The Sunlight Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to providing transparency and accountability in politics, has announced that it’s suspending some of its popular reporting tools and considering mergers with other like-minded organizations. It seems likely that if it doesn’t find an appropriate partner, the organization could be shuttered for good.

The Sunlight Foundation is best known for data-heavy tools like Politiwoops, Open States, and Scout that were favored by journalists and policy wonks.

There are a number of reasons for the Sunlight Foundation’s struggles in recent years, according to a statement released by its chairman Mike Klein. Klein lists the organization’s struggle to find a new executive director, as well as its difficulty keeping its variety of tools funded and well maintained as issues. Klein also seemed to chalk up some of the Sunlight Foundation’s problems to the current technology and political climates, writing:

We are aware that the robust maturation of technology over the past decade has — happily but substantially — reduced the urgency of Sunlight’s early role as a leading transparency innovator. In addition, the board had to recognize that Sunlight’s initiating objective— to build support for better legislation against and regulation of the power of money in politics— has been significantly limited by the US Supreme Court’s 5-4 Citizens United decision.

There are also reports of layoffs for the Sunlight Foundation’s staff; Poynter reports that the Sunlight Foundation has laid off or is in the process of laying off five members. Poynter also explains that these layoffs track with a downward trend in members of the Sunlight Foundation’s staff over the last few years, stating:

Today’s reductions notwithstanding, the current headcount at The Sunlight Foundation is about 20, roughly half of what it was in early 2014, according to a source at the nonprofit. In the last two years, Sunlight has trimmed staffers working for its news and technology divisions.

No one really appears to know what to make of the organization’s announcement, although journalists who have relied on the organization’s tools were by and large upset:

Open government advocacy group Sunlight Foundation cuts staff, suspends reporting toolshttps://t.co/yDyOzoa6nx pic.twitter.com/kJX1QcT4nf

— Hadas Gold (@Hadas_Gold) September 20, 2016

Heartbreaking. @SunFoundation‘s legacy is immense. A huge influence on open data and data journalism and on me personally. https://t.co/7OhO5huO7M

— Scott Klein (@kleinmatic) September 20, 2016

the impact @SunFoundation had on government, journalism, the open data movement, and so much more is p much unparalleled. a *huge* loss.

— dan sinker (@dansinker) September 20, 2016

This is very sad/worrying news from @SunFoundation.https://t.co/7WPts0Ep02

— Ben Casselman (@bencasselman) September 20, 2016

It’s unclear exactly what happened to the Sunlight Foundation–whether it’s a lack of funding, vision, some combination of the two, or something else altogether. But for those of us who feel strongly about the power of data to shed light on our government, this is upsetting and concerning. While a merger may keep the organization alive, at least somewhat, there’s no doubt that this is in some ways the end of an era.

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post What’s Happening with the Sunlight Foundation? appeared first on Law Street.

Higher education is the most important aspect to economic prosperity. Colleges and universities prepare future leaders who will drive national and global economies. As globalization is not a new phenomenon, but an established process, education ties together countries via investments, banking systems, technology, and travel. As a result, the quality of education is on the agenda in many countries across the globe.

President Obama’s college rating system is a highly debated topic across the country, with policymakers and educators casting concerns over its shortcomings and dangers. The current administration has already introduced reform programs in health care and immigration, which were controversial at best; its plan to reform education is no different. It’s an all-encompassing reform that can play out either way. Read on to learn more about the benefits, shortcomings, and possible consequences of Obama’s college rating system.

Do other governments rank colleges?

Colleges and universities across the globe have long been rated by their governments in the hope of establishing the best educational value. Originally, independent agencies or non-profit organizations played the leading role in this task. Later, governments began to regulate and assess higher education. The United States is not the first country to take steps to ensure quality control in education. For example:

• Finland created the Higher Education Evaluation Council.
• Australia came out with the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency.
• The European Union has its U-Map.
• Britain assembled an online tool to showcase university statistics and measure college performance.

Some initiatives are more successful than others, but all reflect the need to provide meaningful tools for students and governments to compare educational value. Following the global trend, Obama’s college rating system is an attempt to ensure quality of learning and accountability on the part of educational institutions in the United States.

Why would Obama want to rank colleges?

