{"id":54234,"date":"2013-03-06T14:38:35","date_gmt":"2013-03-06T19:38:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=54234"},"modified":"2017-09-17T12:46:02","modified_gmt":"2017-09-17T17:46:02","slug":"rape-and-other-crimes-sexist-policy-and-campus-safety","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2013\/03\/06\/rape-and-other-crimes-sexist-policy-and-campus-safety\/","title":{"rendered":"Sexist Policy and Campus Safety"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cross-posted at Ms.<\/a>, The Huffington Post<\/a>,\u00a0and\u00a0BlogHer<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Earlier this year a coalition of students and faculty at my institution, Occidental College, convinced the administration to make several changes to its sexual assault policy. \u00a0One of these changes involved the addition of reports of sexual assault to our OxyAlert system. \u00a0This meant that any time there was a report of a sexual assault, the college community would receive an email saying so, just as we now get alerts of all other crimes that are reported to have occurred in the vicinity. \u00a0The administration\u00a0agreed to do this<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Last week the students learned of a report of a sexual assault second-hand (from the\u00a0media<\/a>), simultaneously discovering that the administration had declined to send out an OxyAlert in response. \u00a0Considering this a betrayal of their agreement, the students organized a\u00a0march<\/a>,\u00a0petition<\/a>, and\u00a0tumblr<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In response, the president of Occidental College, Jonathan Veitch, wrote\u00a0a letter to the campus community<\/a>. In it, he confirms what the students of Occidental fear:\u00a0he is inclined to disbelieve students that report sexual assault<\/em>. \u00a0He writes that OxyAlerts in cases of reports of sexual assault are not “possible or desirable” because:<\/p>\n

In the first few hours, days or even weeks, it is not always\u00a0clear what has happened in incidents like these. Investigators need time to sort through\u00a0conflicting accounts in order to provide a clear narrative of what took place.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

By suggesting that “incidents like these” need vetting, Veitch is reproducing a bias against sexual assault victims that feminists have been trying to eradicate for decades. \u00a0He is saying that sexual assault reports must be “sort[ed] through,” but reports of all other crimes can be taken at face value. \u00a0In other words, there is nothing wrong with the OxyAlert system per se, he just doesn’t think that women who report sexual assaults should necessarily have access to it. \u00a0This is unacceptable.<\/p>\n

In fact,\u00a0all crimes can be falsely reported<\/em> and there is no evidence that reports of sexual assaults are more likely to be false than other reports of other crimes. \u00a0The sparse research is\u00a0inconclusive<\/a>: some find that sexual crimes are more often reported falsely, some find less. \u00a0So Veitch is on shaky ground suggesting that the college has a right to treat reports of sexual assault as hypothetical. \u00a0Moreover, the OxyAlert system is not judge and jury. \u00a0In all cases — whether it informs the community about a mugging, a stolen car, or a sexual assault — it simply states that\u00a0there has been a report<\/em>.<\/p>\n

While I will admit that sexual assault is often complicated, this is a very black-and-white issue. \u00a0Sexual assault is a crime, Occidental has a system for alerting people to reports of crime, when a person reports the crime of sexual assault, that report should be included in this system. \u00a0To do otherwise is to allow college policy to be driven by the belief that women are uniquely untrustworthy and prone to malicious lies. \u00a0That is bias against women, plain and simple.<\/p>\nLisa Wade, PhD<\/a> is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of <\/em>American Hookup<\/a>, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender<\/a>; and a forthcoming introductory text: <\/em>Terrible Magnificent Sociology<\/a>.\u00a0You can follow her on Twitter<\/a> and Instagram<\/a>.<\/em><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cross-posted at Ms., The Huffington Post,\u00a0and\u00a0BlogHer. Earlier this year a coalition of students and faculty at my institution, Occidental College, convinced the administration to make several changes to its sexual assault policy. \u00a0One of these changes involved the addition of reports of sexual assault to our OxyAlert system. \u00a0This meant that any time there was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[209,12508,2056,34,2095,2090,8118,120,133],"class_list":["post-54234","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-academia","tag-activismsocial-movements","tag-crimelaw","tag-education","tag-gender-feminismactivism","tag-gender-violence","tag-organizationsinstitutions","tag-sex","tag-violence"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54234","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54234"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54234\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71430,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54234\/revisions\/71430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}