Sexual Assault Case Study

“One in five women are sexually assaulted while in college” (Not Alone, 2014). In our class of twenty women that means that possibly five women have been sexually assaulted. Out of the five women that I stated could have been sexually assaulted they may have known the perpetrator and often will not report what has happened. According to the spring count of students completed by West Chester University, 9,211 of those students were females (“Headcount Enrollment”, 2014). If I go by the statistic mentioned earlier that one in five women is assaulted that would mean that 1,842 women have been sexually assaulted while enrolled at West Chester University of Pennsylvania. Out of 1,842 possible assaults only four were reported last year. Two of which the victims knew prior to the assault. Rankin and Associates consulting conducted a Climate Assessment on West Chester University in September of 2010, a section of the results focused on sexual assault on students. According to the report seven people who reported a sexual assault to the university described their reactions to the universities response. Two students shared the way they felt the response was inappropriate or poor. One described that they felt the suspension for one semester was not an appropriate response to an admitted rape, that public safety lost the victims statement, judicial affairs painted the victim offender as innocent, and that the registrar protected the offender putting the victim in harm’s way and everyone

During the spring of 2014, a 15 year old girl at St. Paul’s School had been raped by then senior, Owen Labrie Jess Bidgood and Motoko Rich, from The New York Times, state in their article, “Rape Case Puts Focus on Culture of Elite St. Paul’s School” that the senior had pre- planned his “senior salute”, a school ritual in which older students make sexual advances towards the younger ones. With the evidence of a handwritten list, prosecutors concluded that Labrie had the intentions of “scoring” the most girls, with the victim’s name in capital letters. Prosecutors said that the young girl did not feel comfortable with his advances at first, but after some persuasion from a mutual friend, she decided to go along with it. However, Labrie’s plans

Summary: The article “Rhode Island Schools Report 18% Increase in Sexual Assaults” Arditi explains to us of the unfortunate rise in sexual assault at universities in the Rhode Island area. She gives us statistical evidence of reports by journals and newspapers. These statistics showed an increase of 65 sexual assaults by 11 schools near Providence and a 40 percent increase for 29 New England schools (Arditi). These sexual assaults are due to many conditions of the college, such as, its size, location, culture, and how well it deals with reports of the abuse. Colleges have a rising problem of victims failing to report crimes that were committed upon them. Along with problems with reports, sharing information between law enforcement and college student affairs was an increasing issue. Universities and colleges were not required to share data until a White House task force recommended that these institutions sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU)

While there is no documented first case of sexual assault at Boston University, it is clear that it was becoming a national problem by the 1970’s. As early as 1957 Eugene Kanin produced a study prompted by male aggression on university campus’s. In the study Kanin analyzed cases of one hundred and sixty two girls that felt they had been sexually abused on campus. Scholarly literature presented sexual assault on college campus’s by 1957 (Kamentz). In the 1960’s the violent crime rate skyrocketed across America. Women were the main recipients of the misconduct. It is likely that out of the thousands of students and women that attended BU at this time there were incidences of sexual assault. This became apparent nationally in 1972 when the government was called upon to change the law enforcement community (Sacco).

Parents are looking for safe places where their children will be able to acquire a vigorous education; therefore, safety is one of the main concerns when it comes to selecting colleges. This places institutions in a situation where they will do anything to keep a good reputation. There is a consumer protection law called The Clery Act passed in 1990, which requires institutions to report crimes that happen on campus (Bulletin), but statistics like “ninety-one percent of college campuses disclosed zero reported incidences of rape in 2014” (Becker) clearly show how colleges are trying to hide the truth regardless of the policy. This is a moral hazard that creates an incentive for colleges to not accurately report cases. It’s been established that most of cases are not reported, which it is something “good” for institutions because they are less affected. But what if all cases were to be reported to the police instead? Institutions will definitely make sure to prevent any sexual assault in the first place. Consequently, there is a loss of trust in the institutions because victims believe that nothing will be done just like in the Turner case. Are institutions willing to sacrifice their reputation by making public every sexual assault case? We know that the answer for this is no. They value more the money that enters the institution more than the safety of the students who bring the

While most of these schools do not give a lot of information about the victim, except for each type of school has had one big case where there the articles give a lot of information about the victim. Harvard was the only Ivy league school to release the name of a victim, Alyssa Leader and two students from the class of 1960 and 1964, from any of the Ivy League school. In an Huffington Post article Alyssa Leader name is used. The article stated, “[Alyssa] Leader officially filed a school complaint against Doe for abuse, sexual assault and harassment in February 2015, prompting a university investigation. Her main goal was to have him removed from her dorm, she told HuffPost,”

Schools vary widely on how they fulfill federal requirements on how to report and respond to sexual victimization. Many colleges in Oregon, including the University of Oregon, have been criticized for attempting to keep campus assault reports under wraps, whether to shield victims from harrowing criminal investigations or to protect their own