There are generally three main reasons why the current administration feels the need to address the educational sector, and, specifically, to establish the college rating system: rising student debt, inequality, and falling graduation rates. The picture is rather bleak. The majority of the prospective student body cannot afford college without taking out loans. In addition, there are few jobs available, especially for recent graduates. As a result, some default on their debt, while others struggle for decades to pay back their loans. Unfortunately, not only do colleges charge a lot of money for education, the quality of learning is deteriorating as well.

Rising Student Debt

As more students continue to borrow money from the government to pay for their higher education, the number of those who fail to find a job after graduation and to pay back their loans has increased dramatically over the last decade. According to a recent study, 60 percent of four-year college students graduate with an average $26,500 in debt. In addition, tuition increases every year, prompting concerns over the affordability of higher education. The same study estimates a 231 percent public college tuition increase and a 153 percent private college increase over the last 30 years.

Watch the short documentary below for more information on the increasing costs of tuition and deteriorating value of education in America.

Inequality

Inequality in education is a direct consequence of high tuition. Students whose families cannot afford to pay tuition for their higher education generally have two choices. They can either take out loans from the government, which often lead to decades-long debt, or they can start working low-paying jobs right after high school. Those are two extremes, of course, as some students receive scholarships or combine loans and jobs; however, even if a student qualifies for scholarships based on merit, he won’t necessarily be able to pay the full remaining tuition. Not only does this scenario exclude bright-but-poor students from receiving high-quality education, but it prompts many of them to take out multiple loans that they may not be able to repay.

Watch the shocking video below to understand the realities behind wealth inequality in the United States.

Low Graduation Rates

The number of students who fail to complete their studies has increased throughout the last decade. As of 2013, the United States ranks 13 out of 34 countries measured for college attainment. The Chronicle of Higher Education provides in-depth data and analysis on graduation rates across the country, which vary greatly by the type of the higher educational establishment and its location. Click here to read its most recent overview.

Low graduation rates prompt concerns that the overall quality of learning is deteriorating, even though the quality of learning cannot be measured by graduation rates alone. Students drop out of college for many reasons: financial difficulties, family issues, transfers, or simply because they are taking a break. The current administration, however, believes that colleges need to make sure their students are making progress toward a degree, especially those who receive financial aid.

So, how will rating colleges fix these problems?

Using the college rating system, the Obama Administration hopes to reduce student debt, provide more access and opportunities to low-income students, and improve higher educational standards. The president’s plan is to use these ratings as a mechanism of accountability and transparency. Before taking out a loan, students will have access to information on loan default rates, employment outcomes, and anticipated monthly payments after graduation. If students can make informed decisions, it should help to reduce loan debt. Also, the government will provide more federal funds for those colleges that keep their prices low and improve quality. It should help to quell inequality of access to higher education and raise the value of learning.

What does the college rating system look like?

The Postsecondary Institution Ratings System (PIRS) is a part of the Obama Administration’s effort to provide more transparency and accountability in higher education. The government is planning to fully implement PIRS by the 2015-2016 academic year.

College Scorecard

PIRS is essentially folded into one tool, the College Scorecard, already available online through the College Affordability and Transparency Center. It’s very easy to use, and requires only basic computer skills and internet access. The College Scorecard is still in the process of development; for now it provides information on costs, graduation rates, loan default rates, and median borrowing. The Department of Education is still working on obtaining data on the average income of former undergraduate students. The College Scorecard also provides information on changes in an institution’s cost, making it possible to see if tuition has gone up or down over a certain period of time. In addition, students and their families can search by area of interest, college location, and type of college.

Watch the video below for a detailed guide on how to navigate the College Scorecard.

What does it measure?

PIRS measures three main factors: access, affordability, and outcome. All three can be matched to inequality, debt concerns, and learning quality as the above-cited reasons for establishing such a system in the first place.

• Access comes from the percentage of students who receive Pell Grants, in an effort to obtain some knowledge on how equal or unequal higher educational institutions are.
• Affordability looks at average tuition, available scholarships, and student loan default information, thus looking at debt concerns.
• Outcome measures how many people graduate, how many pursue advanced degrees, and the average income of students after graduation.

In addition to being an information hub for prospective students, the president is planning to seek legislation to allocate financial aid to those institutions that obtain high ratings on PIRS. The current administration emphasizes that before the government designates its funds according to this mechanism, the college rating system should be well established, taking into consideration all of the concerns from university administrators across the country.

In order to receive more financial aid via grants and loans, higher education institutions will have to provide the best value and improve on their performance, hence helping students from disadvantaged backgrounds.

