A total of five people complained that UNC-Chapel Hill was indifferent to incidents of sexual assault on campus. Former dean of students, Melinda Manning, alleges that the university’s administration pressured her to underreport the number of sexual assault cases. She claims that others changed the statistics when she refused to do so.
Underreporting violates the Clery Act, which requires colleges that participate in federal financial aid programs to disclose information about crime on campus.
It is important to recognize that this issue is not unique to UNC-CH. According to the American Association of University Women, 3 percent of women in the United States have fallen victim to rape or an attempted rape during the school year. Thus, for every 6,000 coeds there is an average of one rape per day. Using this statistic, there should be an average of more than five rapes per day at N.C. State during the school year. Yet the Campus Police’s Annual Security Report only reported seven instances of rape on our campus in 2011.
Jenn Scott, assistant director for interpersonal violence programs at the N.C. State Women’s Center, said, “There are a variety of different offices that are asked to report numbers [on rape]… and they always report what is brought to them.”
Scott points out that one of the reasons for the disparity between the number of reported and actual instances of rape is that many victims do not come forward. “We live in a culture that is very quick to blame a victim,” she said. “It makes it hard for them to come forward out of fear that someone is going to blame them for what happened.”
The problem is that not only do rapes occur on college campuses, but they are often not dealt with well, if they are dealt with at all.
Annie Clark, who graduated from UNC-CH in 2011, reported her assault to an administrator in 2007. The administrator’s response was, “Rape is like a football game, Annie. If you look back on the game, and you’re the quarterback and you’re in charge, is there anything you would have done differently in the situation?”
When Angie Epifano was raped at Amherst College, she came to the campus’s sexual assault counselor. Epifano said that, in short, she was told, “Are you sure it was rape? It might have just been a bad hookup… You should just forgive and forget.”
It is non-responses like these that lead victims to take drastic measures. Lizzy Seeberg, a student at St. Mary’s College, claimed she had been raped by a University of Notre Dame football player. By the time Notre Dame Police investigated the crime, Seeberg had already committed suicide.
Furthermore, classic teenage movies like American Pie are wrought with sexual references, often paired with alcohol and partying. One character even says, “You realize we’re all going to college as virgins? They probably have special dorms for people like us.”
In 2012, UNC-CH earned the title of top university sex life, as deemed by Playboy Magazine. Such rankings glorify sex and wrongfully make students feel inclined to partake in it as a quintessential part of the college experience.
Alcohol is another important contributor to the prevalence of rape on college campuses. As Scott said, “We often see alcohol used as a tool to make someone less able to resist and more compliant. Somebody else has to make a choice to take advantage of this person who is vulnerable because they’ve consumed alcohol. But being vulnerable to something isn’t the same as being responsible for something.”
The Women’s Center, located on the third floor of Harrelson Hall, provides students a non-judgmental environment to talk about their issues. Scott described the goal of the Women’s Center as “providing people with support and options. You’re not going to be judged for anything you did or didn’t do. It’s okay to reach out for help.”
