Many colleges pride themselves on their athletic programs and the out of state recruiting of athletes, many?

Question

of which are African American. Is it possible however, that there is a correlation between the recruiting of out of state African American athletes and an increase of rape on campus? Is it something that could be studied? Could it be regressed as a dependent variable in a typical regression analysis? If there was any connection could something like that even be discussed?

See the article for reference: http://www.startribune.com/467/story/763740.html

Answer 1

Correlation between race and incidence of rape does NOT equal causation. You can run statistics between any number of variables and try to draw associations (a la Freakonomics). but at the end of the day, if you are looking for a simple way of quantifying a racist hypothesis, you cannot rely on numbers to tell you the truth. They are just numbers with p-values.

Again, every statistician knows: CORRELATION DOES NOT EQUAL CAUSATION.

Answer 2

Gumdrop Girl gets to the point....a correlation doesn't suggest causation. You would have to control for a tremendous number of potential confounding variables to even think about drawing even the most preliminary of conclusions. Maybe urban campuses draw more African-American students in general, and since there is more crime in heavily populated areas (whether by students or not), there might be higher reports of rape. Or the size of the school itself may be an issue. Bigger schools tend to have bigger athletic programs (thus more black athletes may be recruited) but also bigger party scenes and greek communities. More partys with alcohol would likely be correlated with more rape, independent of the presence/non-presence of black athletes.

In short, if anyone even attempted to draw the conclusion you propose, it would be based on highly flawed methodology and analysis from the start. Of course, I'm sure people have tried, as statistics will always be twisted to fit people's conclusions.