What is the Obama Administration hoping to achieve?

The Obama Administration hopes to achieve greater accountability and transparency in higher education, especially with regard to the quality of educational institutions, student debt, and income after graduation. The system is meant to empower students and their families to make informed decisions when choosing a college or university to attend.

The president also plans to use the college rating system to aid policymakers who are allocating financial aid to higher educational institutions. It’s believed that such financial incentives will prompt colleges to improve their overall performance. The goal is to keep colleges accountable and transparent, rewarding those who will keep prices down and improve educational value.

The overall goal of the current administration is to decrease student debt and to increase access to higher education for low income students, improving quality of learning along the way.

What do critics say?

Obama’s college rating system is not without its critics who continue to debate its shortcomings and possible negative outcomes. Educational administrators, researchers, and policymakers across the country are troubled with what they see as a rather simplistic approach to rating schools, as well as reliability and validity of the data used, and predicting negative consequences for higher education.

Data and Measurement Problems

To assemble the College Scorecard System, the government obtained data from its own Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS). It’s a self-reported data collection mechanism that provides information on first-time and full-time students who seek undergraduate or certificate degrees. It is evident that only a limited population group is measured, completely excluding part-time and transfer students. One of the main concerns here is that PIRS counts transfer students as “drop outs,” which essentially can produce faulty graduation rates.

In addition, as IPEDS is a self-reported tool, there is a danger of missing data elements that can be unevenly distributed depending on data collection practices and the diligence of college officials. The data on loan default rates is also concerning, as it can double-count those students who take out multiple loans.

Some experts and researchers believe that PIRS is based on faulty assumptions. The lack of validity and reliability of the data used can misguide students and their families when they are choosing which college to enroll at. The measurements are also not comprehensive, which can lead to misuse of data and produce inaccuracies in college ratings.

Simplistic Approach

PIRS has also been blamed for being rather simplistic in determining the value of colleges and universities across the country. The critique is centered on the notion that some colleges cannot keep their price tags down as they depend on state funding. One study draws parallels between community colleges in California and Florida on one side and New Hampshire and Vermont on the other. The first two are generously supported by state funds, while the latter two have much lower funding from the state. It’s clear that California and Florida community colleges are able to keep their tuition low, and New Hampshire and Vermont are forced to raise theirs.

Healthcare prices and other external factors can greatly influence tuition rates.. The danger is that those colleges that cannot keep their prices low, even if it’s not their call, will suffer the consequences. They can be punished by receiving no or significantly less funds from the federal government via grants and loans. As a result, with already low state funding and an inability to receive aid from the federal budget, they will be forced to raise their prices even more.

The college rating system also doesn’t provide a distinction between program-specific and institution-wide performance. PIRS measures only the aggregated performance of colleges, failing to recognize successes of specific departments. For example, the criminal justice department at Rutgers University is considered to have one of the most comprehensive curriculums for students who want to work in this field. At the same time, other departments at Rutgers are considered less strong. Because PIRS uses an aggregated performance mechanism, there is a possibility that Rutgers University will receive a low rating on its scorecard. As a result, fewer prospective students will enroll in the criminal justice program, which, in reality, is very strong.

Wage Differences

As was mentioned earlier, the College Scorecard will contain information on post-graduation employment. This data will be released from the Internal Revenue Service and Social Security Administration and forwarded to the Department of Education for further analysis. The main concern here is the disproportionality of wages across professions. For example, business executives and doctors earn higher wages compared to teachers and social workers. Colleges that specialize in liberal arts and the social sciences can be at a disadvantage compared to science and technology-centered schools. Thus, certain higher education institutions can receive low ratings just because of the occupations of their graduates.

Conclusion

Both data problems and the simplicity of the rating system lead to concerns about the future of the higher education sector. Will it produce the desired results or lead to negative consequences?Obama’s college rating system can improve the performance of teachers and learning practices for students; it can decrease student loan defaults and tuition prices; and it can even become an all-encompassing tool of accountability and financial aid disbursement. At the same time, it can further stratify the educational system, widening the gap between exclusive private and second-rate public colleges and universities and hurt liberal arts schools or those with already low state funding. Despite its limitations, PIRS is a starting point on a long journey in developing higher standards, reducing costs, and fostering accountability in colleges and universities across the country.