The following universities are in the PASSHE system: Bloomsburg University, California University, Cheyney University, Clarion University, East Stroudsburg University, Edinboro University, Indiana University, Kutztown University, Lock Haven University, Mansfield University, Millersville University, Shippensburg University, Slippery Rock University, and West Chester University. The table shows the crimes that have been reported on and off campuses. The missing data is a result of universities not publishing all of the numbers and certain years for the crime log. In the data below it is clear that liquor law, drug law, and theft are the most common crimes in all of the PASSHE universities. The number of a sexual offenses varies year to year. These numbers are not consistent to show a certain pattern. In the crime report for 2014 the numbers are lower than the last year which could be caused by the awareness and training programs the universities have in place. With this being said it could mean the data is unpredictable or the universities did not publish all of the

She described to me a situation where UNCW failed to alert the students in a timely manner about a possible case of sexual assault on campus (B. Whitley, personal communications, April 24, 2017). After she informed me of this, I decided to research the rape and sexual assault statistics that the school is legally obligated to update each year. The statistics showed that in 2015 rape was reported seven times on campus and 3 times in residential facilities (Annual Security Report…, 2016, pg. 41).

For one, the reason why students receive responses like the ones stated above is because when schools are presented with sexual assault cases, the administrators tell the students not to report their crimes or even talk about it because it will ruin the school’s brand and reputation. One of the most important aspects to any college or university is their brand and how that brand will help schools make money and get their investors, a.k.a. students and alumni, to pay for that brand. The fear is if a school where to start reporting the sexual assaults on their campus, they would become known as the “sexual assault school” and people would be discouraged to sending their children there or donating to the school, ruining the brand. This is why so many survivors struggle to reach administrators in the first place, because their number one priority is to make their school appear as a safe institution to the outside, rather than a safe place on the inside.

With the majority of assaults being committed, are in a sexual manor, the Safety Response Team will direct it focus on sexual assaults. According to a 2016 study released by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), “an average of approximately 21% of undergraduate women across the nine schools participating in the study reported experiencing sexual assault since entering college. Non-heterosexual college females reported significantly higher rates than their heterosexual female peers. The majority of rape and sexual assault victims reported being victimized by someone they knew ("Protecting Students from Sexual Assault", 2016). With the numbers reaching close to twenty-five percent there must be strategic action that will manage, cope and adapt to this need for reformation in the Colleges issue on

Universities in Florida are on a mission to put an end to campus assaults. President Barack Obama announced his initiative, where thereafter, the government released sixty-seven schools that are currently under investigation due to campus assault cases (USA Today, 2014). On January 22, 2014, Barack Obama established the White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assaults. The White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assaults was created to prevent assaults and help schools better respond to these incidents. Its purpose is to improve the safety of students on college and university campuses.

Sexual assault occurs on every college campus. Surveys from campuses across the nation could be used to try and challenge this claim, because within them, many universities reported of having zero cases of sexual assault; however, most schools can claim this small number only because they hide any reports of sexual assault. Why is it that an institution would hide an act that harmed one of its own students? A huge reason is that the perpetrator of the crime is mostly always one of the school’s own students as well. Being known as a school that admits and educates rapists will ruin a school’s reputation, and reputation is the primary aspect that a school prides itself on.

Bureau of justice, the most recent and methodologically rigorous studies show that sexual assault still occurs at rates similar to those identified more than twenty years ago when Koss, Giducz, and wisiewski found that approximately 27.5 percent of collage women reported experiences that met the legal criteria for rap. On the presentation they describe the prevalence of sexual assault on college campuses as well as the systems and procedures in place to address it. It will focus on the role power has in this issue, including the powerful men on campus such as athletes and fraternity members as well as the administrators in power who determine the punishments and actions taken against the perpetrators. Female students are most at risk of acquaintance rape in the first few weeks of collage. Most women’s do not report a rape because of confusion, guilt, or fear sometimes feel betrayed, they may be ashamed to tell parents or collage counselors. The effects of sexual assault can be feeling of humiliation, helplessness, anger, self-doubt, self-hate, and a student may become depressed and withdrawn, lack concentration, sleep badly and do poorly in

Basing the research on one single school, and on one single year, gives very little “accurate” information. There needs to be a diversification of the database to consider these numbers and these statements to be valid. Male victims should also be taken into account when tallying the numbers. The article focusses mainly on women being sexually abused by men, but there is a big possibility that men were also targets of sexual assaults, and them being male doesn’t make it any less relevant. This alternative side to the problem should be presented and further looked in to in hopes of not only bringing awareness to the issue of male sexual assault, but also of getting the proper numbers and the most accurate information out there to the public. All in all, the article brings up many issues regarding sexual assault on females, specifically those brought on by drinking and partying at fraternities, but there is a lot more information to gather concerning this issue: sexual abuse on men, rapes occurring for other reasons, fraternities’ rights, etc. A mix of education and awareness as well as bigger sanctions needs to be imposed when these events occur in hopes of bringing these elevated numbers