Class bias

When I used to read newspapers from the 1930s, I was struck by the strong bias against the lower classes.  I suppose it was even worse a few hundred years earlier, when the aristocrats viewed peasants as little better than livestock.

Things are better today, but a recent piece of legislation reminded me that the problem has not entirely gone away.

SaVE instructs colleges and universities to provide programming for students and employees addressing the issues of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault and stalking. Education programs shall include:

  • Primary prevention and awareness programs for all incoming students and new employees

  • Safe and positive options for bystander intervention

  • Information on risk reduction to recognize warning signs of abusive behavior

  • Ongoing prevention and awareness programs for students and faculty

So here’s my hypothesis, and I want you to tell me if I am wrong.  Most policymakers come from the upper classes. Therefore they care about their own class more than the lower classes.  That’s not to say they don’t care about the lower classes at all, indeed many are so rich they are willing to favor programs that redistribute a modest amount of income.  But nonetheless, they care about their own class more than others.  This is not a radical claim; I suppose it might even be in some sense hardwired into our brains that we should care more about people who are similar to us.

My specific claim is that this campus anti-rape program reflects class bias, as it doesn’t apply to young people who are not in college.  Possible counterarguments:

1.  Maybe the rape problem is more severe on campus.  But I recall reading that it’s more severe among non-college students.

2.  Maybe it would be hard to require non-college students to take the classes.  But couldn’t you require the completion of the program at various “checkpoints”—renewing a driver’s license (or getting a similar ID for drinking), getting government benefits such as food stamps, unemployment compensation, etc.?  That would not catch everyone, but it would include a very large share of the population.

So which is it?  Class bias, or am I missing something?  My claim is that the ruling class doesn’t care as much about poor people being raped.

PS.  In a weird way I see this campus safety act as being subtly linked to the recent racist comments by Maine’s governor, although I wouldn’t blame others for seeing that as a stretch.

PPS.  You might argue that these programs are ineffective, but even if that were true, it would have no bearing on this post. I’m pretty confident that the proponents believe they are at least slightly effective.

PPPS.  Off topic, but I highly recommend Kevin Drum’s excellent essay on the right to die.  And I wish him well, he’s one of the best bloggers out there, and also one of the most honest.


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35 Responses to “Class bias”

  1. Gravatar of Jamie Jamie
    16. January 2016 at 13:32

    Considering the orientation on sexual assault was followed by a discussion of the required book “Connections” I can see the connection between class and sexual assault prevention.

    But seriously I do not view it as active class discrimination. Rather a myopic view of the world. Which politician’s kids or the social circles they hang around don’t attend college? Inadvertent discrimination tends to be a product of gross over generalizations of the problem. It’s easier to blame specifics like the college atmosphere, fraternities or “male culture” than some larger, more systemic and obscure problem. Activist, politicians and professors have a hard time declaring a problem and not providing an answer, irrespective of its validity. Without concrete information, people tend to fall back on their natural biases or narrow perspective of the world.

    If we had clear solutions to the problem, do you think we would have different responses to alleviate it? Is that feasible?

  2. Gravatar of Jean Jean
    16. January 2016 at 13:57

    Scott, what do you think diversity majors DO when they finish college? They become part of the administrative bloat that has driven tuition through the roof. Class plays a part in that, but whenever the ranks of public and semi-public workers are expanded, a certain political party benefits.

  3. Gravatar of E. Harding E. Harding
    16. January 2016 at 16:20

    “In a weird way I see this campus safety act as being subtly linked to the recent racist comments by Maine’s governor, although I wouldn’t blame others for seeing that as a stretch.”

    -So when the victims are White, pointing out their race is Wrong, while when they’re Black, pointing out their race is Necessary. Got it. And perhaps it is linked, though I have my doubts. The Black and AffAc athletic/role in campus rape is seldom discussed on the left.

    And I don’t think this is class bias at work at all. Bias, certainly, but not clearly linked to class. My guess is this is only applied to colleges because that’s where the news media is, and it would be only a small step along the road to total SJW domination of the unis. Taking SJW domination of the rest of America so far would be a much greater and less accomplishable step.