Resources

Primary

The White House: Fact Sheet on the President’s Plan to Make College More Affordable: A Better Bargain for the Middle Class

The White House: Education at a Glance

The College Affordability and Transparency Center: College Scorecard 

U-Map: The European Classification of Higher Education Institutions

Australian Government: Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency

UNISTATS: Course Assistant

 Additional

American Council on Education:  Rankings, Institutional Behavior, and College and University Choice. 

Chronicle of Higher Education: Graduation Rates by State

Chronicle of Higher Education: Has Higher Education Lost Control Over Quality?

The New York Times: Colleges Rattled as Obama Seeks Rating System

The New York Times: On Bus Tour, Obama Seeks to Shame Colleges Into Easing Costs

MoneyBox: How Bad Is the Job Market for the College Class of 2014?

U.S. News: Report: U.S. Drops in High School, College Grad Rates

Valeriya Metla

Valeriya Metla is a young professional, passionate about international relations, immigration issues, and social and criminal justice. She holds two Bachelor Degrees in regional studies and international criminal justice. Contact Valeriya at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Obama’s College Rating System: Will it Fix Our Higher Education Problems? appeared first on Law Street.

We have apps for everything, especially for ranking things. If I want to know what a particular restaurant is like, I can use Yelp. If I need to hire a contractor (someday), I can use Angie’s List. Websites that help people share advice and feedback about doctors even exists in Healthgrades. When I was in college, I would look at my professors on Ratemyprofessor.com. At any given point, I can see rankings on pretty much anything I want, so it make sense that we’d be able to rank our civil servants as well. That was exactly the thought behind Five-O, a new app to rank cops created by teens.

Five-O was created by Ima, Asha, and Caleb Christian, three siblings who live outside of Atlanta. They wanted to provide a Yelp-like service for people who interact with members of the police force. This is how it works:

After interacting with a cop, users open the app and fill out a Yelp-like form on which they can grade the officer’s courtesy from A to F, check a box if they were verbally or physically abused, and add details about the incident. They can view ratings on other cops and police departments across the country, participate in community forums, and check out a Q&A titled “Know Your Rights.”

The Christians got the idea in light of incidences like Michael Brown’s death. They wanted to prevent tragedies like that from happening again by providing more information to the public.

The premise does seem a bit weird, I know. Services like Yelp, Angie’s List, or Healthgrades all provide rankings for industries that do allow consumer choice. If you don’t want to go back to a restaurant or doctor, you can choose to vote with your feet and walk away. The same isn’t true with cops — you don’t get to choose which officer pulls you over.

The app is important, however, for a different reason: accountability. In light of the horrifying events occurring in Ferguson, Missouri over the last few weeks, there are a lot of conversations floating around about accountability for cops. Some have suggested requiring cops to wear cameras would be make them more accountable for brutality and militarization.

Five-O would do something similar — it would allow the community to create and share information about their interactions with the police force. In towns where the police force has begun wearing cameras, interactions that led to complaints have gone down. In Rialto, California, cops have been wearing body cameras since 2012. After just one year wearing the cameras, complaints have gone down by almost 90 percent, and use-of-force incidents fell by 58 percent; however, those cameras can be very pricey. While the cheapest version of the software is about $40 per month per user, the app is a less invasive, and cheaper, way to provide some form of accountability.

Of course, the Five-O is significantly more subjective than a camera would be. If users are reporting their interactions, it’s possible that people will report inaccurately. But since incidents reported to the app don’t have any official status, hopefully no cops will be falsely accused.

The Christians say it’s not just about accountability, but it will also provide a way to thank and recognize police officers who do a good job. In general, it will provide a better way for communities to interact with each other about the police force. As the protests in Ferguson wage on and there’s a greater American conversation about cops and accountability, Five-O could prove to be an excellent idea to measure community interactions with police.

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Teens Invent New App to Track Community Interactions With Police appeared first on Law Street.

When New Orleans Superintendent of Police Ronal Serpas took office four years ago, he was faced with high crime rates, a depressingly low department approval rate, and a long history of police corruption and brutality. While lowering crime rates and rebuilding trust take time, his solution to corruption allegations and brutality has been relatively simple — require patrol officers to wear body cameras.

