You might remember reading about the University of the Pacific in June, when there was a lot of controversy over statements made by a member of the school’s administration that implied “date rape” wasn’t rape. The comments were made in reference to an ongoing lawsuit, filed by a female student who says her rape case was mishandled by the school. As students head back to school this month, the university president released a statement yesterday to the students regarding the school’s commitment to preventing and investigating assault. Although she says she still “feels confident’ that the school properly handled the case that prompted the lawsuit, she also states that “Over the next academic year, the University will augment its educational programs to raise awareness about the dangers posed by sexual assault.”
Back to school season also, unfortunately, brings with it an increase in the numbers of stories that cross my path about assaults on college campuses. In just this past week I’ve already seen my share of bad news. While I won’t be posting every time one of these stories makes the press, it is worth noting every once in a while how common sexual assault on campus is.
Over at ever-informative abyss2hope there’s been lots of important stuff lately. Besides September’s Carnival Against Sexual Violence, Marcella has posted two really interesting links:
The Bureau of Justice Statistics has released their National Crime Victimization Survey for 2008. The survey accounts for 203,830 sexual assaults/rapes reported in 2008 (164,240 female victims, 39,590 male victims). These numbers do not include assault victims who were murdered or under the age of 12. Marcella’s post on the survey has some useful analysis of the numbers, but I’d like to add the the numbers of rape and sexual assault “victimizations” are still highest in the age range of 16 t0 24, making college-age women (and men) particularly at risk.
Marcella also posts about new research out of Yale Law School on the perception of consent in acquaintance rape cases. Marcella has more thorough commentary than I can take on right now, (and ya’ll should check it out) but from the article’s abstract:
The major finding was that a hierarchical worldview, as opposed to an egalitarian one, inclined individuals to perceive that the defendant reasonably understood the complainant as consenting to sex despite her repeated verbal objections.
No surprise there.
Enjoy the weekend everyone. And as I will be reminding you all month, please vote for SAFER:
