Rape is a crime that is underreported, due in part to women’s reticence to come forward, the pervasiveness of rape culture, and the dismissive attitude of some people in power towards reports of rape or sexual assault. Rape is also a crime that is rarely prosecuted, due in part to the some of the same reasons that it is underreported. As a consequence, most rapists don’t see any punishment for their actions. College campuses are absolutely no exception.
One in five college women will be sexually assaulted. While many fantastic people work at counseling, crisis, and outreach centers on campus dedicated to addressing and combating rape and sexual assault on college campuses, there amount of work that needs to be done often exceeds the resources allotted to these centers. Compounding the problem, there have been instances of colleges and universities underreporting the number of rapes and sexual assaults or covering up crimes on campus to make the campus seem safer to potential students.
The problem of rape and sexual assault is absolutely pervasive on college campuses. A study conducted by psychologist David Lisak asked college men questions such as:
“Have you ever had sexual intercourse with someone, even though they did not want to, because they were too intoxicated [on alcohol or drugs] to resist your sexual advances?”
Or:
“Have you ever had sexual intercourse with an adult when they didn’t want to because you used physical force [twisting their arm, holding them down, etc.] if they didn’t cooperate?” (click through for the NPR story that provided me with these questions).
He found that one in sixteen men answered in the affirmative to questions like those. So basically, one in sixteen men happily admitted to rape when the word “rape” wasn’t explicitly used. If the high number of admitted rapists wasn’t bad enough, further research by Lisak found that 9 out of 10 assaults were committed by predators (repeat offenders.)
I wish I could close this piece by giving you fabulous resources and the assurance that if you were assaulted, something could be done. Unfortunately, few rapists receive any sort of punishment, and most of them do not even face expulsion from the university. So instead, I encourage all of you to become familiar with the rape and sexual assault crisis/outreach centers on your campus. These centers do fantastic work in raising awareness on campus, battling against rape culture, and teaching people what enthusiastic consent is all about. There you will find people who are there to listen and help.
Colleges and universities still have a long way to go to address sexual assault and rape on their campuses. Fortunately, more and more activists, groups, and loudmouths have been raising the alarm and demanding attention get focused on the issue. Movement forward is happening, though slowly like most movement. Get involved if you can or want to, and definitely, definitely, get familiar with the resources your campus has to offer.
5 replies on “Sexual Assault and Rape on College Campuses”
Also, I think the link between college-level sports and the revenue and prestige it brings not only to the college, but to the town and county it’s located in, has a big thing to do with it. There was a case at MSU a few years back when the prosecutors decided not to follow through on charging the two male students even though they both admitted to the rape. Why? Some of it had to do with the fact that they were on the basketball team. it was the same thing with the Penn State scandal and is what turned me off to a lot of Big Ten football and basketball in general.
I read that piece and ..Oh My Gods. It doesn’t even cover ‘ostrich politics’. “twisting their own” is only okay when it follows “with consent”. People should acknowledge that for once.
Do most colleges and universities have some kind of freshman orientation? If so, I wonder if they could include some education about consent? Ideally, boys would understand consent before coming to college, but obviously a large number of them do not.
Some colleges do require all freshmen to go through a consent or sexual assault awareness training as part of their orientation, but it varies widely from school to school. But even schools without it as part of freshman orientation often offer some other outreach or services. For example, some universities have sexual assault and rape centers with great partnerships with the Greek Life on campus, leading training sessions at the beginning of the year and/or as the students request them.
It’d be great to have this be more ubiquitous, but unfortunately, that requires time and funding that can often be hard to find (and honestly, the time issue is exacerbated by the lack of funding, and is not caused by a lack of enthusiasm or dedication among center staff).
For my undergrad, it was mandatory during orientation, and I was a consent facilitator one year. My partner proceeded to play the ‘oh, do you know so-and-so’ game with one of the students, and the rest of them didn’t take it seriously. However, though, we were required to walk them through a scenario where they each had to identify what was and wasn’t a consensual step in the process, so I’d like to think that we reached a few.