Sexual assault and rape are serious social issues in the United States. Sexual assault can happen to anyone, regardless of age, gender, race, or sexual orientation; However, women are most commonly the victims of sexual assault. Many students in colleges don’t know the true meaning behind sexual assault, which increases the rates of college rape. Sexual assault is “any unwanted sexual act against a person or without a person’s consent—any sexual, physical verbal or visual act that forces a person against their will to have unwanted sexual contact or attention” (“Sexual Assault and Rape”). Many colleges disregard campus rapes in order to keep their reputation intact. Caroline Heldman discusses in her article how “no college in the U.S. has come up with a plan to effectively shift rape culture on their campus”. People need to start understanding that if this shift does not occur soon, we are putting girls all over the world in danger.
Rape is known to be the most common violent crime on American college campuses today. Rana Sampson goes into further detail in her article on how college years are the most vulnerable for women since “women ages 16 to 24 experience rape at rates four times higher than the assault rate of all women”. College women are more at risk for rape and other forms of sexual assault than women the same age, but not in college. Sampson state that it is estimated that almost 25 percent of college women have been victims of rape or attempted rape since the age of 14. Many students in college experience rape but decide not to report it. Many victims think that their college will not do anything about it. Jed Rubenfeld explains that “because of low arrest and conviction rates, lack of confidentiality, and fear they won’t be believed, only a minuscule percentage of college women who are raped — perhaps only 5 percent or less — report the assault to the police. Research suggests that more than 90 percent of campus rapes are committed by a relatively small percentage of college men — possibly as few as 4 percent — who rape repeatedly, averaging six victims each. Yet, these serial rapists overwhelmingly remain at large, escaping serious punishment”. This raises the question of why should women feel confident enough to come forward about their sexual assault without reassurance that the state and college will correctly handle the situation?
One college that has been convicted of continuous mishandlings of sexual assault is Vanderbilt. Even though, Vanderbilt is known to be one of the most prestigious colleges in the United States. Recently, there was an ugly rape case involving their football team that just can’t get worse. On the second floor of the Gillette House dorm at Vanderbilt, there was a broken door that has been knocked off. When school officials checked the security cameras, they found one of their highly rated football players who just transferred, Brandon Vandenburg. Bobby Allyn published in 2013, only a few months after the initial assault and stated that “hat officials eventually discovered about the events of that night would lead to the indictment of four football players for rape and another for alleged involvement in a cover-up”. On a Saturday night in June, Vandenburg went out with a 21-year-old student from Oklahoma who he had been casually dating. When they both returned to Vandenburg’s dorm after a long night of drinking, the girl was seen to be completely unconscious. Vandenburg called down three of his teammates, Cory, Brandon, and JaBorian, to help him bring the girl into his room. Some time after, 4 football players entered the room; different objects were used to penetrate the victim. Vandenburg took pictures and videos on his phone, and sent the others the footage. This was used as the main component of evidence during the trial. Even though there is such a graphic video, the coach of the football team claims, that “people always speculate and gossip. There is no truth to that accusation whatsoever. It’s inflammatory” (Allyn). Vanderbilt has kept quiet about these accusations until further notice. They will do whatever they can in order to keep this story under wraps. Situations like this is exactly why women do not usually come forward.
Similarly, Emerson College’s handling of a student’s sexual assault case caused so much stress that the victim ended up in the hospital and eventually dropped out of school, a new lawsuit contends (Kingkade). In April 2012, Jillian Doherty had consensual sex with a male student, but declined when he requested anal sex, it was then that he choked her and forcibly penetrated her. Doherty reported the assault in March 2013, and concluded with a final hearing in May. At the hearing, Tyler Kingkade writes that “the accused ‘was allowed to present new evidence, a letter of character, from a fellow Emerson student, who had no involvement with the hearing, assault, or the investigation’, the suit claimed.” According to Doherty, she was not given an opportunity to view the letter. The suspect was found not responsible because both he and the victim admitted to have been drinking before the incident and the court ruled her statement “inconsistent”. As a result of the first hearing, Doherty told Huffington Post “It was just the worst feeling in the world knowing you’re telling the truth and no one believes you.” Doherty was granted an appeal in the summer of 2013, and a new hearing took place in October. After the second hearing, the accused was found responsible for the assault and was expelled from school. By the time the hearing was over, the damage has already been done. Doherty’s grades dropped she had chronic depression and PTSD. She began “an outpatient treatment program at Arbor Hospital to address the emotional distress from reporting her assault” (Kingkade). According to the lawsuit, she was not granted academic accommodations to do her class work from home during that time, and unfortunately had to leave Emerson in Spring 2014, which was her dream school. The suit against Emerson claims that they violated the campus safety law, the Clery Act, by underreporting the sexual assault. This further proves, that even with laws against sexual assault are in tact, colleges and the government are still not handling these situations correctly. All in all, Walt Bogdanich explains that “school disciplinary panels are a world unto themselves, operating in secret with scant accountability and limited protections for the accuser or the accused.”