    “And I wish him well, he’s one of the best bloggers out there, and also one of the most honest.”

    -BwahahahaLOL. Certainly, I don’t trust Drum at all. Maybe a little more than Krugman, though less so than Murphy, whom I rarely trust.

  4. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    16. January 2016 at 17:04

    Jean, I don’t see how that addresses my post. Wouldn’t that class expand even more with universal anti-rape programs?

    E. Harding, No wonder you like Trump.

  5. Gravatar of Bob Murphy Bob Murphy
    16. January 2016 at 17:07

    Scott, do you think this program will actually be effective at reducing the incidence of rape on college campuses?

  6. Gravatar of Or-el Vaknin Or-el Vaknin
    16. January 2016 at 17:12

    http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/rsavcaf9513.pdf

    College student women do not report rapes as frequently to police as nonstudents do.

    Non-students are 1.2x more likely to experience rape and sexual assault than students, and 1.5x more likely to be the victim of a completed rape.

    Requiring the completion of programs to get a driver’s license is one thing (though it would be quite onerous for the population and cost a whole lot), but trying to tie it to things like government benefits is actually more class-tied than the current program because it would disproportionately target the less-wealthy who need those benefits.

  7. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    16. January 2016 at 17:25

    Bob, I have no idea. In general, I prefer decentralized decision making for the standard Hayekian reasons. Thus I’d prefer the Fed’s did not order colleges to do these programs, but rather let each college consider the costs and benefits on its own. I presume if the programs were effective then students or parents of students would pressure colleges to adopt them.

    Or-el, Thanks for that data. You said:

    “but trying to tie it to things like government benefits is actually more class-tied than the current program because it would disproportionately target the less-wealthy who need those benefits.”

    I think you misunderstood me. I was suggesting that the program be applied to all young people, both in and out of college. Right now only college students benefit from the program, so if my proposal added low income people, it would make the policy less class biased.

    I certainly agree that if applied only to recipients of public assistance, there would be another sort of class bias, in the opposite direction. But when you add college, driver’s licenses and government benefits, you’ve picked up probably 98% of young people.

  8. Gravatar of E. Harding E. Harding
    16. January 2016 at 17:46

    “I’ve recently become less confident that tight money leads to lower interest rates (but not this week!!)”

    -Thank you.

    “The Hive Mind has made me view IQ as being more important in economic development, as well as in savings rates, good governance, etc., than I had assumed.”

    -Thank you. And what did you assume earlier?

    “I’m less in favor of intellectual property rights than before, and was growing increasingly worried about their impact on economic equality even before this recent study came out.”

    -Thank you.

    “1. The parts of the former Soviet bloc that privatized faster tended to do better, or at least less bad.”

    -Eh? Those parts of the Soviet Bloc with fossil fuels and less corrupt institutions tended to do better. The best was in Turkmenistan (fossil fuels), Azerbaijan (fossil fuels), the Baltics and (PPP only) Belarus. The worst performance was in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, as well as Moldova and Ukraine.

    “The presumption should always be in favor of privatization, deregulation and free markets, except where there are pretty well-established exceptions, such as pollution regulations or income redistribution.”

    -Riiiiiight. The presumption should always be towards not doing stupid stuff (like North Korean trade bans in the 1990s, or the mass institutional collapse and decay in 1990s Russia, Ukraine, and Moldova) and towards perpetual reform.

    “There is no well established evidence that SOEs make sense, so countries should get rid of them.”

    -Easier said than done.

    “China probably did well despite its SOEs.”

    -So did Belarus. Agreed SOEs generally aren’t very dynamic, but often, getting rid of them is either difficult or a non-starter.

  9. Gravatar of E. Harding E. Harding
    16. January 2016 at 18:20

    And I also have a post on savings rates here:

    https://againstjebelallawz.wordpress.com/2015/12/28/a-closer-look-at-saving-and-investment/

    TL;DR, they’re necessary for growth, but by no means sufficient.

