THE REDISCOVERY OF MORE RAPE VICTIMS

Because of the renewed attention paid to sexual assault by the antirape movement over the past three decades, the plight of other groups soon was rediscovered: sexual assaults on campuses, in the military, between men, behind bars in jails and pris- ons, and within marriages.

Sexual Assaults on Campus

For decades, sexual assaults on college campuses were a real but largely overlooked problem. Stu- dents often found their complaints were greeted with doubts or were largely disregarded. If they persevered, the classmates they accused might even- tually be chastised or mildly penalized by adminis- trators. As a result of this insensitivity and mishandling, some victims became activists and banded together in organizations to form a social movement fighting for reforms.

A bitter maximalist versus minimalist contro- versy surrounds the incidence and prevalence of acquaintance rape on college campuses. The sharp disagreement over the seriousness of the problem first surfaced in the late 1980s and erupted when Congress passed the federal Campus Sexual Assault Victims’ Bill of Rights in 1992, which imposed procedures outlining how college administrations ought to handle rape complaints. But the dispute never was resolved. It simmered for two decades and then flared up again in 2014. About 12 million young women attended college in the United States, along with about 9 million young men, in 2014. But it is far from clear how many actually were victims and how many were perpetrators (see Warshaw, 1988; Schreiber, 1990; Bohmer and Parrot, 1993; Faludi, 1993; Leone and de Koster, 1995; Sampson, 2004; Koss, 2008; MacDonald, 2008a, 2008b; Fisher, Daigle, and Cullen, 2010; McFadden, 2010; Bernstein, 2011; Rennison and Addington, 2014; and Yoffe, 2014).

Maximalist Versus Minimalist Perspectives Campus antirape activists took a maximalist stance based on their belief that they had uncovered statisti- cal evidence that sexual assault was a widespread but severely underreported problem. It was well known from the annual findings of the NCVS that young women in their late teens and early twenties faced the gravest risks of being sexually assaulted. It became clear that attacks by complete strangers in deserted

areas of campuses (such as unlit parking lots or iso- lated offices) were unusual. But it was a shock to find out that unexpected acts of sexual aggression by dates and even mere acquaintances were so common. Maximalists pointed out that the term date rape framed the issue too narrowly because assailants often were classmates, friends, and other acquain- tances and not strictly boyfriends or ex-boyfriends, and that the forced sex took place on occasions other than formal dates (such as study sessions and parties).

The maximalist viewpoint is based on findings from surveys. One widely cited survey of more than 3,000 female students at 32 colleges presented the young women with scenarios that described what recently reformed state statutes would legally designate as sexual assaults. Respondents could identify elements of the crime that resembled their own experiences, such as being plied with liquor until their judgment was so impaired that “consent” was meaningless, or being physically held down, or being forced to submit after painful arm-twisting. Based on the survey’s findings, the researcher estimated that about 166 out of every 1,000 female students (about 17 percent) suffered one or more attempted or completed acquaintance rapes per year. Fewer than 5 percent reported the assault to police, about 5 percent sought solace at rape crisis centers, and almost half told no one what happened. In nearly 85 percent of the cases, the victim knew the offender; and in over 55 percent he was a date. Projecting a yearly incidence esti- mate into a lifetime prevalence estimate, perhaps as many as one in four college-aged young women might have experienced an attempted rape or a completed rape since she was 14 years old (Koss, Gidyez, and Wisniewski, 1987; Koss and Harvey, 1991; Koss and Cook, 1998; and Koss, 2008).

