Rape on Campus

This is a reprint of my article originally published in 2010. With mainstream media giving this issue more attention lately, I felt it prudent to republish.

For many parents, watching their spawn begin post-secondary education brings back memories of being all choked up over the tike’s first day of kindergarten and elementary school. It’s a time when parents realize how the years have flown past and with heavy hearts reminisce of the reliance the children once had on them. They grow up so fast.

Campus life is many things. It brings together students from the full spectrum of religious and spiritual beliefs, socioeconomic backgrounds, and political slants. They attend their chosen studies to achieve the education needed in their future occupations, adhering to an impossible timetable of study, work, and play. This mixture of personalities and purposes results in a vibrant elixir that sharpens imaginations, stimulates the senses, and propels minds to achieve. And after a few years of indoctrination, graduates are dressed in an unflattering gown, capped with a funny matching hat, and urged to take on the world.

Campus life is other things too. Those very same students with all their prides and prejudices become citizens of a city within a city where not everyone plays by the rules. In the United States, a recently released report by The Center for Public Integrity (CPI) claims that one in five female students will be the victim of rape or attempted rape by the time they graduate. The US Department of Justice says that figure is closer to one in four.

As with sexual assaults in the general population, pinning down an accurate figure is difficult due to the high degree of under reporting. The CPI research goes on to say that prosecutors are reluctant to prefer charges against alleged campus perpetrators largely because the cases boil down to a He Said, She Said situation where various levels of intoxication are involved by both assailant and victim.

With the victim lacking any feeling of justice, she follows the only other path available; that of seeking sanctions against the offender through the university’s Code of Conduct process. The harshest penalty available for the ill-trained resolution panel under this loose amalgamation of vague passages is the expulsion of the offending student, but it is a rarity that this measure is undertaken. Statistics show that in better than 85% of cases adjudicated under these processes, absolutely no sanctions were meted out to the offender, even if he has confessed to his complicity.

The overall stance from institutes of higher learning appears to be that they are educators, not judiciary, and cases brought forward under resolution panels are a thoughtful way to hold the offender accountable and should focus on lessons to be learned by the offending behavior, rather than punishing anyone.

Campuses in the United States, eager to attract tuitions and grant money, are subject to the Clery Act and to what is known as Title IX. The Clery Act and Title IX are federal laws that mandate colleges and universities to report crimes on campus and provide key rights to victims. It is full of loopholes that campuses exploit to paint a picture of a safe learning environment for prospective and current students.

One of the more glaring findings contained in the CPI’s report is that campus rapists tend to be serial offenders who have, on average, six victims. Clearly the perpetrators are aware that their felonious activities are given little importance by campus administration and are likely to be covered up to avoid embarrassment to the school. There is no research to show if campus offenders continue their plunder in the general population once they graduate. Even if you don’t buy lottery tickets, you would still have to bet that offenders do not cease their criminal acts once they receive their parchment.

In Canada, there is no equivalent of the Clery Act or of Title IX. No recent research has been conducted a la The Center for Public Integrity. But none of this should suggest that the crisis of rape on campus is any different in Canada than it is in the United States.

As with the United States loopholes, crime on campus statistics in Canada is full of inconsistencies. While there is no legislation for post-secondary institutions in Canada to publish their crime data, most do so as part of their disclosure to parents and students. However, some publish only the previous month’s crimes and there is no standard for equity in reporting. Others, such as the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon openly post all their crime statistics online, and according to Bob Ferguson, Director of Campus Safety, were the first in Canada to do so.

Victims of sexual assault on campus face peculiar hurdles not faced by victims in the general population. Because of the intermingling of offender, victim, and witnesses in close confines such as dorms, fraternities, and sororities, when a victim makes an allegation of sexual assault, it often causes dissention among the various close-knit demographics, splitting opinions, friendships, and interpretations of the assault. This is further aggravated by these groups of people attending classes together and the institution wanting to protect its reputation and exposure to litigation. These factors contribute heavily to complaints being recanted by the victims, or the victim dropping from or transferring out of the university.

There is considerable reluctance on the part of educational institutions to discuss sexual assaults on campus in Canada. Few of the universities, all household names in primary cities of Canada, contacted for comment and input for this article responded. There could be any number of reasons why they did not wish to contribute to this article, but it should not go unnoticed that the faculty and staff presumably have children who currently, or will soon, attend a post secondary facility.

Given the odds indicated by The Center for Public Integrity or the US Department of Justice that 20-25% of young women who attend a college or university will be the victim of a sexual assault or attempted sexual assault during their years of study, one would have to question why this subject is not on top of every campus agenda to protect potential victims, advocate for victims who come forward, and contribute greatly to the punishment of offenders.