The difference in the amount of people who do and do not report their sexual assault is overwhelming.About 80 percent of campus rapes are not reported to police, according to a U.S. Department of Justice report on sexual assault. Julia Glum states that “researchers found that 26 percent of students and 23 percent of non-students chose not to report their rapes because it was too personal to tell police. More non-students than students said they didn’t report the crime because, they believed, the police could not or would not do anything to help.” Victims most of the times feel like they do not have a voice after being sexually assaulted. Society needs to seem more open and understanding when a situation like rape arises. Many victims of rape blame themselves for what has happened to them. They usually put the blame on what they were wearing, what they drank, where they were, and the time of day etc. These victims have to understand that no one is perfect and they were in a situation that they could not have controlled. Rebecca Nagle, co-director of the Baltimore-based activist group FORCE, told International Business Times earlier this week “We live in a culture where survivors are taught … to doubt your experiences, We need to build a culture of support for survivors”. Sexual assault is never the victim’s fault. You deserve to feel safe and supported. From the perspective of a university administrator who is mostly concerned with his school’s reputation, a rape that goes unreported is a rape that never actually happened (Kitchener). This shows exactly why women do not report their assault, because of the clear mindset of a highly respected school administrator.
There are a couple of things we know for sure about rape on college campuses, but here are two: It happens, and universities lie about it (Stern). Many colleges decide to keep their rape victims in the shadow and will decide not to tell state police of what has happened. “’When it comes to sexual assault and rape, the norm for universities and colleges is to downplay the situation and the numbers’, researcher Corey Rayburn Yung, a law professor at the University of Kansas, said in a release’ (Timm). In 2006, Fox News reported that administrators at Eastern Michigan University covered up a rape and murder of a student, 22-year-old Laura Dickson, all while letting her parents think that she died of natural causes. Joseph Shapiro explains that, “despite federal laws created to protect students, colleges and universities have failed to protect women from this epidemic of sexual assault.” Colleges have a lot to lose when they admit to having a rape problem on campus. College codes and procedures were designed to punish for plagiarism and underage drinking, not to prove the crime of sexual assault. Many administrators use that excuse to justify them keeping the rape a secret. Many women face interrogations by administrators who do not seem to know what a rape exam is.
Many colleges will try to resolve the problem on their own. But, instead of making it better, they only make it worse. Last year, Bridgewater State University withheld the names of two men charged with rape on campus and did not notify any students or faculty about the incident. The school didn’t notify its 11-member board of trustees. Maria Papadopoulos quoted when Richard M. Freeland said, “Students and parents have a right to be concerned if they learn about such activity from the media, rather than from campus officials.” “O’Neill said withholding the names of accused rapists from a college community and the public is ‘ridiculous’ – and it shows that university officials are reluctant to be transparent about crimes reported on campus.”
In 2012 at Grinnell College, Emily Barlett received text messages from a guy “if you ever tell anyone God help you”, only ten minutes after he left her dorm room. That night, she told an advocate on campus that she was sexually assaulted. A few days later she went to campus security to file an official report. College administrators decided to set up a meditation session between the rapist and the victim, a practice the U.S. Department of Education prohibited a year before. The meditation was a failure because it re-traumatized the victim and didn’t bring a resolution to her case (Kingkade). She later took the case to a college court, where they found the accused not responsible for sexual misconduct, despite the photos of deep bruising on her body and the text message he sent the victim-threatening her if she told anyone about what had happened. “He was deemed responsible for “disorderly misconduct” and “psychological harm” and punished with a year of probation” (Kingkade). The accused was still allowed to play baseball and take the same courses as the victim. At Grinnell College, students were forced to attend class with men the school knew have sexually assaulted them. The college made the offenders write short apology letters to the victim.
