A campus where 97 percent of undergraduates are female has become a center for “toxic rape culture” because the school engages in business with the family members of a convicted rapist, students claim.
Students carried signs proclaiming “We will not be silenced” and “Rape culture is here,” despite the fact that St. Catherine’s University accepts only women for undergraduate work and is run by celibate nuns.
Nonetheless, students maintain that the campus is inundated by “rape culture,” a setting in which cultural expectations and rules make rape more likely to occur.
The controversy began June 10 at a women’s leadership seminar hosted by Heartland Inc. The founders of Heartland, Craig and Patricia Neal, have a son, Alec, who is serving a 12-year prison sentence for raping his ex-girlfriend at knife point. The Neals organized a letter writing campaign on behalf of their son to secure a more lenient sentence for the rape.
Outside the workshop, 27-year-old Sarah Super led a small group of protestors. Super is the self-identified victim of Alec’s rape. She told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune that the Neals’ support of their son was wrong and their business should be boycotted.
The Catholic school issued a statement reminding protestors who joined Super that mercy must be shown to the Neals, but it upset students.
“It felt like they were giving more compassion to the rapist, in all honesty,” student Halimat Alawode told the Star-Tribune.
St. Catherine’s later announced they had discontinued their partnership with Heartland as they reviewed the school’s policies. This announcement did not satisfy students, and two dozen students continued to demand that the school do more, such as creating a committee to investigate rape culture on the campus.
The Neals released a statement expressing their sadness over the school’s decision. “As longtime nonviolence advocates, we abhor and condemn all criminal violence, including that perpetrated by our son,” they said.
