I think you are wrong on that, @intparent . Colleges vary a lot in how they apply their sexual assault procedures, but the one thing that seems to be common is that it’s fairly automatic for an accuser to get the equivalent of a TRO against the accused, often quite an intrusive one. Often that will remain in place even if the college decides not to discipline the accused further. The accused student may not have to leave, but may have to switch sections of a class, eat only at specific times, not enter the accuser’s floor, etc. That’s hardly perfect from the accuser’s point of view, but there should be some comfort in the idea that if the accused violates the TRO in any significant way, that’s pretty much automatic grounds for immediate suspension, without any of the more nuanced factfinding the rape accusation entails.
I have a confession, though. I am not a college rape denier, but I have trouble believing this letter. It doesn’t sound like someone reporting how she was raped; it sounds like someone writing a story about how she was raped. And maybe it’s a story that’s based in something that really happened, but it has been manipulated so much by literary device (and cliche) that it’s very hard to figure out what seems true and what seems like creative writing class. It could all be true – and I would feel horrible about doubting it – but this is not something I would accept without a bunch of confirmatory evidence.
The drugs have a very short life. They become undectable in the body after several hours. By the time, the victim is aware of what happened, the drugs are gone from the body. One reason why the drugs are used.
So…you may never know what drugs were given to your child. The evidence is gone.
This adds more confusion and problems for the victims.
I have very mixed feelings about the Rolling Stone article. It made a lot of people I know think about college rape in a way they never had before. Since they work at colleges, that is probably a good thing. The fact the story turned out to be untrue, didn’t lessen their newfound concern about rape. They are much more aware and that impacts students positively, imho.
27 members of the AAU (including all of the Ivy League except Princeton, which did it’s own study) conducted surveys of sexual assault on campus. Stanford did not participate. The results I have seen were really disturbing. This is a real problem. The reports are available online. The biggest problem seems to be freshman and sophomore years, but there seems to be an uptick senior year. Grad school is much lower, so averages across the entire school’s population tend to understate the problem - particularly at schools with a large graduate population.
I also thought there was something odd about the way the account was written. I’m not saying it cannot be true simply because of the writing style, but it does read like someone wrote a story about a rape and somehow didn’t come across as an actual account written by a recently traumatized person.
Absent a witness, an obvious physical injury, a video or a positive rape kit result none of these cases will ever get beyond the Sexual Assault Response Team that first does the intake. They know what they need to get the prosecutors to take a look at the case and the vast majority are just shuffled off.
Sure I instruct my own D that it is the hospital first, second a police report and then straight to the Title IX representative on campus. Unfortunately, in the vast, vast majority of these cases the only justice these women will ever see is through the college adjudication process. And then of course her college experience is ruined as she is wearing a “scarlet letter” as far as the males on campus are concerned. No matter which way you turn it is a lose-lose proposition.
I have no idea if the letter is an accurate account of what transpired. But for those of you who liken it to “creative writing” have you ever read the diary of a 17 or 18 year old girl? I saved my two diaries from my teenage years and read them a few years back. My writing when something upset me was very similar.
I thought equally as sad as her whole situation was when she wrote that she could not confide in her own mother. That is just heartbreaking.
I was stunned when I spoke to my daughter earlier today and asked if she knew anyone who had been sexually assaulted. She said, “of course”. I asked if they went to the police or university authorities. She said most simply kept it to themselves. She went on to explain that most of these cases weren’t rape but aggressive sexual behavior that ended short of rape. This really stunned me as when I was in college, if someone wasn’t interested, I certainly would stop. I wouldn’t dream of pushing matters to the point where the other party had to repel me. The idea that woman (and in some cases, guys) have to physically repel unwanted absences is appalling.
I now sit here and wonder if my D. has had to repel advances. I’m frankly afraid to ask because if she were to say"yes," I’d do everything possible to stop her from returning next year.
“Unfortunately, in the vast, vast majority of these cases the only justice these women will ever see is through the college adjudication process.”
Unfortunately, in the vast majority of acquaintance cases there’s little justice to be found in college adjudication either. Even though that is perhaps a more victim favorable venue, there’s not going to be any justice if there’s no proof.
Typical case involves no incriminating video, no third party witnesses, he said/she said, and consent is a valid defense. Then further muddy the waters by adding in some alcohol or drug impairment for one or both of the parties.
All you can do in such a case is counsel/support the victim and focus on future prevention measures. Most often, justice is simply not going to be an option.
When you were upset, you began your narrative *in medias res*, then a flashback, then a fade-cut back to where you started, skipping over what you already knew would turn out to be the most important part? You would hold back your realization that you had been raped until long after you had telegraphed it to the reader?
Of course, almost any piece of narrative stems from something that upset the author, and that needs to be processed through storytelling, but this has been processed a lot. It doesn’t feel like the diary entry the next morning; it feels like the result of a lot of thought about how do I tell this story most effectively. Which of course doesn’t make it untrue just because it’s processed, but it does make me wonder how many details were shifted around in the interest of a better story. And it opens up the possibility that it’s more imagination than memory.
There’s also just too much in it that doesn’t feel right. The speed and totality of the drug reaction (but perfect clarity when the narrator suddenly wakes). The moronic arrogance of the boys. Boys can be jerks, but these guys had just put their lives in the hands of a freshman they barely knew, and they deliberately humiliated her? The utter callousness of the roommate. How many college kids do you know who would tell a sobbing roommate to shut up before asking what was wrong, no matter how distant their relationship? At Pitzer? The very belated realization that she may have been raped. And writing an anonymous story for the college paper with pseudonyms, only a few days later vs. naming the boys to the dean or the police. When, based on her own story, they are obviously dangerous sociopaths who drugged her, raped her when she was not conscious, then were not even civil enough to offer her a hit off their bong when she came to.
@JHS let’s not forget that she wrote the piece specifically to submit it to “The Peel”. I am supposing this is her attempt at getting her story out there - if she wrote a jumbled incoherent letter iit isn’t likely readers would have finished the piece. I don’t think the letter is far fetched at all but it was indeed written in manner that would make the reader want to continue reading.
I am not going to argue one way or the other as to the accuracy of the letter’s content - I have no basis upon which to do so. But what this situation does bring to light is that it really doesn’t matter whether someone tells their story to the police, reports to the Title IX coordinator or writes an anonymous letter to the school’s newspaper or blog. This thread illustrates that the response will be the same - plenty of doubt and people contending the story “just doesn’t feel right.”
I didn’t want to be the first to say it, but I too have some concerns about the account. @JHS nailed my concerns in his last paragraph above. The vivid descriptions that make you feel like you’re right there in the room, plus the bong smoking, the sneering comments, etc just hit on every stereotype of the “CMC bro culture” (frat boys without the frat).
The unsupportive roommate is also eerily reminiscent of the Rolling Stone story with Jackie’s selfish, unsupportive friends. When I first read the Rolling Stone story my reaction was: this is awful but also just what I would expect from those drunken entitled frat boys.Then the story unraveled. I’m not questioning that there is a rape problem at CMC and lots of other places, but I hope we eventually see some corroboration of this story.
The timing of it is also problematic: the very end of the academic year when everyone’s about to take finals and leave campus, and the alleged victim says she’s leaving CMC and not returning, so there can’t be any follow up by the journalist, just lingering suspicion on every male who lives in a double in the Benson dorm? I wonder if there are security cameras on the dorms? I would think so.
Well at the very least her roommate could confirm that she came in at around 4:15 a.m that morning and was crying. But unless the writer is willing to go public I am supposing the whole thing will end here.