UW: rotten at the top

We hate to turn the page from our previous post where the discussion is still going at 80 comments, but this news is not unrelated in that it also deals with misrepresentation. (comments can still be added to the previous post, or just comment on the same issue here.)

A recent UW press release claims that UW-Madison is rising in overall university rankings. In the CWUR (Center for World Univ. Rankings, based in United Arab Emirates), the UW rose from the 27th ranked university worldwide in 2018 to 25th in 2019 (21st to 19th nationally). But has the UW really improved? A rise of two spots doesn't even surpass the margin for error, and we were unable to find any other ranking in which the UW has risen or in which is ranks as highly as in the study cited by the UW.

In the highly respected Times Higher Education (THE) rankings (image), the UW slipped from 33rd to 36th in reputation score from 2018 to 2019. This score is important because, although it doesn't focus on measurable attributes like student acceptance rates, faculty/student ratio, library quality, and research output, it does measure the perceived quality of a school among academics--which is important for getting a job or getting into grad school.

More significantly, THE ranks UW 43rd overall among world universities. Thus, the UW isn't quite as good as its reputation.

Even worse, THE now ranks UW-Madison as the 23rd best U.S. university (note that this is consistent with the CWUR ranking of 21st in 2018). That compares to rating as the 10th best U.S. university in the 1980s (that includes private universities such as Harvard, Stanford, etc). Also, UW-Madison now ranks as only the 8th best public school; that's not bad, but in the 1980s, it ranked 3rd, trailing only Berkeley and Michigan. In the new US News rankings of public U.S. universities, UW-Madison doesn't even crack the top 10.

In the widely cited QS world university rankings 2019, the UW is even further back at 53rd (20th among U.S. universities), ranking behind such venerable bastions of scholarship as Fudan University (China), the U. of British Columbia (Canada), and the U. of New South Wales (Australia). Ouch.

Finally, the Princeton Review's list of top party schools. Not that it means much, but the UW has slipped to #13 this year. But hey, we still rank higher as a party school than as a place to get a degree!

In citing the CWUR study, it is obvious that UW administrators cherry-picked the study that would paint UW-Madison in the best possible light--and it's still a big drop from a few decades ago. Elder UW administrators must be dreaming of the old days.

The $64,000 question: Is the UW's slide driving Hoofer Sailing Club's slide..? Someone ought to climb Bascom Hill, find the chancellor, and slap her in the head with a copy of the Princeton Review until she gives a straight answer. Or rip that ridiculous sifting and winnowing plaque off the building and use that.

Culture of dishonesty

On Friday, former UW wide receiver Quintez Cephus was found not guilty of sexual assault (rape). Prosecutors argued that the two women who accused him were too drunk to consent to having sex, but it took the jury just 30 minutes to agree that the prosecution was full of shit.

Cephus and former teammate Danny Davis, both of whom are black, testified that the two women, who are white, were not as drunk as they claimed and that they spontaneously undressed after entering Cephus' apartment. Incredibly, the UW-Madison detective who interviewed one of Cephus' accusers in her dorm room shortly after the encounter didn't even note how drunk she was. And this guy is a detective?

The moral is: if a woman voluntarily goes into a man's apartment, gets naked, and then signals for attention, those actions amount to consent.

The Cephus case appears to be yet another instance of women with emotional problems refusing to take responsibility for their actions and making false allegations to try to throw the blame.

Certainly sexual assaults do occur, as with former student Alec Cook who was expelled and subsequently convicted of felony sexual assault. Yet, even in that case, it is evident that one or more of his accusers lied. One has to wonder how much of the truth got lost in the vitriol of that case.

False reports

The Cephus case has eerie parallels in Hoofers. Former commodores have been accused of sexual assault and sexual harassment but were not convicted--probably for lack of any wrongdoing.

False reports may be more common than generally believed. In a 2016 case, a woman reported that she had been sexually assaulted by three men near Memorial Union. Her story turned out to be utter crap--possibly induced by lingering trauma from a supposed previous assault years earlier. For all anyone knows, that one was bogus too.

Former Wis. Union student building manager Abby Panozzo also claimed that she was raped, in 2006. However, her story falls apart to reveal not a rape but a deeply disturbed woman. No charges were ever filed.

The rate of false reports of sexual assault is supposedly 5-10% but may actually be much higher. Moreover, that number doesn't include baseless reports (where a person reports something that actually occurred but is not a crime) or the far more prevalent and insidious problem of embellished reports. The vast majority of reports are likely embellished to some degree. As a dumb but honest cop once said, everybody lies.

How many women end up naked in a guy's bed because their parents never taught them how to say "no"? It may indeed be the parents' fault; the problem is that innocent men are often harmed by the ensuing false police report. And how many young women are damaged goods as a result?--time bombs waiting to wreck some guy's life. If you're a young woman and you don't want to have sex, JUST SAY NO. Don't get drunk, take your clothes off, and then say no.

Speaking of taking your clothes off, keep in mind that over a dozen surveillance cameras now observe part or all of the lakefront area. No doubt Union administrators, most of whom have never seen a live naked human before, are hoping that someone does take their clothes off...