UPDATE: A previous version of this story included a passage that painted Safe Ride, the UO’s safety shuttle, in a false light. Safe Ride provides exact times for pickups, a policy that was not communicated in the story. Rather, the story included a passage wherein a student was left waiting for a driver. Furthermore, Safe Ride policy dictates drivers call if he or she will be more than three minutes late to a pickup. The Emerald management staff will be much more diligent in preventing these sorts of misrepresentations in the future. We regret the error.
Editor’s Note: This is the first in a series exploring sexual assault on the University of Oregon campus.
It’s 9:45 p.m. She just got to the bar with her roommates. She had a couple of shots back home and needs a way home tonight.
10:30. She’s making conversation with a guy from class. He’s friendly, maybe a bit too much. She’s not keen on him, but her roommates are indisposed with other guys and she’s been on her own for the last 15 minutes.
11:50. She spots a friend, there with her boyfriend, and takes the opportunity to brush the guy from class off politely. He keeps touching her hair and shoulders and it feels uncomfortable. He’s probably just drunk, she tells herself. He doesn’t know he’s being creepy. She plans to move over to her friend, hoping he’ll get the message that she’s not interested.
12:30 a.m. Her roommates stumble over, flanked by guys. They say they’re leaving, that they’ll be out late tonight. But here are the keys. Be safe. The guy from earlier overhears and offers to drive her home, which she politely declines. She contemplates walking alone. The walk is at least 20 minutes in heels and she left her pepper spray at home. Neither option feels safe, but what can she do?
…
UO’s Director of Sexual Assault Prevention and Education Abigail Leeder believes society as a whole still lacks understanding about how sexual assault affects us. The University of Oregon campus is no exception.
“Everyone hears, ‘Oh, sexual assault, that’s such an awful thing,’” she said. “But they don’t relate it at all to their lives and their experiences.”
BB Beltran, executive director of Sexual Assault Support Services of Lane County, says most people don’t talk about sexual assault unless they or someone close to them experiences it.
Several factors influence whether survivors choose to report. They may feel at fault or be familiar with the perpetrator. One of the biggest reasons, Beltran says, is that survivors don’t think that anyone believes their accounts.
Say your female friend approaches you with what happened the other night. She never consented to sleeping with a guy and thinks she might’ve been assaulted. Naturally, you’ll want to know what she did, if anything provoked it, the specifics. You ask if she drank, if she can remember the details clearly. “Are you sure you were really assaulted?” Yes, she admits, she blacked out. No, she doesn’t remember everything clearly.
Your friend might come to believe it never happened. Or if it did, that it’s okay. She might believe she’s to blame for her own assault.
Your response may impact how your friend copes. Beltran explains that when survivors tell friends or a confidant about an incident, they’re often questioned about their own behaviors, which does more harm than good.
This response – often well intentioned – is called victim blaming. It’s only one of several ways rape culture manifests in society.
Beltran points to rape culture in everyday conversation. “The worst insult (a person) can give a man is he’s a girl, a sissy, anatomical parts of a woman’s body,” she said. Jokes about rape constitute another classic example. “Did you see the game last night? They totally raped them,” is an all-too-common use of “rape” as slang for “overpower” and “defeat.”
Some UO students are confronting the issue. Alpha Chi Omega Chapter President Emily Bol says the chapter works with Women’s Space, a local resource for preventing domestic violence against women for its philanthropy mission. The sorority also hosts workshops and guest speakers to educate its members about sexual assault and consent. Bol is confident that any of the sisters would know how to respond supportively should a survivor tell them about an incident.
In addition, Bol says every sorority has some sort of risk management position and emergency plan in the case of an incident with one of their members.
Ducks outside of Fraternity and Sorority Life have brought the issue to light as well. UO students Samantha Stendal and Aaron Blanton gained national attention last year when their YouTube video “A Needed Response” went viral. The video shows a woman passed out on a couch and a man next to her talking to the camera, telling viewers what he intends to do with the vulnerable guest. He gives her a blanket and some water, turns to the camera and says, “Real men treat women with respect.”
Blanton feels a deep concern for the safety of college girls in our culture and believes the issue still needs addressing. Turning women into “goals” dehumanizes them and “lays the social groundwork for these kinds of crimes to happen,” he said.
Many institutions are also taking sexual assault seriously. The Office of the Dean of Students has positions dedicated to sexual assault support, prevention and education. Renae DeSautel, UO’s Sexual Violence Response and Support Services coordinator, assists survivors in everything from academic intervention to counseling referrals.
Since the enactment of the Jeanne Clery Act in 1990, colleges and universities receiving federal funding are mandated to report annual crime statistics, including sexual assault, on and around campuses. Clery Act reports of a few Pac-12 schools give context as to how UO lines up. In 2011, UC Berkeley had 23 verified reports of forcible sexual assaults on campus, while USC had 14. By comparison, UO appears to be doing a bang-up job of combatting sexual assault  with only eight forcible sexual assaults over the same time period.
But for the percentage of students assaulted, the UO doesn’t boast a great record. In a compiled a list of 2012 Clery Act reports for all four-year public schools in the U.S. that have campus residential facilities, the UO had 17 offenses for roughly 25,000 students — among schools of 20,000 students or higher, UO had the fifth-highest rate of forcible sex offenses on campus in the country. That’s a 13 place jump from 18th in 2011.
But an upward trend in reports doesn’t always mean an increase in incidents. In fact, Beltran finds the recent spike in UO’s reports encouraging. Having high numbers “doesn’t necessarily mean it’s less safe. It means that more survivors are coming forward.”
DeSautel thinks underreporting may impact the high statistic. The Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network claims that only 40 percent of sexual assaults are reported. There are also other common misconceptions surrounding sexual assault and rape: RAINN reports that 10 percent of victims are male.
DeSautel says UO isn’t any better or worse than any other college when it comes to safety.
But Blanton believes Ducks are not universally as conscious to the issue. “I doubt most Ducks have ever heard the term ‘rape culture.’ Statistically, I probably met over 100 survivors at UO. Of those, three have confided in me … None of them reported it.”
Even DeSautel is unsure.
“I don’t know if we have an atmosphere on our campus where every survivor would feel safe in sharing what happened to them,” she said.
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It’s 11:40 am. the next day. She’s on the couch with a cup of tea. She made it home safely. Her roommate comes in after her night out, her face a mix of confusion and concern.
“Hey, can I talk to you?” says her roommate. “I think something might’ve happened last night.”
“Of course you can tell me,” she says. “I’m here to help.”