Study: Students Pressured to Drop Rape Complaints
Students who are victims of sexual assault on campus face a “culture of secrecy” when attempting to bring their perpetrators to justice, according to an investigative report released this week.
The Washington, D.C.-based Center for Public Integrity, over a nine-month period, interviewed 33 female students who had reported being raped.
The center found that nearly half of the women were unsuccessful pursuing criminal charges and were left with their campus judiciary systems as their only recourse, the Indianapolis Star reports.
These campus judiciary programs, however, left women to “face proceedings that are shrouded in secrecy, where they encounter mysterious disciplinary proceedings, where they themselves are shut out of the hearing process.”
A third of the women reported that school administrators discouraged them from pursuing complaints. Others experienced confidentiality requirements that were “sometimes followed by threats of punishment if they were to disclose any information about the case,” said Kristen Lombardi, the lead reporter on the project.
And when punishment is meted out, it’s often relatively lenient. The center reports that expulsion is rare.
The Star notes that the students interviewed reflect only a fraction of the sexual assault cases on campus throughout the country. In 2007, there were 2,532 reports of forcible sex offenses on campuses, according to the U.S. Department of Education.
And the center reports that fewer than 5 percent of campus assaults are ever reported. When they are reported, local authorities often “shy away” from the complaints, which are often “he said, she said” incidents complicated by drug and alcohol use.
