Kavanaugh confirmed, deeper issue remains

The bruising Supreme Court confirmation battle involving Judge Brett Kavanaugh and his accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, focuses much-needed attention on a broader cultural issue playing out across America. The sexual-assault issue goes beyond Kavanaugh and the consequences of his youthful partying ways to confront academic environments where young men find shockingly few barriers to engagement in boozy sexual adventurism.

According to various studies, men in fraternities are three times more likely to commit sexual assault than those not in fraternities. The Kavanaugh debate serves as a warning that prominent national fraternities have yet to make adequate strides in eliminating a culture of sexual entitlement. In a 2015 survey, 32 per cent of male college respondents said they would be willing to force a woman into sexual intercourse if it posed no consequences. When the word “rape” was introduced into the questioning, only 13.6 per cent affirmed such a willingness.

None of this points to innocence or guilt in the Kavanaugh-Ford case. But Delta Kappa Epsilon, his fraternity at Yale, has been sanctioned repeatedly, including being banned from the Yale campus in 2016 amid allegations of rape and sexual misconduct. The commotion over Kavanaugh’s alleged actions will die down. The bigger issue shows no sign of going away anytime soon.