Sexual Assault On College Campuses

Despite having hundreds of sexual assault cases each year, most colleges take little action to resolve these cases. In fact, only 20% of female sexual assault survivors report cases, the rest believing that it was too personal to share, or that if they did, the police wouldn’t listen to them. If they did report, often times it was to the local police rather than the campus police in fear that they would be shamed or turned away by the universities.

There is no way to escape the agony. There is no way to forget the suffering. There is no way to forestall the crime. Victim’s souls burdened by the pain, the nightmares and the terror from their attack. Just as shackles cinched tight around a prisoner’s ankles, survivors will forever drag along their haunting memories. Sexual assault is a mounting issue that preys upon college students. While, furthering their studies, pupils are at greater risk for being sexually assaulted as opposed to individuals of other age groups and walks of life. Students are more susceptible to become victims due to their new independence, the campus living environments and the low arrest rate.

Despite federal laws issued to combat sexual violence, each year 4,000 college women report to school officials that they've been sexually assaulted. What happens after they file those reports has stirred debate on campuses across the country, leaving parents and students fearful that colleges may not be the ivory towers of security and integrity that appear on their recruitment pamphlets.

Though it seems that making sure that the accused is not falsely incriminated is not the only thing that colleges have on their minds. Back in 2004, 91% of colleges recounted that they had a zero reported rape incidences. This means with about 11,000 campuses most said they had no rapes reported that year (Amy Becker). Something needs to be said about our system and the stigma of hiding instead of improving. The best way to improve the situation that is happening in America school systems, is to talk about what everyone will not talk about. There needs to be more communication, not just with who to blame for sexual assault but rape culture affects beyond the victim and the perpetrator.

“Among undergraduate students, 23.1% of females and 5.4% of males experience rape or sexual assault” (RAINN). Rape is a threat virtually anywhere people go, but no place has a higher risk for sexual assault than college campuses. However, many of these occurrences go without penalties against the attacker, and even more are not reported at all. The lack of consequences for the accused indirectly suggests that rape and other forms of sexual assault are allowable and create further problems for the victims of the horrendous actions. Harsher punishments need to be given out for sexual assault on campus, as the current rulings are biased and immoral.

Sexual assault has been a huge issue for many years on college campuses and universities nation wide. As society has evolved, thoughts on sexual assault have also evolved, becoming more focused on the details of victim treatment than ever before. The topic of sexual assault is debatable and sparks many opinions on weather sexual assault on college campuses is becoming more frequent, or if there is just heightened awareness. Sexual assault can happen to anybody no matter the gender, race, religion, or age. Recently there have been many studies conducted on sexual violence on college campuses and universities producing ample amounts of statistics. One may argue that sexual assault rates are the same, but there are simply more studies and attention on sexual assault in the past 20 years. Gender roles have played a huge part in sexual assault on college campuses. Women and men have different expectations when it comes to roles in the relationship, men are often expected to make the first move. One may ask what causes a perpetrator to sexually harass somebody and think it is acceptable. There are various reasons as to why perpetrators do what they do, and may vary from person to person. Although sexual violence is a large problem for many colleges and universities, there is a surprising shortage of federal laws/rules and regulations regarding sexual assault. Colleges are able to develop their own personal policies and procedures for how they will prevent and deal with sexual

For instance, Dartmouth College is going to begin to mandate education on sexual violence for all four years of college starting in 2016. (Howard) In these classes, material such as healthy relationships and how to prevent sexual assaults from happening will be taught. The class will happen every year to refresh students and make them aware of the possible misconduct. Furthermore, the Department of Justice, gives the colleges’ grants, but with certain regulations. In order to receive the grant, the campus must provide prevention programs for all incoming students, train all campus security, educate the campus about the crimes of sexual violence and coordinate a community response to help victims and create safety. (Coker) As of now, students are unsure of what is considered sexual violence, because 80% of the time the violence happens from someone they know. (Langston) If the colleges put in the time and effort to make the students aware, then more students would come forward to law

College women are 3 times more likely to be sexually assaulted than omen in the general population. One in four college women will be sexually assaulted while in college. In a national survey of adults, 37.4% of female rape victims were first raped between the ages 18-24. In a study of undergraduate women 19% experienced attempted or completed sexual assault since entering college (CDC, 2012). The myths and rape culture surrounding it makes the suffering and experiences of victims seem invalid and insignificant. Young women come to college for awesome experiences, to learn prosper and have fun not be taken advantage of. Humans need to feel secure and safe in new environments like university. Negligence, rape culture and lack of preparation by campus authority/administration when dealing with sexual assault(SA) further perpetuates sexual violence on college campuses.