Similar findings emerged from a telephone sur- vey of a national sample of nearly 4,500 women attending two- and four-year colleges during 1996. The researchers discovered that almost 3 per- cent of the female students suffered a completed or attempted rape during the nine-month academic year. Projecting that number on to an enrollment

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of 10,000 female students, nearly 300 will be harmed over two semesters. Over the course of an entire calendar year, as many as 5 percent of young women will experience a completed or attempted sexual assault. Because students often take an aver- age of five years to complete their degrees, between 20 and 25 percent of young women may be raped during their college years. In the overwhelming majority of these attacks, the women knew the assailants. About 90 percent were boyfriends, ex- boyfriends, classmates, coworkers, friends, and casual acquaintances. Faculty members were not identified as perpetrators of any rapes or sexual assaults but were cited in a small percent of inci- dents as imposing unwelcome sexual contacts. Most incidents took place off campus. Furthermore, the study confirmed the results of earlier research projects—that hardly any (just 5 percent) of the sexual assaults were brought to the attention of local law enforcement agencies or even the campus police. These victims also did not seek medical care or professional counseling services (Fisher, Cullen, and Turner, 2000; and Karjane, Fisher, and Cullen, 2005).

Another survey of over 5,000 women in col- lege led to a very similar estimate that one in every five students will be sexually assaulted during their years at an institution of higher learning (Krebs et al., 2007). The continuing problem of underre- porting also was confirmed by additional surveys. One study estimated that only 12 percent of college women reported their sexual assaults to the police (Kilpatrick et al., 2007).

Survey findings also shed light on when and how the attacks took place. Many of the “incapac- itated” assaults directed at young women who were drunk, under the influence of drugs, or who had passed out were perpetrated during par- ties. The first few weeks of the freshman and soph- omore years seem to be a period of greatest vulnerability; the first few days of the freshman term in particular are fraught with danger. Most incidents took place off campus after 6 P.M. and especially after midnight. In only about 20 percent of the assaults did the young women suffer physi- cal injuries, such as bruises, cuts, swellings, black

eyes, and chipped teeth. Slightly more than half of these targets of male aggression fought back phys- ically. Most tried at least one resistance strategy, including running away, begging, using force, screaming, and yelling “Stop.” Some of the assai- lants could be considered serial offenders because they admitted that they had abused a number of women during their years at college (Sampson, 2004; and Krebs et al., 2009).

Maximalists argued that students, college administrators, and parents didn’t realize that an epidemic of sexual assaults in dorms, fraternity houses, and off-campus apartments was taking place because of the extremely low reporting rate. The crisis remained under the radar screen because young women were reluctant to bring their trou- bles to the attention of the campus security force or to the local police for a long list of reasons: They may fear unwanted publicity and exposure; they may feel embarrassed and humiliated; and they may blame themselves for getting drunk or for going to a secluded spot. Also they may antici- pate that they won’t be believed by detectives or prosecutors or juries; they may not want their for- mer friends or dates to be severely stigmatized and punished as “rapists”; they may have little faith in the on-campus judicial system; and they could worry about reprisals from the assailant and social ostracism by his friends and maybe even their own friends. Additionally, they may be concerned that their family will find out and may dread that they will be harshly judged, condemned, and slandered for allegedly “precipitating” the young man’s out- of-control outpouring of “lust” (see Sampson, 2004; and Cohn et al., 2013).

But minimalists wondered whether the prob- lem was really as alarming as maximalists pictured it to be. These skeptics did not accept the often cited figures of “1 out of every 5” or “1 in 4” that max- imalists circulated. In particular, they argued that the maximalist definition was too broad, vague, and inclusive. Applying the very serious terms forc- ible rape and sexual assault to instances of sexual harassment (which are not a criminal matter), verbal threats, unwanted kisses, and acts involving groping and fondling resulted in inflated estimates of risks.