Some women started to struggle in their classes due to stress related to their assaults, they say, the college decided to push them off campus. In many cases, the victim would be placed on academic suspension while the offender would be allowed to return to campus. When one of the professors at Grinnell told the administration office that a victim was placed right next to her offender, the college said there was nothing they could do about it. During one case at Grinell, the attacker landed an on campus job as the head of security, just after being accused. The way Grinell has handled their sexual assaults has driven two victims away from their dream school and caused daily anxiety for the third, who decided to stay on campus. The college constantly places the blame of them not doing anything about the accusations on the fact that it is a small campus. They believe that also because Grinell, Iowa is a small city, there isn’t any way for the victim and the attacker not to run into each other, so things at school cannot be any different than the two running into each other on the street. In 2013, almost a year after the assault, Emily Barlett decided to transfer to the University of Missouri. In 2014, Grinell sent Barlett a letter asking her to reconsider returning to the college, and had the indecency to ask her why she left. Another high profile case that occurred at Grinell, only a few months after Barletts initial assault. India Vannoy was assaulted by a classmate in her scholarship program. She filed school conduct charges against the male student, as did another women who was assaulted by the same man. The hearing occurred 5 months after the assault. Grinell found him to be responsible for psychological trauma in Vannoy’s case. He was suspended for a short 3 semesters before returning to campus. Vannoy was clinically diagnosed with PTSD and took the spring 2013 semester to recover. She returned in the fall, but landed on academic probation. Grinell promised to do anything to help her out during the ordeal, but Vannoy said that she did not receive any assistance. Instead, an administrator told her she was “mentally unstable” and suggested, “she take time off to get over it”. She was later placed on academic suspension, banning her from returning to campus; meaning that the attacker is allowed back on campus, but Vannoy is not.
The mishandling of sexual assaults led to a Senate report, it was found that 41% of schools conducted no investigation in the past 5 years, even though there were numerous complaints made by female students. Many women keep an assault a secret to prevent embarrassment, shame and the trauma of reliving the nightmare during legal proceedings. Some administrators care less about the victim, and more about their own image. Schools are terrified of the result if the world hears that such an awful crime has been committed on their campus. Colleges fear that any negative publicity will ruin their sterling reputations, which will result in diminished enrollment applications (Jarrett). Colleges need to step out of their own alternative world, and step back into reality. Gregg Gregg Jarrett explains that “these cases reveal an unsettling fact: many colleges are dilatory or derelict in failing to prevent attacks. Once they do occur, campus investigations have proven to be scant, shoddy and incompetent. All too often, complaints are brushed aside; local police are kept in the dark, survivors are encouraged to drop it and crimes are covered up. The alleged victim is victimized all over again.” Colleges will not change their course of action unless they are forced to do so. Until then, not much will be done about correctly handling a campus rape.
Since all of these mishandlings of sexual assault cases, the government was forced to make laws in order to prevent colleges from mishandling rape. A few of them are: “Yes Means Yes”, “Title IX”, and “It’s On Us”. “Governor Jerry Brown of California signed Senate Bill 967, nationally known as the “Yes Means Yes” bill, into action on September 28” (Hwang). The “Yes Means Yes” bill aims to provide help for victims of sexual assault on college campuses. This bill requires colleges to define affirmative consent as a clear “yes” rather than the absence of a verbal “no”. Additionally, the bill mandates that colleges educate their students on consent and sexual assault in order to prevent further rapes (Hwang). Senator Kevin de Leon of California said in a speech “our sisters, our daughters, our nieces — every woman deserves the right to pursue the dream of higher education without being threatened by the nightmare of violence and sexual abuse.” The bill also provides multiple resources funded by the state in which victims can use to assist them in the legal process of reporting, investigating and finalizing the case. Unfortunately, as of now the bill has only been passed in California. Officials are working to pursue this bill across America. Even “President Obama decided to join Vice President Biden and American people across the country to launch the “It’s On Us” initiative- an awareness campaign to help put an end to sexual assaults on college campuses” (Somanader). “It’s On Us” asks everyone, both men and women to make a personal commitment to step off the sidelines and be a part of the mission to end the epidemic of college rape. This bill sends guidance to every school that receives federal funding on their legal obligations to prevent and to deal with sexual assaults that occur on their campuses. Adding onto the bill, Obama created the “White House task force” to protect students from sexual assault to work with colleges on developing the best practices on how to prevent and deal with sexual assault. “Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 is a federal civil rights law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in any education program or activity that receives federal funding” (“What is Title IX”). Even a single instance of rape or sexual assault by another student or staff member could meet the standards of getting the victim justice.
The “Yes Means Yes”, “Title IX”, and “It’s On Us” bills do not implement a transfer of power between the victim and the rapist, as they aim to give victims a fighting chance (Hwang). Sarah Yang said, “It takes a lot of strength to report in the first place, and having to deal with an administrator that doesn’t understand the whole situation is very difficult.” Many of these bills will continue to arise due to this continuously rising problem of sexual assault, giving the universities more incentive and pressure to find more evidence in reports where there is none.
College rape has been and will continue to be a huge problem around the world if people do not make an effort to put an end to it. Many colleges have experienced handling huge rape cases such as: Vanderbilt, Emerson and Grinnell. College Rape is an important topic to be educated on because many students reading this will soon be attending or are already attending college and need to know about the different ways you could get help if you are sexually assaulted. Since this is such a huge problem in many colleges today it is important for everyone to know what you could do in order to help prevent future campus rapes.