Most college’s sexual assault prevention programs may be useless and unreliable because they are focused on the victims and not the attackers. Most sexual assaults are unreported, giving campus staff worker and campus police authorities the false impression that current efforts are adequate. In additions, campus police may be influenced by college administrators who fear that too strong a persuasion on the problem may lead to potential students and their parents to believe that sexual assault occurs more often at their college than at others. Prevention programs need to focus more on educating both men and women. Programs such as event around campus, especially for men that focus on rape reduction should be mandatory at college campuses. Sexual

The red button has been pressed and the issue of sexual assault on college campuses has blown up. Students, faculty, and staff are fed up with the epidemic that has been so silently swept under the rug. Since 55 schools were found in violation of Title IX for the way they handled sexual assaults and harassment in 2014, universities and colleges have been looking for ways to educate their students. The results at first were problematic: they focused on blaming the victim and judging students based on what they were wearing, how they were behaving, how much they drank. Knowing that this is severely not okay, it is interesting to see how other universities are trying to change the discourse to make it more accepting to talk about these issues and place less blame on women.

Sexual Violence defined by the United States Center for Disease Control as “penetrative and non- penetrative acts…[occurring] when a perpetrator commits sexual acts without a victim’s consent” is an issue finding itself highly concentrated on collegiate campuses nationwide (Basile et al. 1). Statistically speaking “one in five women, and a substantial number of men, [will experience] attempted or completed sexual assault during their college career”(OAESV 2). These numbers are utterly horrific, and reflect the decreased safety campuses nationwide are experiencing. Students enrolled in the higher education system are increasingly being put in danger of becoming victims, and victims live in constant fear and doubt of their safety on campus. While the perpetrators of these crimes are ultimately to blame for the danger they present, college and university tendencies in sexual assault prevention and response play a direct role in decreasing levels of campus safety nationwide. Though the higher education system has much room for improvement in many areas pertaining to sex crimes, specific issues such as the weak relationship between campus crisis centers and universities, increasing leniency in perpetrating student athletes, and the overabundance of response rather than prevention programs on campus are a few major patterns contributing to reduced campus safety. These dangerous patterns, common among many universities and colleges, foster campus environments aiding the

The 2015 documentary The Hunting Ground debuted to film festivals revealing to audiences the issues ingrained in our university system in how they treat rape taking place on their campuses (Dick). Testimonials of rape victims from across the nation spoke out about their experiences with how their schools treated their cases-- from accusations simply being ignored to suspected rapists being “disciplined” with expulsions effective only after graduation. Some schools even find fault within the victims themselves, falling privy to trends of victim blaming and “slut” shaming. Schools will have a hundred sexual assault charges on their campus, even more resulting in no action: no suspensions and no expulsions. So the lenience toward assailants, it has to

Considerable interest has been paid to the occurrence of sexual acts on U.S. university campuses in the past decade. The Clery Act pushed for a greater focus on the prevention of and the response to campus sexual victimization. Campus crime statistics were to be made publicly accessible in efforts to increase transparency between universities and students. Rape figures collected from postsecondary institutions have been increasing since data collection began in 2001. As of 2014, four-year or above public, private non-profit, and private for profit U.S. postsecondary institutions reported rape figures of 2,114, 2,167, and 27, respectively (U.S. Department of Education, 2015). Initiatives by the White House in 2014 established a Task Force to become better informed about effective strategies to efficiently handle campus sexual victimization, and consequently prepare universities to be proactive and consider how such issues may affect their Title IX policies. One outcome included the development of a survey to gauge self-reported sexual victimization data from students, the Campus Climate Survey Validation Study (CCSVS) (Krebs, Lindquist, Berzofsky, Shook-Sa, & Peterson, 2016). A pilot CCSVS of nine schools assessed school-level sexual victimization during the 2014-2015 academic year. Here, sexual assault is described as an unwanted, nonconsensual sexual contact that could involve rape, which specifically involved a penetrative act. These terms will be used as such hereafter,

They point to the number of colleges under investigation for possible title IX violations, the problem with the hearings in place, and argue police involvement would benefit all sides. Those in favor of the bill argue that it allows for more collaboration between the police and college campuses, who have both faced public scrutiny, to work together. Police have a reputation for being unapproachable. Victims often find it hard to come to police and fear their claims will not be heard or blame will be unjustly placed. College campuses are known for their weak and biased hearings. A lack of evidence in the hearings can make it hard to justly prove an attack did or did not take place. With more evidence which could be gathered from the police those in favor of the bill argued more arrests will come and campus discipline will follow as

As I was scrolling through my Facebook feed, ignoring political posts from family and searching for funny dog videos, something caught my eye. It was a video of students reading their college acceptance letters, I clicked on the video thinking it would put a smile on my face and give me hope for the new generation. I was proved wrong, due to a powerful twist in the video. In the college acceptance letter, the students read about the 1 in 5 chance that they would be raped in college, and how their university would do nothing about it ("Facts about Sexual Violence"). This did not put a smile on my face, because it brought my attention to a grueling issue of rape on college campuses. Rape on college campuses needs to be taken seriously