Multiple news websites corrected or retracted stories falsely accusing Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker of wanting to eliminate sexual assault reporting requirements in the state’s university system.
Jezebel reporter Natasha Vargas-Cooper first published the accusation Friday in a article with the headline “Scott Walker Wants Colleges to Stop Reporting Sexual Assaults,” stating that under the new state budget, universities would no longer be required to report the number of sexual assaults on campus to the government
Vargas-Cooper wrote that Walker was a “conservative werewolf” and that the proposal was an attempt to play his “conservative strong man card.” The error was later picked up by the Daily Beast and the Huffington Post.
“Under Walker’s budget, universities would no longer have to report the number of sexual assaults that take place on a campus to the Department of Justice,” Cooper wrote. “There are no policy recommendations in Walker’s budget how or what would replace these reporting mechanisms. The Governor simply instructs that they should be deleted.”
In fact, the University of Wisconsin (UW) system is still required by federal law to submit sexual assault reports to the federal government. University administrators, not Walker, had requested that the requirement to submit reports to the state government be waived because it was redundant.
