not limited to rape. Nor, in the case of a flasher, does it actually involve assault on anything other than the eyes. As a country I think we need to do a better job of describing the statistics as most people think sexual assault always involves, at least, something more than mere undesired physical contact. Just saying we need to treat these stats with a grain of salt unless we also understand what lies beneath them.
Makes sense, although when articles are written about any crime committed over the past years, if the person had any connection to the military, no matter how small, the headline usually starts out; "Army soldier arrested for...." plug in any service in that headline.
I certainly understand that the academies make a much juicier target for the media.
In the State of Washington if you pull over to the side of the road, stand behind a bush and, well, releive yourself and are caught in the act by the police, you have to register as a Low Level Sex Offender. Gives a whole new importance to "Make sure you go before we leave the house"
falconfamily
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Not sure why you think that anyone is picking on me since I only just entered this discussion. While we may on may not disagree on the issue, the facts we have are what they are, this is data from Sarah Lawrence College, it summarizes the statistics compiled by the New York State Coalition Against Sexual Assault. The report was compiled from the Bureau of Justice Statistics using data from 2001. I am not saying that everything they cite is correct. But the primary source is credible. Even if you think that this report is inflated and cut the numbers in half, it is quite sobering:
Statistics about Sexual Assault and College Campuses
The following statistics were compiled by the New York State Coalition Against Sexual Assault
At least 1 in 4 college women will be the victim of a sexual assault during her academic career. Hirsch, Kathleen (1990)”Fraternities of Fear: Gang Rape, Male Bonding, and the Silencing of Women.” Ms., 1(2) 52-56.
At least 80% of all sexual assaults are committed by an acquaintance of the victim. Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2001.
48.8% of college women who were victims of attacks that met the study’s definition of rape did not consider what happened to them rape. Bureau of Justice Stats. “Sexual Victimization of Collegiate Women” 2000, US DOJ.
More than 70% of rape victims knew their attackers, compared to about half of all violent crime victims. Dennison, Callie. Criminal Victimization 1998. Bureau of Justice Stats, DOJ.
There are 35.3 incidents of sexual assault per 1,000 female students on a campus as recorded over a 6.91 month period (the academic year of ‘96 – ’97) as reported in the 2000 DOJ Bureau of Justice Statistics report “The Sexual Victimization of College Women.”
On average, at least 50% of college students’ sexual assaults are associated with alcohol use Abbey et al., 1996a, 1998; Copenhaver and Grauerholz, 1991; Harrington and Leitenberg, 1994; Presley et al., 199). Koss (1988), Within the study’s nationally represented sample of college students the results found that 74% of perpetrators and 55% of rape victims had been drinking alcohol prior to the assault.
In a survey of high school students, 56% of girls and 76% of boys [some of whom may be incoming college freshmen] believed forced sex was acceptable under some circumstances. Acquaintance Rape: The Hidden Crime, 1991.
There is also an authoritative study done by the Nation Criminal Justice Referrence Service, that seems to support much of what was summarized above. https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/221153.pdf
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falconfamily
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I fully understand that point, but given your example, one might also wonder how broadly these SA statistics are impacting the military. Numbers are just numbers, unless one can fully understand the context. But it is unwise to dismiss them just because you don't like what they seem to be saying.
Never meant to say I would dismiss what they say, just that they should be expanded to differentiate the specific abuse.
Given these statistics, online universities look very attractive.
falconfamily
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This issue is so difficult to understand, the statistics are so off the charts that it is hard to fathom. But we need to keep in context how kids are socializing, there is so much going on with social media, young people are sexualized at such a young age by the media. We have created such a restrictive environment for drinking, that we may have inadvertently created a drinking subculture that is not led by adults, but by kids who teach other kids how to socialize with alcohol (thus binge drinking, etc). It seems we have a societal issue that will not be fixed by simply infusing honor, integrity, religion, etc. It is not that simple.
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