I Need My Tax Dollars to do That: Fight Rape on College Campuses

Last week, a former Amherst College student published an account of her personal struggle in dealing with the after affects of rape. Most upsetting, however, was the school’s response to her allegations against a graduating honor-roll senior. In other words, they blamed her, the victim, and tried to sweep the rape under the rug. Following her story’s publication in The Amherst Student, the school’s independently run newspaper, the article popped up all over the Facebook pages of Five College students furious at Amherst’s mishandling of an obvious crime.  With the administration facing such sharp criticism, the Amherst College president released a statement, vowing to fix the current system and provide better support for rape victims.

Yeah, because we all know how well schools uphold those promises when the issue at hand has the potential to tarnish a college’s precious statistics. They don’t.

Often a rape will get disguised and manipulated to show that the victim wanted it or consented to having sex. Last time I checked, no one asks to get raped. 

Photo credit: http://collegecandy.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/rape-2.jpg 

Rape on college campuses is a problem that extends way beyond the schools in the Pioneer Valley.  One in four women will be sexually assaulted on a college campus while one in eight women will be raped (http://abacus.bates.edu/admin/offices/scs/salt7.html). Yet 95% of attacks go unreported. A 2009 investigation by the Center for Public Integrity found that campus barriers including administration resistance, complicated and often incomplete judicial proceedings and social pressure were the main reasons so many rapes went unreported. (http://www.aauw.org/act/laf/library/assault_stats.cfm).

Based on the experiences of the Amherst student, it’s obvious that college administrations apply layer upon layer of red tape to prevent rape victims from seeking and achieving justice for their rapes. Rape is not a feature of the college experience any school wants to promote as part of its curriculum. No school wants to brag about the annual number of students raped and/or the number of students punished for having committed rape. But such statistics are not something schools should be allowed to dismiss.

One way to improve the system is change who oversees the investigation of rape accusations. Campus police should not be allowed to investigate rape cases based on conflict of interest. They represent and report to the school rather than acting as an advocate for the victim. Town police or a specific task force should be appointed to handle rape cases so that they can supersede any hang-ups attempted by an administration. That’s where my tax dollars come in. Such a change though only affects the handling of a rape after it has already occurred rather than trying to prevent its occurrence in the first place. That is something students must decide to change. But then again, maybe if college rapists were properly prosecuted, there would be fewer rapes to begin with.

I need my tax dollars to do that: Fight Rape on College Campuses