  10. Gravatar of Bob Murphy Bob Murphy
    16. January 2016 at 19:43

    Scott,

    Right, that’s what I was guessing your (general) view was. So in that light, I was surprised by the theme of this post, which I might paraphrase as, “Why is the government setting up these programs which won’t help college women, when it’s ignoring analogous programs that would do nothing to help less educated women? I imagine their phony concern for college students reflects class bias.”

    See what I mean?

  11. Gravatar of John S John S
    16. January 2016 at 20:33

    Somewhat off-topic**, but Trump now tops the GOP race in the prediction markets: +14 on Hypermind (41%) and +11 on PredictWise (40%). Do you still believe Trump is very unlikely to get the nomination?

    You may be interested in this article which describes the history of Trump’s main supporters–“Middle American Radicals.” I think it nicely compliments your recent EconLog post on the European Right and the future evolution of the GOP.

    http://www.nationaljournal.com/s/74221/return-middle-american-radical?mref=home

    ** But not completely–both Trump’s rise and the spread of gynocentric-policies like SaVE and “Yes Means Yes” are both connected to themes actively discussed in the Alt-Right.

  12. Gravatar of Mark Mark
    16. January 2016 at 20:41

    I think the reason this happens on colleges isn’t so much class-related as opportunity-related.

    The ‘rape epidemic’ on campuses is a manufactured issue, and it was manufactured by colleges, usually perpetually aggrieved campus feminists. Incidence of rape has been declining for decades both on and off campus, and is less common on campus than off campus. This is a case of some politically motivated students, faculty, staff, and administrators creating a public issue from anecdotes or poorly done studies and driving it into the public consciousness. Just like a few news stories about terrorist attacks or immigrants committing violent crimes will drive national security or immigration into public focus even if statistical trends show actually show that such problems are declining.

    It could just as easily be rape in McDonald’s parking lots or rape in national parks; politicians who benefit from that sort of crisis would jump on it just the same.

    Though it is worth pointing out that if the attitude applied to campuses today were applied to lower class communities it would create a problem for progressives: overwhelmingly poor ethnic minority males would end up being targeted by such policies. In truth, they often already are on campuses; plenty of black students at universities already have been railroaded by universities due to anti-due process policies. But if we remember, when Susan Erdely wrote her discredited story about the rape at U of Virginia, she expressly picked that university because it was so predominately upper/middle class, white, and (by university standards) conservative. It is simply far more politically savory for the progressive-minded to characterize the well-to-do, white, privileged frat boys as a bunch of rapists. That, I think, is at least one reason why universities are ‘good’ for this sort of political theater.

  13. Gravatar of E. Harding E. Harding
    16. January 2016 at 21:11

    I put Trump’s chances at winning the nomination at 60% in my January 1 predictions for the year. Sometimes, the chattering class loses and sanity triumphs. He’s certainly going to win Mississippi and New York.

  14. Gravatar of Gary Anderson Gary Anderson
    16. January 2016 at 21:15

    I am the first to cry race war, from the top. But college may be different because often time parents send their kids away to college. The kids are in a vulnerable situation, far more so than the ones who stay home after high school and work. So, I don’t see it as premeditated class warfare.

    I do see Pete Peterson’s bashing of public school teachers as a form of class warfare, as charter schools are very profitable as tax shelters for Wall Street. Bashing public school teachers is despicable, since charter schools are not required to take students if they don’t want them, leaving public school teachers with the problem kids. I have heard Peterson put a billion dollars into the campaign against teachers. You can check out the facts of it.

    Also, when someone from Wall Street says that not all jobs are dignified, or people should not make a livable wage working fast food, that is another direct attack on the poor, and for the purpose of making more profit.

    I wrote another article defending market monetarist analysis, and may have another one ready soon. You guys make sense, which is why central banks fear you. They can’t take down economies if they have to keep monitor and target the GDP! I just don’t trust bankers, I guess: http://www.talkmarkets.com/content/us-markets/fed-monetary-errors-could-have-made-the-great-recession-much-worse?post=82876

  15. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    16. January 2016 at 21:28

    Jamie, You said:

    “Without concrete information, people tend to fall back on their natural biases or narrow perspective of the world.”

