A proposal: Cornell, NYU, and other universities that now, suddenly, want to show they care about reducing sexual assault on their campuses, should facilitate and support an R&D effort to find effective solutions. As in: Get various stakeholders together to brainstorm about things to try. Pilot those ideas with a control group. Measure impacts on behavior. Drop the stuff that doesn’t work. Expand the stuff that does. Repeat. This might seem obvious, but universities are *notorious* (in evidence-based policy circles) for not wanting to know if their campus sexual assault interventions work. They want to signal that they care, but they don’t actually think they can fix this so they just hope everyone moves on quickly. (It doesn’t help, of course, that advocacy groups don’t like the idea of having their ideas tested - they assume all their good ideas will work. They are wrong.) I saw this firsthand at UVA many years ago, and have been talking with colleagues at other universities about this consistent pattern ever since. It is infuriating. High rates of sexual assault are a policy choice. At universities and in the real world. We know how to find solutions to problems like this (this is what crime economists do for a living!), but have chosen not to. If Cornell, NYU, etc. are serious, this is the approach they will take. I know many people who would love to help. Let’s see if they call. 🤞🏻