NPR: Campus rape victims, a struggle for justice

Parents Corner
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<p>"But research funded by the U.S. Department of Justice estimates that 1 out of 5 college women will be sexually assaulted. NPR's investigative unit teamed up with journalists at the Center for Public Integrity (CPI) to look at the failure of schools — and the government agency that oversees them — to prevent these assaults and then to resolve these cases....</p>

<p>The federal Department of Education regulates schools under the Clery Act. But it has fined offending schools just six times. Most fines have been small. The biggest — for $350,000 — came against Eastern Michigan University. Administrators there covered up the 2006 rape and murder of a student, 22-year-old Laura Dickinson, letting her parents think she'd died suddenly of natural causes.</p>

<p>The Department of Education can also hold schools accountable under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. Title IX is best known as the federal civil rights law that requires equality in men's and women's sports teams. But the law is broader than that. It says that any educational institution that takes federal funding cannot discriminate against women. Sexual harassment, sexual assault and rape are also considered discrimination on the basis of sex.</p>

<p>"All too often, victims are revictimized by being forced to encounter their assailants on campus day in and day out," says Carter, "especially if they are suffering from some sort of post-traumatic stress, which can trigger panic attacks and have a significant adverse impact on their ability to continue their educational program."</p>

<p>Campus</a> Rape Victims: A Struggle For Justice : NPR</p>

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<p>I’ve been listening to this series. It’s been eye-opening - even for someone who works on a university campus. Worth looking for on the NPR website.</p>

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<p>I posted this at another place where this article was posted:</p>

<p>Fact #6: The National College Women Sexual Victimization Study estimated that between 1 in 4 and 1 in 5 college women experience completed or attempted rape during their college years (Fisher 2000). </p>

<p>Fact #20: According to the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance Survey (YRBSS), a national survey of high school students, 7.7% of students had been forced to have sexual intercourse when they did not want to. Female students (10%) were significantly more likely than male students (5%) to have been forced to have sexual intercourse. Overall, black students (10%) were significantly more likely than white students (7%) to have been forced to have sexual intercourse (CDC 2002). </p>

<p>Fact #22: Almost two-thirds of all rapes are committed by someone who is known to the victim. 73% of sexual assaults were perpetrated by a non-stranger (— 38% of perpetrators were a friend or acquaintance of the victim, 28% were an intimate and 7% were another relative.) (National Crime Victimization Survey, 2005) </p>

<p>[FACTS</a> ABOUT VIOLENCE](<a href=“http://www.feminist.com/antiviolence/facts.html]FACTS”>FACTS ABOUT VIOLENCE)</p>

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<p>I just wanted to point out that being taught ‘how you should behave in order to avoid being raped’ isn’t uncommon. A lot of my family consists of cops and people in the military, or men like my great-uncle who are just plain older and perhaps a little more conservative in some areas (even if he is a liberal), and when they talk about protecting yourself it includes things like “don’t get drunk, don’t wander alone at night, etc”, and they believe it is helpful advice because they have been told it is helpful advice.</p>

<p>Those things can be stupid of their own right [getting rip-roaring drunk isn’t exactly the best thing for anyone] but it shouldn’t be a rape prevention tactic. It’s a tactic to prevent alcohol poisioning. Wearing long skirts or covering your body isn’t a rape prevention tactic (and it sadly, probably won’t prevent learing all that much) it’s a tactic to ensure your extremities aren’t too cold. Traveling in groups isn’t a rape prevention tactic, it’s a way to hang out with friends. Walking in well-lit areas isn’t a rape prevention tactic, it’s a way to make sure you don’t take a nasty fall and trip over something you didn’t see on the ground. </p>

<p>The biggest problem on campuses is that the one rape-prevention tactic needed the most isn’t being used, and it’s as simple as telling people What Rape is, and Why you shouldn’t do it. Because preventing rape on campus (or anywhere) is as simple as *not raping someone. *</p>

<p>This series is so needed, and we need to look long and hard at how we approach this sort of thing when we let people believe their children died of natural causes instead of being murdered and raped.</p>