By Brianna Vitands/Murphy News Service
It’s every woman’s worst nightmare — a sexual assault.
For women at the University of Minnesota, the fear is real, and remains with them as they walk to their cars after a night class, go to a friend’s house on the weekend, or are simply alone at night. The fear is heightened by U crime alerts telling of a woman sexually assaulted by an attacker using a chemical irritant, or women picked up by a rapist impersonating a police officer.
The University of Minnesota Police Department publishes an annual safety and security report, which documents all the reported crimes on campus. The report shows there were 18 sexual assaults in 2011, 24 in 2012, and 18 in 2013. The Aurora Center assisted 183 victim/survivors in 2013, demonstrating a clear disparity between the rate of occurrence and what actually gets reported.
“The Hunting Ground”, a 2015 documentary film by Amy Ziering and Kirby Dick, examines how college administrators are handling cases of sexual assault. The documentary was inspired by a recent increase in Title IX complaints filed against college campuses. Title IX, among other things, compels universities to “investigate and resolve reports of sexual misconduct,” which some students featured in the documentary found does not happen.
The documentary will be screened on campus April 28 as part of Sexual Assault Awareness Month and opens today, Friday, April 10, at the Landmark Lagoon Cinemas in Minneapolis.
The Campus Sexual Assault survey of 2007 found that approximately one in five women reported being sexually assaulted since entering college, while about 6 percent of men reported having been sexually assaulted since being in college. Sexual violence affects women disproportionately, with one in three women reporting a rape, beating or stalking incident, or a combination of those offenses.
Between 2003 and 2013, fewer than one in ten Title IX complaints led to any change negotiated between federal and college administrators, yet, the number of complaints filed to the federal education department’s Office for Civil Rights continues to increase.
“I think we had exceeded the number of complaints in all of last year by this December … we’re actually hiring another person in our office because the number has really impacted the capacity of our work, so it’s going up,” Kimberly Hewitt, director of the Office of Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action, said. “We probably have between maybe 20 and 40-that range-per year that we actually investigate.”
The U is one of 28 universities that will participate in the Association of American Universities’ sexual assault climate survey this month, expected to be the largest ever focusing on college sexual assault. The questions will be uniform across all universities, except for five questions regarding familiarity with college-specific resources, support, and reporting systems.
For some students, awareness of these issues has come too late.
A U student raped Courtney Blake in Centennial Hall in 2013. Blake thought about transferring to a different university, but didn’t want to sacrifice her college education. She ended up leaving for a semester, while her rapist was able to continue his education on campus. His punishment included writing an essay about consent and attending 10 counseling sessions.
“I was really nervous and shaky about coming back to campus because I knew that [he] was going to be on campus all summer, living in the fraternity house,” Blake said.
Since then, Blake has actively worked with the Minnesota Student Association (MSA) on the sexual assault prevention bill HF742, which will expand victims’ rights by encouraging the university and police to coordinate findings, while also offering an online reporting option.
“I wouldn’t have waited a week if I could’ve reported online and been like, ‘Oh, this was rape,’ there’s something I could’ve done there,” Blake said. “It would’ve been a lot quicker, rather than just waiting because I was scared.”
MSA passed a sexual assault resolution in December 2014, which provided a plan to improve the campus climate this spring.
“Now, per lots of research and work with administrative and student staff, we saw the resolution put forth by MSA to provide more written guidelines in terms of sexual assault violations,” Katie Eichele, director of the Aurora Center, said.
The resolution will focus on awareness, training, and policy, in addition to coordination with the U.S. Office of Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action, to enforce an affirmative consent policy and minimum sanction guidelines. The affirmative consent policy will mimic California’s ‘Yes means Yes’ law, which requires affirmative consent between partners, meaning that someone incapacitated from drugs or alcohol would not be capable of giving consent. MSA hopes to see the affirmative consent policy in place by this June.