    Yes, and I wasn’t implying the class bias was malicious, they simply don’t see the other half.

    E. Harding, Not sure how any of that relates to this post.

    Bob, I guess you forgot to read my PPS.

    John, You asked:

    “Do you still believe Trump is very unlikely to get the nomination?”

    No, I no longer believe that. Oddsmakers have him at 37%. I hadn’t realized that I was living in a country of morons.

    Mark, The post was discussing Congressional legislation. Did the GOP support this?

    Gary, College students aren’t “kids”, they are adults. And I would not assume that those who don’t go to college “stay home”. I certainly would not have stayed home if I had not gone to college.

    What’s happened to this country? How did we ever win WWII?

  16. Gravatar of Gary Anderson Gary Anderson
    16. January 2016 at 21:51

    My son graduated with an MBA at age 22 (maybe the youngest ever) from Bentley. He spent all 6 years at Bentley. The first two years of college he made kid mistakes. I am happy he survived totaling a rear wheel drive car in snow and ice and a drinking situation.

    If I had known about the incidents, happening clear across the country, at the time, I would have probably aged worse than I have already aged. But, parents of girls in college have even more to worry about from sophisticated predators, you know, like Bill Cosby.

    And Bentley is pretty safe, I have been there, but maybe UCSB or UCLA with thousands upon thousands of students are not quite as safe.

    Scott, this is an interesting statistic. Most high school grads go to college by age 26. Just FYI: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/29/why-students-dont-go-to-college_n_5901124.html

    Dropouts make up 6 percent of the nations’ students. Some of them get to college. So the percentage of students not going to college from among dropoouts and HS grads has to be less than 18 percent. http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=372

  17. Gravatar of E. Harding E. Harding
    16. January 2016 at 22:07

    ssumner, I personally don’t like the Econlog comments at all, since they keep putting me in the spam filter.

  18. Gravatar of E. Harding E. Harding
    16. January 2016 at 22:08

    This was in response to your near-contemporaneous Econlog post, BTW.

  19. Gravatar of E. Harding E. Harding
    16. January 2016 at 22:17

    “I hadn’t realized that I was living in a country of morons.”

    -Only a moron would vote for anyone other than Trump in an election such as this. And you do know 1/2 of Republicans have an IQ below 101, right? What’s your beef about the Donald? Unless you’re prepared to endorse an alternative, don’t diss him. Trump 2016!

  20. Gravatar of E. Harding E. Harding
    16. January 2016 at 22:18

    “How did we ever win WWII?”

    -The Japanese and Italians bit off more than they could chew.

  21. Gravatar of Daniel Daniel
    17. January 2016 at 02:45

    Not off-topic – sperm and testosterone levels have been in free fall for the last 30 years (it hasn’t stopped).

    What does the medical profession do ? Ban steroids and lower standards to avoid having to admit that half (yes, HALF) of Western men are suffering from testicular dysfunction.

    Meanwhile, masculine women (look up research on 2D:4D ratio) decide they have no use for such wimps and pick up the misandrist cause (conveniently labelled “feminism”).

    Of course, Western men put up with this crap, because their gonads are no longer functional.

    This is all there is to the “rape epidemic”. A power grab by masculine women.

  22. Gravatar of Anand Anand
    17. January 2016 at 03:38

    I don’t think you are wrong about class bias, however, just to round out the picture a little:

    Firstly, class bias does not only occur due to the ruling class being mostly from the upper classes. It also occurs because the upper classes have relatively more voice in the political system.

    Secondly, measures are often taken when one has the opportunity to push for these measures exists. It could be simply that these measures are easier to implement in a college setting, as compared to general. Perhaps the general public does not think these measures are necessary or effective.

    Thirdly, the general thinking by administrators and politicians around campus sexual assault has multifarious roots – increase in administrative bureaucracy, some amount of fearmongering, the change of expectations of students regarding college administration (they want them to act more as a parent) etc. In this respect, this article (http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2014/12/college_rape_campus_sexual_assault_is_a_serious_problem_but_the_efforts.html) by Emily Yoffe in Slate is informative.

