{"id":64402,"date":"2014-10-13T09:00:18","date_gmt":"2014-10-13T14:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=64402"},"modified":"2014-10-12T00:18:00","modified_gmt":"2014-10-12T05:18:00","slug":"reported-sex-offenses-skyrocket-in-response-to-reform-at-occidental-college","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2014\/10\/13\/reported-sex-offenses-skyrocket-in-response-to-reform-at-occidental-college\/","title":{"rendered":"Reported Sex Offenses Rise in Response to Reform at Occidental College"},"content":{"rendered":"

In 2013, after years of trying to reform the institution from the inside, faculty and students at my college submitted two complaints<\/a> to the federal government. The combined 330 pages allege\u00a0sexual harassment, assault, and battery on campus and argue that the college has\u00a0ignored and silenced victims, mishandled adjudication and, at times, protected\u00a0men found responsible for assault. We are now under federal investigation.<\/p>\n

Forcibly revealing Occidental College’s failings hasn’t been fun for anyone, but it has changed us.\u00a0It is now easier to report assaults, we are likely more vigilant about recording those reports, and students have more knowledge about their rights. Here is what happened:<\/p>\n

\"2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

At The Occidental Weekly<\/em>, Noel Hemphill writes<\/a> that reports of sexual offenses have skyrocketed. They rose from 12 in 2011 to 64 in 2013. Over half of the cases reported were of incidents that occurred in previous years. That’s normal — victims often take a year or more to decide to come forward — but may also reflect a new desire by survivors to have their experience recorded in official statistics.<\/p>\n

These numbers are disturbing, but it is unlikely that they reflect a rise in sexual offenses. Instead, they\u00a0suggest that survivors of assault are feeling more empowered, have greater faith in their institution, and are pushing for recognition and change.<\/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":"

In 2013, after years of trying to reform the institution from the inside, faculty and students at my college submitted two complaints to the federal government. The combined 330 pages allege\u00a0sexual harassment, assault, and battery on campus and argue that the college has\u00a0ignored and silenced victims, mishandled adjudication and, at times, protected\u00a0men found responsible for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":64404,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[209,12508,2056,34,55,2095,2090,120,133],"class_list":["post-64402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-academia","tag-activismsocial-movements","tag-crimelaw","tag-education","tag-gender","tag-gender-feminismactivism","tag-gender-violence","tag-sex","tag-violence"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2014\/10\/31.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64402","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=64402"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64402\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64407,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64402\/revisions\/64407"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}