Yale is the only university that regularly issues reports on its handling of sexual assault complaints, the result of a 2012 resolution agreement with the Office for Civil Rights (OCR). The university is also unusual in reporting so many sexual complaints, the result of its peculiar decision to broaden the campus definition of “sexual assault” beyond all recognition.
The newest of these reports, issued as always by Deputy Provost Stephanie Spangler, has now appeared. And, as always, Spangler notes that Yale has chosen to redefine “sexual assault,” attributing to the term “broad ranges of behavior” that neither the criminal law nor common cultural understanding would define as sexual assault. Yale has never offered a convincing explanation for why it pursued this course, but the strategy does inflate the numbers, thereby helping to feed the current moral panic on campus.