{"id":23825,"date":"2015-07-23T11:20:11","date_gmt":"2015-07-23T15:20:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/?p=23825"},"modified":"2015-07-23T11:20:21","modified_gmt":"2015-07-23T15:20:21","slug":"state-board-of-education-member-doubts-sexual-assault-figures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2015\/07\/23\/state-board-of-education-member-doubts-sexual-assault-figures\/","title":{"rendered":"State Board of Education Member Doubts Sexual Assault Figures"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<div id=\"attachment_23826\"  class=\"wp-caption module image left\" style=\"max-width: 246px;\"><a class=\"fancybox\" title=\"State Board of Education member Rebecca Fishman Lipsey is questioning the accuracy of forcible sexual assaults reported on state college campuses.\" href=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/files\/2015\/07\/7-23-FishmanLipsey.jpg\" rel=\"\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-23826\" alt=\"State Board of Education member Rebecca Fishman Lipsey is questioning the accuracy of forcible sexual assaults reported on state college campuses.\" src=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/files\/2015\/07\/7-23-FishmanLipsey.jpg\" width=\"246\" height=\"261\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">State Board of Education<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">State Board of Education member Rebecca Fishman Lipsey is questioning the accuracy of forcible sexual assaults reported on state college campuses.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>A State Board of Education member is questioning the number of sexual assaults reported on state college campuses.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Rebecca Fishman Lipsey believes it is unlikely that there were only seven forcible sexual assaults reported by the 28-college sytem with more than 400,000 students. Those figures do not include crime data for the dozen schools in the state\u2019s university system.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Fishman Lipsey began Wednesday\u2019s board meeting by handing out pages of state college system crime data. Notice anything unusual she asked?<\/div>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s just a string of zeroes,\u201d she said of the column tallying forcible sexual assaults. \u201cInitially, for maybe half a second, my brain could go \u2018Wow, how wonderful there\u2019s not a single rape at any of our campuses. That\u2019s an incredible thing.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>But Fishman Lipsey said she doubts the news is that good. She asked the Florida Department of Education to look into the accuracy of the figures.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>\u201cIs there a massive amount of underreporting or something,\u201d she asked, \u201cthat\u2019s not enabling us to get a real picture? Because I can say without a shred of doubt that there\u2019s no way that [with] 400-plus thousand students, there\u2019s only seven forcible offenses in the entire state. That\u2019s not realistic. \u201c<\/p>\n<p>Education Commissioner Pam Stewart noted most college system campuses are commuter schools. Sexual assaults are more likely to occur in college dorms.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey may be more accurate than we recognize,\u201d Stewart said, \u201cbecause, remember, these are day schools \u2013 unlike universities.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Fishman Lipsey also wants the state to look into new technology to improve campus safety. Most schools relied on a series of telephones \u2013 marked by blue lights \u2013 to connect students with campus police during emergencies. But Fishman Lipsey said there are now smart phone apps available to instantly connect students with police.<\/p>\n<p>Polk State College president Eileen Holden said federal rules require accurate reporting and did not question the figures. She said college presidents would talk about the issue when they meet this summer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A State Board of Education member is questioning the number of sexual assaults reported on state college campuses. Rebecca Fishman Lipsey believes it is unlikely that there were only seven forcible sexual assaults reported by the 28-college sytem with more than 400,000 students. Those figures do not include crime data for the dozen schools in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23825"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/31"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23825"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23825\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23829,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23825\/revisions\/23829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}