Such Demands

[DunBoyer]

@DunBoyer - you are a bit confused. If a felony has been committed you don’t need to worry about informing the university. You inform the police. You go to the hospital, you say you have been sexually assaulted, you make a statement including the name and/or description of the perp(s), the location, the time, etc. And you let them do their jobs.

It’s rarely that simple. While it would be wonderful if every victim of sexual assault went to the police, and this prompted a timely and thorough investigation followed by an accurate verdict in court, there are few jurisdictions in this country where that’s the case. The process is far from perfect, and this (as well as other factors, such as pressure from friends/family - since most people know their abuser - and the grueling demands of a trial) leads to 80% of assaults going unreported (https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/11/19/study-sexual-assaults-greatly-underreported-/3648197/).

If there truly is a rash of assaults upon the female university students (funny - haven’t seen this one covered by parents discussing safety . . )

First of all, as above, most assaults go unreported. Second, the parents on this forum are a very limited cross-section of the university as a whole, and I’d be surprised if any parent felt the urge to share a story like this with random strangers at a university event. Third, the university does everything it can to limit access to statistics and other information on this issue, because there is such a thing as bad publicity. Most discussions of safety focus on the surrounding neighborhoods, not sexual assault, because it’s easier to spot a “shady” (which for many people means “black”) person than a victim of sexual assault. This is largely an invisible problem. By the time most of a university community knows about issues like this, the damage has generally been done.

…then it needs to be addressed through the proper parties.

According to the Department of Education, a school/university is absolutely one of those parties. The Dear Colleague letter (https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/letters/colleague-201104.pdf) directed educational institutions to create a disciplinary process separate from any police investigation. That’s a good thing - it means the university can separate students (especially dorm/housemates), impose no-contact orders, and take other steps designed to protect both parties, instead of having them interact repeatedly while a police investigation runs its course. The lower burden of evidence involved in this process is a riskier step, and the university process should absolutely happen in addition to (and not instead of) a professional investigation by the police, but there are actions (for instance, moving a perpetrator from their dorm) that the police can’t order a university to pursue. Creating a formal process to judge whether such actions are appropriate, instead of doing whatever an administrator is in the mood for, is a big step forward.

There have been plenty of examples of wrongly accused students (many of whom have sued their universities for making unfounded and unjust judgements against them).

This is a perception furthered by the media, but the numbers say otherwise. An update to the literature on this topic found that 2-8% of accusations are false (http://ndaa.org/pdf/the_voice_vol_3_no_1_2009.pdf). Meanwhile, 80% of assaults go unreported. Which is the greater problem?

If some frats truly have a rape culture, there is a simple way to fix that through refusing to associate with those parties. Boycott the event. Protest and call the press. Exercise your right to speak out against the culture. Shine the light of day on what’s happening. As long as students are continuing to attend these parties, they are contributing to that rape culture.

That is, assuming there truly IS a rape culture. You see, it’s kind of hard to know, given that no one apparently feels like calling the cops. Odd.

So the onus is on the victims to make their ordeals an extremely public experience, and open themselves up to snap judgments by every student on campus?

Or are you blaming victims, and only victims, for assaults that go unreported?

Many students do just this, and avoid certain frats, but a fraternity’s reputation is not evidence admissible in court. The testimony of an independent sober monitor absolutely is. The system you’re happy to maintain gives us one, but not the other.

Even in those cases when people attend a frat party anyway, “He/she/they knew this frat had a rape culture” is never a reason to ignore sexual assault.

Now, let’s suppose the university decides to get tough with the Greek system and mandates RSO status. What will happen? The frat will fold, the members will move to another location and hold the same parties, this time under completely private auspices. What will the university do then?

If a frat decides limited university oversight is an undue burden, that doesn’t sound like the kind of frat a university wants near its campus. Denying them the “Greek life” label will hamper recruitment, and the university has the power to limit access to leadership roles for any student who remains a member. If refusing vaccinations puts the community at risk and justifies exclusion from campus, joining an organization that rejects basic safety protocols isn’t that different; it also puts others at risk, and should be discouraged.

The students are smart enough - and should be mature enough - to put on their Big Boy pants and fix this issue themselves.

I’m sure victims of sexual assault appreciate the advice.