The New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) has been through several scandals, but none as severe as the Danziger Bridge incident, in which police officers shot, killed, and maimed innocent, unarmed citizens then tried to cover it up. The incident took place just six days after Hurricane Katrina and took the lives of a mentally impaired man as well as a 19 year old. It also spurred a Department of Justice investigation that resulted in a long-awaited consent decree, which imposed sweeping reforms on the NOPD.

One product of the consent decree is the requirement of patrol officers to wear body cameras in an effort to regain trust and ensure transparency and accountability in the future. Hailing this as the next step in American policing, Serpas has high hopes that the cameras will be well worth the $1.45 million investment. He believes that they are the best way to eliminate the “he-said-she-said” problem once and for all.

The 420 cameras purchased by the NOPD are required to be used by patrol officers whenever they are attending a “business-related event,” including traffic stops and responding to calls. The officers are encouraged to consult their videos before preparing a report and must attend a three-hour training session to learn how to use the devices.

The New Orleans Police Department is not alone in its use of body cameras; more and more police departments across the nation are beginning to require officers to wear cameras on duty. Police Foundation Executive Fellow Chief Tony Farrar recently completed a year-long study evaluating the effect that body cameras have on police use-of-force. He found the cameras to be associated with “dramatic reductions in use-of-force and complaints against officers.”

These cameras are especially appealing to troubled police departments such as the NOPD, currently facing federal scrutiny. Although Superintendent Serpas claims the cameras are a “win-win” for all parties involved due to the creation of an irrefutable record of what happened, there is the fear that the videos may just be for the benefit for the police.

Samuel Walker, emeritus professor of criminal justice at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, cautions against the practice of letting officers watch their own videos before writing reports. He argues that if an officer is planning to lie, the videos serve as a “good guide” to what he can get away with.

Another issue is the matter of who gets to view the videos and whether or not they are a matter of public record. While Serpas told NPR that he will hire whatever additional staff is necessary to handle public requests for the videos, he concedes that public record laws have “exceptions to releasing information, and there are directions about which information to release.”

A police department monopoly of the videos does little to curb the problem of false or misleading reports. If the public does not have access to the videos then, short of legal action, they still have little more than blind faith to ensure that officers are being truthful when they state that something was or was not recorded on the tapes.

Conspiracy theories aside, the NOPD seems to genuinely want the public to be aware of the cameras, going as far as having officers demonstrate the technology to random citizens. The point behind installing the cameras is to foster public trust, something that the department can only do by proving to the community that they have turned a new leaf.

The cameras fit over the officers’ ears and therefore allow the viewer to see everything that the police officer sees. This is naturally meant to inspire trust by deterring officers from filing false reports – what is the point of lying if you know that what you have done is caught on film? – but ironically enough it seems that the cameras may be doing more to curb the behavior of the people being filmed rather than the officers themselves.

For example, Lt. Travis St. Pierre told NPR that “they always have this one individual that they would go on calls and service for that likes to be disruptive, curse at the police, fight with the police, and when they got out and turned the camera on and informed her she was being recorded, she immediately said, ‘Ah. OK,’ and was not a problem at all. We’re seeing a lot of that kind of stuff.”

More polite citizens aren’t necessarily a bad thing, but stifling complaints or disagreements is not necessarily good either. As the NOPD’s bleak track record has shown, the police are not always right and they do not always act with citizens’ best interests in mind. Being able to freely voice your opinions and complaints — no matter how disruptive they may be — is just as important as officers not falsifying reports. As the use of cameras continues to expand in New Orleans and several other jurisdictions, it will be interesting to see how effective it is, and who actually benefits from the tactic.

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Nicole Roberts (@NicoleR5901) a student at American University majoring in Justice, Law, and Society with a minor in Mandarin Chinese. She has a strong interest in law and policymaking, and is active in homeless rights advocacy as well as several other social justice movements. Contact Nicole at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

Featured image courtesy of [Thomas Hawk via Flickr]

Nicole Roberts

Nicole Roberts a student at American University majoring in Justice, Law, and Society with a minor in Mandarin Chinese. She has a strong interest in law and policymaking, and is active in homeless rights advocacy as well as several other social justice movements. Contact Nicole at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post New Orleans Police Attempt to Regain Public Trust by Wearing Patrol Cameras appeared first on Law Street.

American University has a problem. Well, more specifically a small group of young men at AU have a problem. The “brothers” of Epsilon Iota, an apparent underground fraternity at the DC University, were outed in a major way recently when about 70 pages of their private emails, texts, and other communications leaked online. And trust me, it’s not good.

