Schools struggle to address sexual assault epidemic

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A prostitution scandal has rocked high schools near Sarasota, Fla. Police say a 17-year-old student at Sarasota High School tried to recruit girls from nearby Venice High School to have sex with older boys off-campus.

According to police, the 17-year-old used social media, including Facebook private messaging, to set up meetings with young men who paid $50-$100 and a bottle of alcohol for the service. Police believe he set up at least three deals and have charged him with felony human trafficking. Police also arrested John Michael Mosher, 21, accusing him of paying $40 and a bottle of liquor to have sex with a 15-year-old girl.

This news from Florida is the latest in a series of high-profile stories involving sex and students:

This year, freshman students at the University of California, Berkeley, had to attend a mandatory orientation session covering sexual assault. A new California law requires colleges and universities to enforce the “yes means yes” standard. The university told students that the yes “could come in the form of a smile, a nod, or a verbal yes, as long as it is unambiguous, enthusiastic, and ongoing,” CNN reported. Indiana University reported 54 alleged acts of forcible sexual assault between 2010 and 2012, which makes the school one of the top 10 in reported numbers of such assaults. The university claims the increase in numbers is a good thing because students are coming forward. The University of Montana is investigating the case of a woman who says she was gang-raped by four University of Montana football players in 2010. The young woman shared her story in a 60 Minutes Sports report. The encounter happened following a drinking competition. The victim’s blood alcohol level was three times the legal driving limit when she had a rape kit administered later. The University of Virginia is under fire for the way campus officials have handled rape cases. The university has temporarily suspended fraternity and sorority activities after Rolling Stone published a story detailing an alleged gang rape of an 18-year-old at a fraternity party in 2012.

Critics of campus sexual assault policies say universities are ill-equipped to investigate crimes. Robby Soave wrote on Reason.com that efforts “to beef up university adjudication of sex crimes—including the increasing popular ‘yes means yes’ bills—are doomed to failure” because academic institutions are equipped to handle academic infractions like plagiarism not violent crimes like rape. Meanwhile, school administrations have embraced their sex-charged campuses by putting condom machines in dorms and promoting the use of pithy partner-to-partner phrases.