This is an open letter to the administration in relation to their response to a sexual assault case at my college.
This week I learned that a few months ago a sexual assault occurred on my campus. There was an article written in my school’s newspaper, as a platform to inform students, admin, and the public of the poor response that the school’s administrators had to the case. Although the student filed a report immediately after the assault, a response was not received untill weeks later. The reaction and response did not appear to support or sympathize with the student’s situation. Additionally, the incident is missing from the Department of Public Safety’s Daily Fire and Crime Log. Unfortunately, this type of response seems to becoming more and more common within college campuses today. There seems to be a trend with college administrations rarely responding to cases because they don’t want their enrollment or reputability to be affected.
What upset me the most about the administrations’ response was that just a few months prior to the assault and publication of the article, the school gathered the entire freshman class to inform us about the college’s attitude towards assault cases. They told us that the school represented GreenDot, an educational initiative that is aimed towards the safety of students, by promoting an end to power-based personal violence within campuses. They told us that if anything was ever to happen to one of their students, they would always be there to help. They told us that our safety was so important to them, that they personally encouraged us to report any incidences. They told us that they would trust all students when they reported an injustice. They told us that they would not ask what we were wearing, or how much we had to drink. They told us that assault was assault, no matter the circumstances. But now I have to reconsider their words, or what I now believe to be lies. Were these just comforting words to tell students and parents, to allow them to believe that they were sending us to an institution that supported the student rather than the system? I wish I could believe that a school that literally preaches honesty and wholesomeness, would also follow through on their promises. I wish that instead of writing a mission statement that discusses how much they value students’ safety, they would actually protect students by prosecuting the assaulting party.