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Also, ambiguous sexual encounters that involved coercion or deceit without threats of bodily harm or actual violence led to even more frightening but unrealistic estimates. Some disturbing and confusing sexual experiences might fall into a gray area, and hence should be referred to as gray rapes. An out- growth of flirting, partying, binge drinking, and mutual desires, gray rapes blur the boundaries between the clear black-and-white alternatives of enthusiastic consent versus vehement objection (Stepp, 2007). Consequently, maximalists were mistakenly counting incidents in which a young woman felt pressured into agreeing to engage in sex, or had lost good judgment because of excessive drinking or drug taking, or had wanted to say “No!” but was not assertive enough to stop the young man’s advances. If the young woman drank alcohol or took drugs provided by the man before intercourse, that does not mean she was “intentionally incapacitated.” Verbal coercion, manipulation, deception (about being in love), false promises (of a long-term relationship or mar- riage), and betrayal of trust—all nonviolent tactics in the male arsenal of seduction—were erroneously being equated with “being forced to give in.” Most of these women deemed “victims” by maximalist researchers did not consider themselves to have been raped, and explained to interviewers that they did not file complaints because their experi- ences were “personal matters” or not “serious enough” to report—a judgment that seems unlikely from a person who suffered a “real” rape, minim- alists concluded. In fact, more than 40 percent of the women dated their supposed assailants again and engaged in intercourse with them again, surveys revealed. By overestimating the date rape problem, maximalists were manufacturing a crisis to further their social agenda of unfairly portraying male– female relationships as inherently antagonistic and fraught with danger. Promoting such a negative image of sexuality stigmatized normal heterosexual intercourse as bordering on criminal conduct unless explicit, unambiguous consent had been secured from the female partner before each escalation in intimacy. The presumed adversarial model of bold male initiatives and token female resistance denies

the reality of female desires and portrays women as naive, helpless, vulnerable, and more in need of strictly enforced protective codes of appropriate sex- ual behavior than of equal rights, minimalists insisted. Overestimates unnecessarily alarmed young women, overshadowed those “real” rapes that are genuinely brutal, and undermined the credibility of “real” complainants. The underlying politics of the antiac- quaintance rape movement actually sets back the cause of women’s equality, adherents of the mini- malist position insisted (see Eigenberg, 1990; Gilbert, 1991; Podhoretz, 1991; Crichton, 1993; Hellman, 1993; Roiphe, 1993; MacDonald, 2008a, 2008b; and Yoffe, 2014).

Minimalists pointed out that despite many rape awareness activities launched by maximalists, cam- pus rape crisis centers never became overwhelmed by a flood of new cases. FBI statistics monitoring crime on college campuses revealed that very few women filed complaints. If such attacks were rare and isolated, maintaining a rape crisis center was an unnecessary expense and engendered needless anx- iety and tension. Skeptics charged that alarmists in the campus antirape movement have morphed into an “industry” that was preoccupied by the limited use by female students of rape crisis centers, sexual assault disciplinary committees, and emergency hotlines (see Eigenberg, 1990; Gilbert, 1991; Podhoretz, 1991; Crichton, 1993; Hellman, 1993; Roiphe, 1993; and MacDonald, 2008a, 2008b).

Minimalists also scoffed that if it truly were the case that large numbers of “forcible rape victims” graduated from college each year burdened by seri- ous emotional scars inflicted by male students, their parents would have demanded action, and alterna- tive academic institutions would have sprung up to guarantee young women a safer environment in which to live and learn. These skeptics offered a solution that is direct and blunt: The simplest and surest way to prevent these alleged sexual assaults is for college women to reject the “booze-fueled hookup subculture of casual couplings and one- night stands” by exercising more prudence, mod- esty, and restraint in their interactions with testosterone-charged young men. Skeptics asserted that this advice was consistent with the theme of

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female empowerment and recognized that young women are able to control their fates and take the lead in solving the problem of rape on campus (see MacDonald, 2008a, 2008b; Stepp, 2008; Franklin, 2011; and Yoffe, 2013).

Addressing Sexual Misconduct on Campus Whether the problem is as widespread as maximal- ists believe, or is more limited, as minimalists suspect, student-on-student sexual assaults surely are a campus issue that college administrations must address. The women who are sexually assaulted suffer academic consequences: Their grades are likely to plunge, they may stop attending or drop certain classes, transfer to another college if their concerns escalate about encountering their assailant on campus, feel alienated from former classmates, and even interrupt their education for several terms or years.