It’s important to note that this fraternity is neither recognized by the University, nor by any national chapter. In 2001, when they operated under the national organization of Alpha Tau Omega, they had their charter yanked due to hazing and underage drinking allegations. Instead of working with both institutions to regain their status, they continued to operate as an underground organization.

About two months ago, The Atlantic published an expose called “The Dark Power of Fraternities.” It’s an incredibly interesting read, and it focuses mainly on who is liable when things go wrong at fraternity parties. It has a lot to do with communication between the chapter and the national organization, but that article, in conjunction with this recent event does beg the question: What happens when there’s no accountability to the University or to a national organization?

So here are three things about this leak that are incredibly problematic, and what they can tell us about the concerning world of undergrad frats as a whole.

3. These emails indicate a coverup of some pretty awful behavior. 

Much of the conversation between these “frat” brothers involves an incident where a brother may or may not have hit a girl who was attending one of their parties. The guys seems to have a few goals. A very, very small percentage appear to want to figure out exactly what happened. The rest oscillate between blaming the girl, downplaying the abuse, and figuring out how to make sure that, “b*tches will still go to our parties.” Even the one brother who makes sure to emphasize that one should never hit a woman goes on to say that the priority needs to be formulating an excuse.

Abusive culture aside, there are just a lot of problems here. Because this is an underground organization, the actions that this young woman — who was probably abused in some fashion — could take were incredibly limited. She could bring suit at the University against the individual who hurt her, but given that this organization has absolutely no legal standing within the school, there’s not much they can do. There’s nothing preventing me and my friends from getting together and calling ourselves whatever we please as a club, and the school can’t do anything to stop that. And I’m not necessarily saying they should be able to — that’s my right in this country. What I am saying is that because this underground frat as a whole has no need to worry about getting in trouble with the school, they worry about things like “getting b*tches to still come to our parties,” without recognizing the consequences of their actions.

2. If it wasn’t for these emails, could anyone ever prove that the organization exists?

That brings us to our next point, and that’s one of accountability. These emails were leaked by someone who evidently got access to EI’s listserv — possibly a former brother, or someone who got a brother’s password, or whatever. But without these emails that do name some of the members, would this underground frat ever have been caught? It’s obviously operated for more than ten years, and has done an excellent job of never really having enough problems to shut it down entirely.

And what, exactly, can the University do about it? The University can maybe expel the students who said particularly inflammatory stuff, but unless they find every single one of these guys, the population will still exist on campus. They can still recruit new members if they want. The only thing the University can hope to do is catch enough members that staying involved seems to be too big a risk for those who remain. It s a gutsy move on the group’s part to remain unaffiliated from the University and from the national chapter — after all being affiliated with both of those institutions gives you legitimacy, money, and prestige. But they’ve done just fine, and I bet that they’ll keep doing just fine. And that’s a concerning notion to consider — that what this fraternity has been not only viable, but rather successful for the last decade.

1. These emails are really a perfectly horrifying example of campus rape culture. 

Here’s the really big problem with these emails, the part that elevates my internal yelling to full out banshee-like external screaming. I don’t even know where to start, partly because some of these are too disgusting to put on this website, and partly because there are just too many examples. This group consistently says overtly disgusting things about the women they interact with. These are, I swear to god, some of the more benign examples:

• “Get the b*tches in the right state of intoxication so the plows will be raining all over the place.” Great. Getting girls too drunk to consent. That’s not a gigantic, Texas-sized red flag. 
• “If your [sic] trying to get laid tonight bro don’t go with the Asians. They’re hit or miss. You gotta go straight w**re.” Racism and sexism. Charming. 
• “She had a friend who got raped at our house? I would like to meet this lying c*** and show her how african men treat their woman [sic].” I can’t even dignify this one with a comment. 

Believe me when I say that these are the mild selections from these emails. They constantly use disgusting, derogatory language to refer to women. Now, obviously they thought these emails would never get out, but it’s not just about a few people saying really dumb and gross stuff in private — it’s about the culture that this creates and propagates within this secret frat. Because this kind of language, this kind of culture, mixed with the lack of accountability and ability to be secretive is a veritable perfect storm.

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Anneliese Mahoney (@AMahoney8672) is Lead Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

Featured image courtesy of [Nejmlez via Wikipedia]

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post American University Has a Serious Secret Frat Problem appeared first on Law Street.