“We’re really supportive of making sure that the university has enough time to make sure that it gets incorporated into welcome week, into orientation that we have, and to update all the modules that people have to do before they come here their freshman year,” Joelle Stangler, MSA president, said.
Rape survivor Courtney Blake said MSA is pushing for minimum sanction guidelines, similar to that which Ohio University has in place. Its website, says students guilty of sexual misconduct can expect a minimum of one semester suspension, and if there was physical contact, a minimum of one year of suspension. If there was penetration of any form, the student will be expelled.
“I think we need to start adopting something like that, where it’s actually taken seriously,” Blake said of Ohio University’s minimum sanction guidelines. “Once a perpetrator is actually punished, that will push up reporting rates.”
For victim/survivors, seeking criminal justice often proves more difficult. Damaging stereotypes and myths exist that suggest false accusations of rape are common, when in reality studies have shown that only 2 percent of reports are fabricated, as with the recent case in which Rolling Stone magazine last week retracted a story about an alleged rape at a University of Virginia fraternity house.
“If prosecutors know that juries are going to buy into rape myths and victim blaming, especially when alcohol is involved, and if they know that alcohol is involved in about 90 percent of campus sexual assault cases, they’re going to look at that and say ‘Well those people shouldn’t have been drinking,’” Eichele said.
“Prosecutors know these things about juries already, what their assumptions are; they’re only going to push for a case that they know is going to be a surefire win.”
While it is difficult to estimate how many rapes go unreported, the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ National Crime Victimization Survey projected that only 40 percent of rapes get reported to the police, while studies conducted at the college level have found even lower rates of reporting. Only 2 percent of perpetrators will be assessed a felony conviction or spend time in prison.
At the U, the Office of Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action (EOAA) investigates cases of sexual misconduct, writes a report, and makes a finding. It gives the report to the Office for Student Conduct and Academic Integrity, which is the office that decides what sanctions will take place, if any.
This is the first year that EOAA has investigated and reported on sexual assault cases, since the university has decided they are better equipped to do so.
“The office for student conduct takes our report and then they decide what is the appropriate sanction, and then they will contact both parties,” Hewitt said. “In many cases the student agrees, and that’s the end.”
“In the past, expulsion was rare,” Eichele said. “We did see suspensions, we did see probation, we saw other types of what they would call educational sanctions … educational sanctions in any institution can range from reflection papers, to programming, to online education resources, to counseling or such.”
The Aurora Center is one U institution designed to specifically assist survivors with medical and legal advocacy, while at the same time providing support and a safe place for survivors to tell their story. Eichele said about 12 percent of college sexual assaults are reported nationally, which is up from 2010.
“From a victim/survivor and advocate perspective, our university is working very hard and doing a good job,” Eichele said.
“To see an increase in reports is a good sign, and parents and community members should not be weary that we have so many reports, they should be weary when institutions are not reporting, like they have zero reports … When folks report it means they’re aware of utilizing the system and there’s some level of trust in the system that they’ll do the right thing,” Eichele added.
Blake agreed that the Aurora Center is one place on campus where she feels safe.
“Yes, the Aurora center is a great place. But if that’s the only place I feel safe, I feel like that’s really a Title IX violation,” Blake said. “I didn’t feel I was granted an opportunity to my education when my rapist was.”
Reporter Brianna Vitands is studying Spanish and journalism at the University of Minnesota.
WHERE TO SEE ‘THE HUNTING GROUND’ “The Hunting Ground,” an award-winning documentary film about sexual assault on the nation’s college campuses will be shown through a sponsorship by the Minnesota Student Association on Tuesday, April 28 at 7 p.m. in the Coffman Memorial Union Theater. The film opens Friday, April 10, at the Landmark Lagoon Cinema, 1320 Lagoon Ave., Minneapolis. Showtimes are at 2:20 p.m., 4:40 p.m., 7 p.m., 9:20 p.m. daily.