A Lancaster Sunday News front page article is headed:
“Experts point to ‘red flags’ at F&M, under investigation for sexual assault response”
It continues:
“Not a single forcible sex offense was reported at Franklin & Marshall College in 2010 or 2011.
“In 2012, according to statistics, there were 11 reports of forcible sex offenses at F&M; seven were reports of forcible rape.
“’Any school, including F&M, with zero sexual assaults reported for multiple years should be a red flag,’ said Annie E. Clark, a co-founder of the national organization End Rape on Campus. ‘With what we know statistically about campus rape, there is no way one college had zero reports of on-campus sexual assault for multiple years.’”
A factor not mentioned in the article is the simultaneous transition from former F & M president John Fry to Daniel Porterfield.
It does not surprise us that during Fry’s tenure that sexual attacks were under reported or not reported at all. We long deplored Fry’s disregard of the rights of others, the propaganda distortions on behalf of F & M, and the bad examples he set for leaders of other local institutions, especially Lancaster General Hospital, the Convention Center Authority, and the Lancaster Newspapers, Inc. Fry was an important factor in what we describe as Lancaster’s Dark Ages.
Nor would we expect anything less than candor and transparency from Porterfield. On our one and only meeting upon his arrival, he won our respect. He know of nothing subsequently to detract from it.
A slap on the back to the Sunday News for their report.
