Last spring, a list was released with the name of fifty-five schools under investigation by the federal government for their handlings of sexual assault. In case you were wondering, CWRU was not on that list, and while it’s great that we personally do not seem to have as much of an issue handling sexual assault cases as some other schools, that does not mean this is a problem we have earned the right to ignore.
In April of 2014, twenty-three students at Barnard and Columbia University filed a federal complaint because of the way their cases were handled. Twenty-three students. In one case, three different women on three different occasions accused a man of sexually assaulting them and he was somehow let off without punishment all three times. I have a problem with that. I also have a problem with how victims of these sexual assault cases are being treated. I’ve been reading articles where women aren’t allowed to switch out of classes they share with their alleged assaulter. I’ve been keeping up with the story of a teacher and principal who convinced a female student to act as bait in order to catch a potential rapist ‘in the act’. I’ve learned about women being forced to go on medical leave without the chance for appeal so that the school doesn’t have to deal with their mental states after the asserted attack. I even had a friend who was raped during my freshman year of college at my prior university, and had a conversation with a different mutual friend that went something like this:
Me: I think she should press charges.
Friend: You really think so?
Me: Yes, of course. Why shouldn’t she?
Friend: Well, it could ruin his life.
It could ruin his life. Why don’t we take a moment to realize that he may have already ruined hers? Why don’t all schools think their students deserve to have their accusations treated fairly and why don’t they want to help relieve some of the pain that I’m sure comes with being sexually assaulted? Why do they not suspect that a person accused of rape on three different occasions by three different people may actually be guilty of doing something wrong? I have a problem with all of this, but my biggest problem is how all of this is eventually going to be forgotten and swept under the rug.
The media is currently seemingly entranced with Emma Sulkowicz’s story –a student at Columbia University who is going to carry a mattress around with her everywhere (to demonstrate the mental burden she carries around) until her rapist leaves the school. I’ve read stories about alumni at Columbia who refuse to give donations until the administration takes action and fixes their sexual assault policy. I’ve read about some schools denying their students access to class registration until they complete an awareness training program. All of this is awesome and amazing, but once the media attention fades, so will our upfront consciousness of these problems. Columbia University is one of the schools that is not responding to their outraged students and public condemnation, and I think it’s because they understand this. They understand that eventually these problems will be brushed aside as natural disasters and grad school applications take over our worries and thoughts. I have a monumental problem with this.
I’m sure sexual assault happens at Case and I’m fortunate enough to lack any experience with the situation, so I can’t tell you if our school does a commendable job with handling these cases or not. However, just because we may handle the investigations well does not mean it’s not a problem, and just because you may not experience a problem with sexual assault here does not mean your sister or your best friend won’t experience it at another school. I suppose I just want to make sure that we don’t forget about these problems, because unless the media and our attention stays focused on issues like these, nothing will change since schools and other institutions will just ride the wave until we move on to caring about the next big thing. It may not ever seem like we have much power or influence –after all, we’re only twenty years old and still live with out parents- but that’s not true. If we start to forget and take the pressure off the need for change, then eventually so will the rest of the world, meaning there will forever be girls like Emma Sulkowicz who will be without support, carrying around a mental burden the size of a mattress. And I hope you have a problem with that.