University Senate will probe unreported rapes

Its frequency on the campus is staggering; its victims are often silent; and as incidents continue to go unreported, a University Senate committee is examining why rape may be one of the most pressing — and unspoken — safety concerns facing college students.

The Campus Affairs Committee is compiling a report to document the issue of rape at the university. Although statistics have shown that nationally, rape on college campuses occurs often, the number reported is far below the number of rapes that occur.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, one in five women will be raped while in college and of those women, only 5 percent will report it. At this university, officials said, it is no different.

"This is a huge issue here," said Allison Bennett, coordinator of the Sexual Assault Response and Prevention Program at the university. "It's happening every day. It really rocks peoples' worldview when they realize that veil of safety we think we have isn't there."

When Deborah Nelson, a journalism professor and member of the Campus Affairs Committee, heard about these high rates of sexual assault, she decided it was an issue that needed to be examined and discussed.

"Rape has received so little attention on the campus,"  said Nelson, who is spearheading the campaign to shed light on sexual assault on the campus. "I know student groups and organizations have tried to raise awareness, but there needs to be a deeper discussion."

Officials said the student body seems largely unaware of the actual prevalence of rape on the campus or of the numerous resources available to victims. In some cases, the toughest part of the battle is encouraging students to come forward, Bennett said.

Many students don't think of rape as a problem at this university, as they think the only rapes that happen are the ones they find out about in a crime alert, she said. But crime alerts only go out when the victim can't identify the perpetrator or the suspect hasn't been apprehended.

"In most cases, a woman is raped by someone she knows," Bennett said. "We continue to think of rape as something that happens from a stranger, but that's not the case. If there was a crime alert for every time an acquaintance rape happened on the campus, we'd be getting them daily."

The committee will be working for the rest of the semester to expose the truth about sexual assault at this university, said committee chairman Edward Walters.

"Hopefully by the end of the semester we can deliver a report to the senate with recommendations for improvements and further examination,"  Walters said.

As part of its investigation, the committee will examine trends in assault reports. Universities that receive federal funding are required by law to report all incidences of sexual assault on the campus to the Department of Education through the Clery Act.

In 2008, this university saw 17 incidents of forcible sexual offenses reported.

But these numbers aren't truly reflective of what's actually happening, officials said, noting few women actually report sexual assault when it happens and the university can only report incidents that occur on the campus or at a campus-sponsored event. 

"The data of people who report it to the police is so tiny," Bennett said. "[The Clery Act] captures that sexual assaults are happening, but it's vastly underrepresenting how many are actually occurring in the community." 

University administrators and University Police are supportive of the committee's work. 

"Bringing attention to the issue and helping to understand why we have a community where people don't want to come forward is an excellent idea," said Assistant Vice President for Student Affairs Warren Kelley. "I think as a campus we've set up a great structure of support and help for someone when they need it." 

For years, SARPP launched awareness campaigns and university-wide events to raise student awareness about sexual assault and domestic violence.

When a student does come forward after being assaulted, he or she is given medical and mental health treatment if needed and receives information about what options exist if the victim chooses to report the crime.

Bennett said the real challenge is getting more students to come forward and receive services already in place. She believes many women don't report assault because of the widespread mentality that when a person is raped it's the victim's fault.

"It's such an unsafe environment for a woman to come forward and say ‘this happened to me,'" Bennett said. "We have a victim-blaming culture. We focus on the way she could have prevented it rather than saying, ‘This is really horrific.' We need to create a structure that's intolerant of violence."

redding@umdbk.com