Rape and Sexual Assault

The numbers tell the story. Out of 100 rapes–

How many will be reported: 32

How many will lead to arrest: 7

How many will result in felony convictions for rapist: 2

How many rapists will serve prison time: 2

“Imagine if we blamed individuals who are carjacked for not preventing it. Or blamed someone whose house is burgled for the invasion,” says Caroline Heldman, associate professor of politics at Occidental College, where 37 students filed complaints against the school for failing to protect them from sexual assault or for retaliating against students who reported rape. “Rape is the only crime where we blame the victim for not preventing it.”

Rape has gone viral. Young girls sexually attacked are video taped and their assaults posted online. In some tragic cases, schoolgirls taunted after their ordeals have committed suicide to escape the humiliation.

Universities, protective of their reputations and endowments, have mishandled accusations of sexual assault.  In 2013, college students Annie E. Clark and Andrea Pinto, both sexual assault survivors, filed federal complaints against the University of Carolina Chapel Hill with the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights for violating the Title 9 law, which prohibits discrimination in education on the basis of sex. The 1972 statue is widely used to allow girls to try out for all-male sports teams. Clark and Pino argued that violence on campus without recourse discriminated against female victims, denying them an education because they felt unsafe, unheard and often forced to leave.

Currently the federal government is investigating 147 colleges and universities for failing to protect students under Title 9 provisions. But the statue is vulnerable. “Depending upon who the president is, a statue can be weakened or strengthened,” explains Carney Maley, a lecturer at the University of Massachusetts Boston. “Obama strengthened it.  But in another election cycle, it could be watered down or gutted.”

Meanwhile accusations of rape sully another of our nation’s most formidable institutions, the military.  Journalist Helen Benedict interviewed hundreds of female soldiers who told of arming themselves with knives, not to protect against the enemy, but to ward off fellow Americans: “Their battle buddies, the men who were supposed to be watching their back at war, who they’d been trained to see as brothers and fathers and family,” Benedict says. “They had turned on the women as sexual prey.” Deep in the databases of the Department of Veteran Affairs, Ms. Benedict uncovered statistics that 30 percent of women reported being sexually assaulted while serving. Despite the military’s claims of zero tolerance, the number of reports continues to rise.