  23. Gravatar of Mark Mark
    17. January 2016 at 03:53

    “Mark, The post was discussing Congressional legislation. Did the GOP support this?”
    I have no idea. I would say it’s beside the point though. As an issue, campus rape was essentially introduced from the political left and, to some extent, enjoys broad support (or rather, ‘political solutions’ enjoy broad support, not the campus rape itself) across the political spectrum for the simple fact that no one wants to be labelled pro-rape, which is what anyone who questions the necessity or fairness of an ‘anti-rape’ proposal immediately gets branded.

    My point was that the SAVE act is best viewed in the context of things like the Affirmative Consent law in California or the Dept. of Education’s move to make colleges lower evidentiary standards for punishing students accused of sexual assault. Much like anyone who proposes sensible reforms of sex offender registries would be immediately branded a pedophile-lover or something, and enough of the public would buy it to make such a position politically disastrous, no matter how innocuous.

    These efforts might be called a “War on Rape;” and to relate it to your post above on the War on Drugs, many progressives do (as I’m sure you are aware) very much oppose the War on Drugs precisely because it disproportionately criminalizes poor ethnic minorities. Well, if a ‘War on Rape’ were to be waged in poor ethnic minority neighborhoods (police standing around on street corners arresting men for cat-calling, barging into homes to ostensibly ensure that any sex going on is provably consensual, maybe?), much the same thing would happen: a bunch of minority men would be arrested, some for justifiable reasons, but largely for frivolous ones.

    Another reason why policies like this are popular on campuses, I would argue, is that they generally go hand in hand with doing away with due process in sexual assault cases, and this is not something the public is ready to swallow for the actual criminal justice system, but since universities aren’t criminally punishing anyone, merely expelling or suspending them, it’s a different matter. From what I’ve read, recent changes university policies on sexual assault seem to be viewed by many in the activist community as something of a trial run for ‘reforms’ they would like to see introduced into the actual court system, hence the focus on universities. Some prominent feminist voices on the matter like Jessica Valenti openly support reversing the ‘innocent until proven guilty’ concept in cases of sex crimes (against women, at least). But so far, they can only implement such policies with campus tribunals, as they have more like-minded people in university administrations than in the courts.

  24. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    17. January 2016 at 07:01

    Anand, You don’t find it odd that people talk about an “epidemic” of rape on campus, when the rate is higher off campus? Scott Alexander pointed out that it would be like politicians calling for more law enforcement in gated communities.

    Yes, burglaries occur in gated communities, and it’s unfortunate, but . . .

    Mark, But why wouldn’t “progressives” want the poor to also benefit from these programs? I don’t follow your argument. It seems like you oppose the legislation, which is fine, but that doesn’t give us any insight into those who sincerely believe the legislation is good. Do they care more about upper class women being victimized?

  25. Gravatar of John S John S
    17. January 2016 at 07:42

    Scott, it’s quite simple – Social Justice Warriors (SJWs, who are certainly the ones lobbying for this program) have relative superiority on college campuses, so that’s naturally where they aim their guns. They dominate the key administrative and compliance committees, which is whey they were able to get two Yale professors to resign last year over comments on Halloween costumes.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3350471/Yale-teacher-resigns-offensive-Halloween-costume-email.html

    SJWs don’t have enough pull in most other institutions to impose their preferred policies – yet. But they’d love to expand this legislation off-campus since – in the words of Ezra Klein – “men need to feel a cold spike of fear when they begin a sexual encounter.”

    http://www.vox.com/2014/10/13/6966847/yes-means-yes-is-a-terrible-bill-and-i-completely-support-it

    The prime movers behind this bill run a lot deeper than class biases (which are actually quite tangential).

  26. Gravatar of E. Harding E. Harding
    17. January 2016 at 10:17

    Thanks, John, exactly what I pointed out in my first comment here. And remember, this brouhaha is actually a full quarter century old:

    https://www.lewrockwell.com/2014/09/murray-n-rothbard/date-rape-on-campus/

  27. Gravatar of Lawrence D’Anna Lawrence D'Anna
    17. January 2016 at 12:41

    I don’t think you’re wrong about class bias, but I also think it has a lot to do with just, the sort of people who are likely to have rape at the top of their priority list of social problems are more likely to be leftish, feministish, socialistish, and those sorts of people have a lot more leverage in universities than they do in state governments. Activism is like electricity. It finds the path of least resistance.

  28. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    17. January 2016 at 13:58

    John, Look, you don’t need to convince me that America is completely insane when it comes to issues of race, sex and gender (on both the left and the right, BTW.) But my focus here was narrower.

    Lawrence, That tells me why there are activists on campus, but not why they lobby for laws that apply to campus but not elsewhere.

    You said:

    “I also think it has a lot to do with just, the sort of people who are likely to have rape at the top of their priority list of social problems are more likely to be leftish, feministish, socialistish, and those sorts of people have a lot more leverage in universities than they do in state governments.”

    I see lots of discussion on the right about immigrants and rape in Germany, so I don’t think it’s all on the left.

    In any case they seem to have great influence with the GOP in Congress, wouldn’t you agree?

  29. Gravatar of dw dw
    17. January 2016 at 14:09

    i suspect its partially because of class that the politicos are interested in controlling rape on campus, and not so enthralled with doing so else where, plus its cheaper too. since a lot of voters send their kids to college, and they do tend to vote more often, along with their parents, it because a pretty easy sell. is rape more prevalent on or off campus? hard to say, cause the crime stats are pretty iffy, partially because rape doesnt get reported because of other factors ( embarrassment, plus the police dont want to report it either as it makes them and their employers look bad). but we do have that example in Flint of where class had a pretty large factor to it. the state cut costs by replacing safe water with polluted water.

  30. Gravatar of Mark Mark
    17. January 2016 at 15:51

    “Mark, But why wouldn’t “progressives” want the poor to also benefit from these programs? I don’t follow your argument. It seems like you oppose the legislation, which is fine, but that doesn’t give us any insight into those who sincerely believe the legislation is good. Do they care more about upper class women being victimized?”
    To draw an analogy to the war on drugs (I think you’re inverting the analogy actually), do you think a progressive would actually defend the drug war’s focus on poor areas because they care so much about doing dealing with drug addiction among the poor? You forget that both of these policies (drug war and anti-sexual assault crusades), though both are meant to help people, also target people: purportedly violent drug criminals on one hand, and suspected sex criminals on the other. And just as anti-drug policies get focused in poor areas because those are the areas most affected by drugs (I would argue; not because of class bias, but rather, if anything, due to a misguided desire from perhaps disproportionately well-to-do politicians to help the underclasses; something like a ‘white man’s burden’ type of sentiment), there is every reason to expect that a disproportionate share sexual assaults occur among the poor, just like most other crimes.

    If you look at the demographics of people helped by the innocence project project, a huge portion of it is black men who were falsely convicted of rape or other sex crimes who couldn’t afford good lawyers or even pleaded to crimes they didn’t commit because they knew the jury would likely convict. Now, if the state were to intensify its efforts to deal sex crimes in poor communities (mostly through more policing or more draconian legislation and lower evidentiary standards), you would see even more of that: poor black men being convicted of crimes they didn’t commit, occasionally with white victims, and how would that news story look? Strangely reminiscent of black man lynched because white woman accused him of rape during the Jim Crow era; not something a progressive politician wants to take credit for.

    My overarching point is, when it comes to ‘anti-rape’ policy, progressives (who are the ones leading the charge, while conservatives more or less just go along with it it seems) are in a dilemma: on the one hand, their feminism dictates they be more aggressive on confronting the issue politically. On the other hand, these types of crimes are disproportionately committed by poor ethnic minorities, so, just like any other ‘tough on crime’ efforts, anti-rape efforts run the risk of increasingly criminalizing ethnic minority men frivolously or falsely, which goes against progressive goals. I think many progressives are smart enough to know that an aggressive anti-rape agenda being waged in poor black neighborhoods would have largely the same drawbacks of the war on drugs, and so would rather not repeat that mistake.

