Junk science and campus rape: a new inquiry casts serious doubt on the most influential study on collegiate sexual assault.

• Author: Soave, Robby
• Position: David Lisak

DAVID LISAK is hardly a household name. But over the last decade, he has become the single most important expert on a topic of increasing national concern--sexual violence on college campuses. Lisak's authority on the subject is well-established: The White House cites him in briefing papers, anti-rape activists promote his work in movies and books, and university administrators invite him to give lectures and sit on panels. Even those who are skeptical about the existence of a massive new campus rape crisis have largely declined to dispute Lisak's most significant finding: that the majority of campus rapists are serial offenders who commit routine violence until and unless they are apprehended.

Lisak's views have dominated the conversation about campus rape ever since the release of his 2002 study, "Repeat Rape and Multiple Offending Among Undetected Rapists." He believes campus rape adjudicators should view each and every accusation "as an opportunity to identify a serial rapist," since the accused student is likely to have raped multiple women. He has encouraged colleges to do more to root out serial rapists and banish them from campus. Efforts to reduce campus rape that focus on education and awareness are unlikely to succeed on their own, according to his line of thinking. These men can't be taught not to rape--they are undetected career criminals, and their very existence justifies the federal government's meddlesome intervention into students' sex lives.

But unquestioned deference to Lisak may have been a serious tactical and intellectual mistake. Why? An investigation into Lisak's signature work casts serious doubt on the reliability of his serial predator theory. The 2002 study routinely cited as foundational evidence in collegiate sexual assault discussions isn't even about campus rape--and that's just one of its many flaws.

For years, Lisak has exaggerated the scientific support for his theory while selling himself and his policy solutions to advocates, administrators, and politicians. Given that his science is much less convincing than it seems, perhaps the policies based on it also deserve a more skeptical look.

Dubious Data

Public outrage over a purported epidemic of sexual violence on American college campuses may have reached a high water mark on January 22, 2014. That's when the Obama administration released a 34-page report establishing a White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault.

The report included several of the erroneous statistics that have inspired mass hysteria over the prevalence of rape on campuses. "College students are particularly vulnerable: 1 in 5 women has been sexually assaulted while in college," it asserts on page 1.

These are astonishing claims. Also astonishing is how quickly they collapse when scrutinized byfact checkers. Women attending college aren't "particularly vulnerable. "The truth is precisely the opposite: Women attending college are less likely to be raped, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics--an unsurprising finding, since wealthier, better-educated people typically experience less violence than the socioeconomically disadvantaged. The...