Campus Rape: Women Confront College Administrations' Silence
The following is not my story exactly but it is what happened to me. I confronted my attackers in a judicial hearing presided by a professor, a staff member, and a fellow student. The 3 guys got punished but not as we had hoped - in fact - no where even close. They were put on probation, had to write an essay on relationships with women, and had to go to an anger management seminar!!
Tell me what you think!!
By Jessica Moore
Rape victims are four times more likely than non-crime victims to have contemplated suicide after the rape, and 13 times more likely than non-crime victims to have attempted suicide (National Violence Against Women Prevention Research Center). On college campuses, 25% of female students will suffer rape or attempted rape.
Campus fraternities in particular are breeding grounds for sexual harassment and violence, from verbal abuse to gang rape. A 1990 national survey of more than 12,000 students by the Campus Violence Prevention Center at Maryland's Towson State University found that about half of all reported acquaintance rapes were committed by frat members and athletes.
In Gender and Society, sociologists Patricia Martin and Robert Hummer describe the world of fraternities as characterized by a "concern with a narrow, stereotypical conception of masculinity and heterosexuality, a preoccupation with loyalty,... and an obsession with competition, superiority, and dominance."
A major reason why campuses are unsafe for women is because college administrators do almost nothing about rape to avoid bad publicity and embarrassing their consumers (students and parents) and wealthy donors (alumni and corporations).
Campus authorities often pressure sexual assault victims to keep the case within the jurisdiction of the school and to accept plea bargains that let the perpetrators off the hook. University administrators typically use campus judicial boards to rule on cases of sexual assault, which were originally set up to judge cases of plagiarism and honor code violations.
Most of their "judges" have no legal training regarding sexual assault, and their punishments for rape are the same as, or even less than, the punishment for plagiarism - typically one year suspensions. Universities rarely file criminal complaints, and only 1% of male student rapists are actually prosecuted. Even fewer are convicted.
The legal justice system also fails to seriously prosecute rape claims because juries and judges often buy into prejudices and myths about women, which are reinforced by the media.
Incredibly, a common excuse for dismissing instances of rape is that large numbers of women are falsely crying rape. However, a study by a New York sex crimes analysis unit found that only 2% of reported rapes are false allegations, the same percentage as for any other crime. Many people still consider a woman to be at fault if she dresses in revealing clothing or flirts, as if women don't have the right to flirt or wear what they want!
Another misconception is that rape is the result of irresistible male urges, rather than an expression of power and control. As a result, young rapists are often considered to be merely immature boys who haven't yet learned to "control themselves," or who "don't know what they're doing."
Even many rape victims have internalized these backward ideas, blaming themselves for "being stupid" or being "in the wrong place at the wrong time." Many women also believe that because the man was a friend it couldn't have been rape, even though 75% of all rapes are committed by acquaintances of the survivor (US Bureau of Justice Statistics) and 57% of college rape victims are attacked by dates.
The result is that the vast majority of sexual assault survivors keep it to themselves. On campuses, rape is the most underreported crime (only 5% of victims report it), and 50% of these women will tell no one about the crime (US Student Association). A Senate Judiciary Committee report in 1993 estimated that 84% of rapes are never reported, with only 2% of rapes resulting in convictions.