    This same dilemma is I think one reason why the War on Drugs is becoming less popular with progressives. “Helping” communities tends to go hand in hand with sending more of their people to prison.

    So I would in fact expect conservatives, ironically, to be more willing to apply anti-rape policies to poor neighborhoods partly because they would take less of an issue with sending poor black men to prison.

    Now, you may argue that this SAVE act won’t send anyone to prison; but I would reiterate that it is part of a broader policy agenda which is largely focused on more aggressive policing and more draconian punishment. Now it is definitely true that this set up leads to a rich white college girl’s rape getting more attention than a poor black woman not in college, but this is largely a biproduct of other motives; note that it is also the case a bunch of rich white college guys accused of rape also gets a lot more attention (Duke Lacrosse, or the Rolling Stone story for examples) than a poor black guy being accused of rape.

    Lastly, I’ll reiterate my point that universities serve as a nice alternative court system in which these sorts of policies can be implemented; poor black neighborhoods do not. Suffice it to say, any effort to implement an alternative court system in poor black neighborhoods would not be politically tenable. Unless you’re willing to have a special judge who can’t send people to prison, but can evict them from the neighborhood and deny them goods and services offered in the neighborhood should they be accused of rape but not be reported to the police. You can, however, do that on university campuses.

  31. Gravatar of Peter Peter
    17. January 2016 at 23:07

    I think your reason number 2 is mostly correct and the simple answer is that colleges are an institution to which the rules can easily be attached so that politicians can say they are doing something about it. So while I’m happy with the idea that such bias exists, I don’t think it is the cause in this case. I expect that the obligation applies to the colleges and not the students. I’m sure lots won’t attend the classes.

  32. Gravatar of Anand Anand
    18. January 2016 at 02:00

    Scott,
    You said: “Anand, You don’t find it odd that people talk about an “epidemic” of rape on campus, when the rate is higher off campus? Scott Alexander pointed out that it would be like politicians calling for more law enforcement in gated communities”

    I indeed find it odd. My third point was addressing this. As I said, I agree that class bias plays a part, I was just pointing out a few other factors.

  33. Gravatar of Art Deco Art Deco
    18. January 2016 at 09:46

    act as being subtly linked to the recent racist comments by Maine’s governor,

    Just out of curiosity, what do you think Gov. LePage has done or will do in his public life or in his mundane life that is injurious to blacks?

    Gov. LePage is an oddity. He’s an affluent and influential man who did not grow up in the bourgeoisie or the working class. His social background is small-town lumpenproletarian. English is his second language, after Acadian patois. He does not have certain affects or favor certain idioms. His critics fancy that he’s an irredeemable moral failure, when in truth their complaints are in the same taxon and Roger Ebert’s complaint that George W. Bush did not use his vacation time prior to age 54 to travel abroad.

  34. Gravatar of Art Deco Art Deco
    18. January 2016 at 12:45

    Off topic, but I highly recommend Kevin Drum’s excellent essay on the right to die

    It’s boilerplate, and considers no serious issues.

  35. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    18. January 2016 at 12:59

    Mark, Sorry, how is a program that helps people by educating them somehow equivalent to a program that throws them in prison? You lost me. This class doesn’t “target” anyone. If the program helps the college community, why wouldn’t it help all communities? Should we withhold food stamps from the inner city because we know there are lots of poor people there and we don’t want to stigmatize them? No, we decide food stamps would help the inner city, and if anti-rape programs helped the college community I don’t see why they wouldn’t also help the inner city. You are making things way too complicated, it’s simply class bias.

    Peter, I thought they were required to attend the classes.

    Thanks Anand, Sorry if I misunderstood you.

    Art, I know nothing about that governor except the racist statement that he apologized for. He may be a great guy; I certainly wouldn’t judge him just based on one statement. More generally, I think our society is much too quick to label people racist.

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