Time to find a voice: Act brings sexual assault to forefront
It’s estimated between one-quarter and one-fifth of female students experience sexual assault within a four-year college period.
But a more sobering reality is of those incidents of sexual violence, 95 percent of victims never report the crime, according to a 2000 Bureau of Justice Statistics/Department of Justice study.
Although the University of South Dakota, along with hundreds of other U.S. colleges receiving federal funding, comply with the annual Clery Act requirements to document and disclose forcible sexual offenses that occur on campus, these numbers only reflect what is reported to university officials and local law enforcement.
Between 2010-2012, 10 forcible sex offenses — which range from rape to fondling — have been documented in USD’s annual Clery report statistics. What are the odds that on a campus where nearly two-thirds of the student population is female that this number is not underreported?
USD is not exempt from the underreporting of sexual assaults, which the Bureau of Justice Statistics reports is the case for a majority of women and girls in the United States, so let’s stop treating the subject like it is a social taboo.
Let’s not mince words, rape — legally the most serious form of sexual assault — happens at USD. It happens, it can have devastating effects on a person’s life and it is underreported. But change is coming, and USD is in the right to follow suit.
The Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act, which includes the Campus Sexual Violence Elimination Act provision, finally allows the Clery Act to have some teeth and pushes to keep the survivor’s rights at the forefront of the discussion about sexual violence on college campuses.
The SaVE Act establishes procedures for on-campus hearings, innovative staff training and education programs. These laws are finally calling out universities and requiring them to recognize their institutional responsibility to follow through with on-campus consequences of incidents reported on- and off-campus.
Most importantly, these laws also push for victims to know their rights, and to know what services they have at their disposal.
This is an important time for USD, for a number of colleges, to implement and build on these fundamentals — to make this campus and town safer for everyone.
But this isn’t just about USD officials stepping up.
If there ever were a time to speak up about sexual violence on a college campus, now would be it. Student victims are making their voices heard around the country, with last year seeing countless victims from 29 schools filing Title IX complaints.
While a room full of reporters can only go so far as to raise awareness of sexual violence in Vermillion on their own, The Volante is here to give every student a voice. We are here to give all students — male and female — a platform to tell their story, to let the university’s administration, faculty and other students know that Vermillion is not exempt from sexual violence.
Maybe your story will help someone else seek help, maybe it will encourage them to tell a friend, a parent, a police officer. But this will never happen as long as victims of sexual violence stay silent.
Speak up, it’s time. After all, as author Elizabeth Gilbert said best, “If you don’t listen to the whispers, soon you’ll be listening to the screams.”
If you want to tell your story — if you want to find your voice — contact Volante reporter Megan Card at [email protected].