Some activists insist that a genuine solution requires much more than a victim-blaming “Just say no to partying and the subsequent casual sex!” approach or an offender-blaming emphasis on punitive solutions. If acquaintance rape on campus truly has reached epidemic proportions, its roots can be traced to a hypermasculine subculture that emanates from some fraternities and some college athletic teams, whose members are encouraged to devalue and degrade women as objects to be toyed with, sexually exploited, and then discarded. Young men have to organize against their sociali- zation into the prevailing campus rape culture and in the process redefine what genuine masculinity really entails (see Schwartz and DeKeseredy, 1997; Benedict, 1998; Benedict and Klein, 1998; Martin and Hummer, 1998; Sampson, 2004; and Sanday, 2007).

College men and women need to discuss and rethink the issue of explicit consent. To reduce the threat of assault, college administrations need to sponsor workshops about dating and intimacy dur- ing freshman orientation week, complete with reenactments of dangerous situations and role- playing exercises to encourage bystander interven- tion (see itsonus.org, 2014). Student governments ought to issue reader-friendly, easily accessible,

and widely distributed guidelines and handbooks that clarify and define completely what charac- terizes consensual sexual conduct. Administrations should issue no-contact orders to protect complai- nants from harassment and warn that sexual mis- conduct and acts of retaliation against those who press charges are punishable by expulsion from the community by a campus judicial committee. Campus rape crisis centers should encourage stu- dents to seek help by devising confidential, third- party, and even anonymous ways of reporting incidents, and by listing the properly trained peo- ple to turn to for counseling, medical care, legal advocacy, protection, and other forms of assistance on campus and in the surrounding community (Crichton, 1993; Bohmer and Parrot, 1993; and Karjane et al., 2005).

In 2011, the Civil Rights Office of the U.S. Department of Education issued guidelines that pressured colleges to adopt a zero-tolerance stance toward both sexual harassment and sexual assaults on campus. Colleges were supposed to guarantee equal protection by granting both the accuser and the accused the same rights. College officials were not allowed to try to dissuade accusers from also reporting the incident to the local police and were compelled to implement violence prevention programs that included training for residence hall counselors and coaches. Institutions of higher learn- ing that failed to implement these measures would risk losing federal funding and could face legal sanc- tions (Editors, New York Times, 2011b).

In 2013, Congress passed the Campus Sexual Violence Elimination Act, requiring that incidents of dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking be included in annual campus crime statistics reports. In 2014, the Obama administration created a task force to coordinate federal efforts to identify the best practices implemented on various campuses across the country so that other college administra- tions could more effectively prevent sexual assaults and handle cases brought to their attention. Federal agencies would get involved and penalize college administrations that were unable to bring the per- petrators to justice (Calmes, 2014). The task force recommended that colleges carry out anonymous

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surveys of student opinion about the problems on their campus periodically. Questions could focus on feelings about safety on campus; prevailing attitudes about sexual assaults, victim-blaming, and miscom- munication; and direct queries about actually experiencing unwanted sexual contacts involving force, threats, or incapacitation during the school year. A website was set up to inform students about their rights, about what progress is being made at other colleges, and how to file a complaint and access supportive services (Notalone, 2014). Campus activists launched campaigns to raise stu- dent awareness about their rights and the U.S. Department of Education made public a long list of nearly 90 colleges that were being investigated for allegedly mishandling student-on-student sexual assault cases (Hanna et al., 2014; and Yoffe, 2014).

California in 2014 became the first state to go beyond the “no means no” formulation and pass “yes means yes” legislation requiring its colleges to adopt standards of affirmative sexual consent in which the initiator must get his partner to agree consciously, unambiguously, and voluntarily to proceed to the next step in order to later avoid charges of sexual assault.

