Campus sexual assault — specifically, how colleges and universities handle such claims — is back in the news again with the explosive story of “Jackie,” a woman who told Rolling Stone Magazine that she was gang-raped as part of a fraternity initiation.
Jackie says she told the University of Virginia about the gang rape but that Dean Nicole Eramo, head of the school’s Sexual Misconduct Board, showed almost no emotion after hearing her tale and calmly offered choices to go to the police, hold a campus hearing, or simply face the accused men and tell them how the gang rape made her feel.
The article quotes Susan Davis, associate vice president for student affairs, who explained why accusers are given choices with equal weight: “If students feel that we are forcing them into a criminal or disciplinary process that they don’t want to be part of, frankly, we’d be concerned that we would get fewer reports.”
One reason why accusers don’t want to go to the police is because, for the past few decades, law enforcement has been accused of not taking rape seriously. That is the crux of every conversation surrounding campus sexual assault, and sadly, an issue that is not being addressed. Given this vacuum, activists have stepped in to increase pressure on colleges to handle rape cases.
Instead of creating an alternate legal system where untrained or barely trained college administrators pretend to be investigators, prosecutors, impartial judges and juries, a better option would be to reform the way police react to rape accusations.
It can be frightening for a woman reporting a rape to tell a strange police officer — possibly a male police officer — what happened to her in graphic detail. She could then have to face her alleged attacker in court, recount what happened to her, and endure cross-examination by a defense attorney she doesn’t know and who is trying to poke holes in her story. This ordeal is not something to be taken lightly or dismissed as a “get over it” situation in which women need to “buck up” in order to receive justice.
Reliving what is likely the worst trauma they will ever experience is a very frightening process for women, and so it is understandable that many victims may prefer to avoid the ordeal entirely and try their best to move on. But reporting rape is a necessary step toward getting rapists off the streets, and increasing the number of victims coming forward would signal to predators that they cannot expect to get away with sexual assault so easily. And this is an area where universities can offer assistance.
Instead of universities holding their own trials, they should devote more resources to providing emotional support and encouragement for women going through the actual legal system. Not only does the campus process provide a lower burden of proof and fewer due process rights for the accused, it provides weak punishment for those who are convicted. A serial rapist’s punishment shouldn’t be limited to being kicked out of school. That person should be in jail.
A woman who may not want to tell her friends about what happened to her or, assuming Jackie’s story is 100 percent true, is met with indifference — even hostility — from her so-called friends, may find a trustful confidant in a college administrator dedicated to listening to rape accusations. Jackie claimed that, despite Dean Eramo’s apparent lack of surprise regarding her gang-rape accusation and reluctance to push her to report it to police, Eramo had “the most positive impact on my life.” Why couldn’t someone like Eramo be a trusted confidante and adviser to Jackie as she went through the painful process of putting her alleged attackers in prison?
A number of senators have introduced the Campus Accountability and Safety Act, which would require universities to provide “support services” for accusers. While there is more bad than good in the bill overall, such support services could be useful if they included emotional support for a criminal investigation and trial (and were also provided to the accused, of course).
Knowing that an investigation and criminal trial is going to be a difficult and painful experience, but also knowing that it will ultimately be the best way to receive justice, is something accusers need to know. College administrators have a unique ability to help an accuser through the process to ensure that justice is served.
