Sex without Consent: Rape and Sexual Coercion in America

13. Rape on Campus: Numbers Tell Less Than Half the Story

13 Rape on Campus NumbersTell LessThan Half the Story Julie Campbell-Ruggaard and JamiVan Ryswyk IN THE DEC ADE since Congress first required colleges and universities to compile and release statistics of campus crime, numerous schools have battled campus watchdog organizations, students, and parents over the accuracy of the resulting data. The primary conflict is over whose data reflect the true picture of campus safety. The law was explicit about which crime statistics are to be disclosed, but it neglected to mandate the manner for reporting them. The resulting ambiguity in reporting policy has left many victims of crime wondering if their colleges or universities are paying proper attention to safety, or even “counting” their crime among the official statistics. Arguably, the crime category that incites the most controversy on college campuses is forcible sex offenses. Rape and other types of sexual assault are often thought of as being far removed from the experiences of most college or university students. But the data show otherwise. There are several reasons why parents and students do not expect rape to be a problem at an institution of higher learning. Students and parents might feel that being wary of rape on campus would be an overreaction, since the numbers of rapes reported on campus each year are low. But numbers tell less than half this story. First, rape is often perceived as a crime that occurs only in the seamy underbelly of society, in which an anonymous male attacks an unsuspecting victim, restrains her, and literally forces her (with extreme physical strength and/or a weapon) to submit to his sexual demands. Second, college students 283 might be making decisions about their level of desired sexual activity for the first time and might not be clear about their desired limits. In the process, they might “forgive” actions of their intimate partners as being a terrible mistake—when in fact the actions might be crimes. Third, interviews with college-age males nearly always reveal that these men do not consider themselves rapists. They may recognize that the sexual contact was unwanted, but they do not consider themselves to have “forced” their partners to engage in it. In short, college men tend to subscribe to the pervasive perception that sexual assaults are committed by strangers in dark alleys. When college students are victimized by sexual assault, they often deny the emotional impact that the assault has on their lives. Many college and university students tend to subscribe to the notion that their “independence” must be maintained above all else, and they may confuse that independence with a responsibility to “handle” difficult situations alone. In addition, students may choose to disclose their sexual assault only to a friend or relative and then follow their recommendations . They may not recognize the need for additional action. For the above reasons and for countless others, college-age victims of sexual assault are often dissuaded from reporting sexual assaults because they either do not recognize them as rape or do not wish to face the consequences of leveling such charges. In addition, the long-standing and unrelenting stigma attached to this crime makes some students reluctant to notify campus personnel of rape or sexual assault. Educational institutions themselves often give subtle clues that reports of sexual assault are not welcomed, as reporting sexual assault is generally not easily facilitated, even if it is “encouraged ” by certain personnel. An estimated two out of three victims of sexual assault choose not to report the crime.1 Of those victims who do report the assault, the majority are under the age of eighteen.2 Most first-year college students are between the ages of eighteen and twenty-one, and are therefore less likely than younger victims to report sexual assault. This may be partially represented in low numbers of documented campus sexual assaults in the United States. An illustration of the way in which “official” statistics are incongruent with actual assault statistics can be seen in the state of Ohio. At Ohio University in Athens, a rural community surrounded by the Appalachian Mountains, eleven forcible sex offenses were reported in 284 JULIE C AMPBELL-RUGGAARD AND JAMI VAN RYSWYK 1997. That same year an additional nineteen offenses were reported to officials other than campus police.3 By comparison, the University of Cincinnati (UC), an urban Ohio campus situated near a known “high crime” area, reported only two forcible sex offenses including...