Campus disciplinary boards composed of administrators, professors, and members of the staff handle certain cases, whether or not they are also investigated by the police and prosecuted in the courts. The judicial machinery set up by adminis- trations has been criticized as ineffective and unsat- isfactory: insensitive to the complainants whose lives are disrupted, and also unduly lenient toward the perpetrators who often are not expelled but go on to graduate even after being found culpable. Students whose complaints about alleged sexual assaults have been rejected sometimes sue the uni- versity. But the judicial process also is faulted, for branding and even blacklisting students as sexual exploiters when in fact no assault took place. Stu- dents who insist on their innocence and assert that they have been falsely and mistakenly determined to be guilty also sue universities. Administrations are condemned for being so protective of and preoccu- pied with the institution’s reputation that a “culture of indifference” seems to prevail on campus (Center

for Public Integrity, 2010; and Rubenfeld, 2014). This horror story is often cited to demonstrate the consequences of mishandling a case:

A student at a small religiously oriented college in a rural setting is returning to her dorm room after cel- ebrating and drinking at an end-of-year party. Appearing disoriented, she is led into another room by two members of the basketball team. She is pen- etrated by the two athletes and another man, while several other students stand in the hallway, peer in, and high-five each other. One of the aggressors walks up to a security camera in the corridor and holds up a handwritten note purportedly signed by the young woman that reads, “I want to have sex.” The next morning, she spots blood on her underwear, tells her roommate, reports the incident to the police as well as administrators, and travels to a hospital for a forensic exam. But the authorities are unsure about whether she actually consented, so no action is taken. Dis- turbed that her exploiters might still be on campus, she drops out (actually, they chose not to re-enroll but the unsupportive administration never informed her). Seven months after the incident, listless and depressed at home, she locks herself in her room, places a plastic bag over her head, and commits suicide. Her mother sues the college, claiming it lulled parents into a false sense of security by systematically undercounting sexual assaults, and also violated federal antidis- crimination regulations by failing to conduct a fair and thorough investigation. (Myers, 2009; and McFadden, 2010)

A sophomore is forced by her date to submit to a sex act that she desperately does not want to allow. The scene of the violation is her bed in her dorm, so after 3 months of turmoil, she turns to the campus judicial board for redress. Even though she is the third undergraduate to file a complaint against this student, the board finds him “not responsible” and upholds its decision after she appeals. To dramatize what she endured and to call attention to the larger issues, she carries her mattress around the campus. Her “per- formance art” serves as an act of protest which suc- cessfully draws media attention to the problem of

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inadequate procedures and policies by college admin- istrations. Soon 22 other sexually assaulted students join her in a lawsuit against the Ivy League univer- sity for violating federal regulations. (Bogler, 2014)

However, on other occasions, the campus judi- cial machinery might not underreact to well docu- mented charges but overreact to unsubstantiated allegations, as this case illustrates:

An undergrad accuses a freshman on a full scholarship of raping her. The Ivy League university’s adminis- tration quickly pressures him to withdraw, even though she does not inform the police or press charges. She goes on to graduate; he transfers and obtains his degree from a different college. But he sues the uni- versity, his accuser, and her father, who is a wealthy alumnus and a substantial donor to the university, alleging that her father used his status to convince the administration to take unjustifiably swift action

against him. The lawsuit claiming false allegations is settled in his favor. (The Ticker, 2011)

The above examples indicate the complexity of the situation and the potential pitfalls that can plague efforts to achieve justice. The proper ways that allegations about sexual misconduct on cam- puses are supposed to be handled are outlined in Box 10.4. However, law professors have criticized these recommended “best practices” as unfairly tilting too far in favor of the accuser and thereby violating procedural safeguards intended to protect the accused men from false, mistaken, and mali- cious charges (see Rubenfeld, 2014).

If a student decides to lodge a rape accusation against a male student with a judicial board or if she turns to the local criminal justice system for redress, the strength or weakness of her “no weapon and no physical injuries, he said/she said” case will hinge

THE REDISCOVERY OF MORE RAPE VICTIMS

THE REDISCOVERY OF MORE RAPE VICTIMS

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