College Rape Survivor Told Not to Report Her Rapist, Drops Out While Alleged Rapist Graduates With H

[polly7]

... With Honors.

Amherst is supposed to be a liberal institution. The mistreatment of a rape survivor shows just how pervasive rape culture is.

October 19, 2012 |

http://www.alternet.org/college-rape-survivor-told-not-report-her-rapist-drops-out-while-alleged-rapist-graduates-honors

A former Amherst student detailed her experience of on-campus rape and the college’s abysmal treatment of the situation, in a searing and painful essay . The piece in The Amherst Student by Angie Epifano, who left the college because of her experience, has focused a national spotlight on the elite liberal university’s treatment of rape and rape culture, raising questions about the treatment of sexual assault, victims and perpetrators on campuses around the country....

.....In short I was told: No you can’t change dorms, there are too many students right now. Pressing charges would be useless, he’s about to graduate, there’s not much we can do. Are you SURE it was rape? It might have just been a bad hookup…You should forgive and forget.

How are you supposed to forget the worst night of your life?… I was continuously told that I had to forgive him, that I was crazy for being scared on campus, and that there was nothing that could be done. They told me: We can report your rape as a statistic, you know for records, but I don’t recommend that you go through a disciplinary hearing. It would be you, a faculty advisor of your choice, him, and a faculty advisor of his choice in a room where you would be trying to prove that he raped you. You have no physical evidence, it wouldn’t get you very far to do this.

Epifano recounts how when she expressed a suicidal thought to her counselor, she was immediately committed to the local hospital’s psychiatric ward for five days where she says the doctor was no more supportive. “I really don’t think that a school like Amherst would allow you to be raped. And why didn’t you tell anybody?” she recalls the doctor suggesting. Epifano describes a rape by a student and an ongoing abuse by an institution. Eventually she withdrew from Amherst and remains sickened by the administration’s refusal to take rape seriously. She writes (citing unofficial statistics):

http://amherststudent.amherst.edu/?q=article%2F2012%2F10%2F17%2Faccount-sexual-assault-amherst-college

An Account of Sexual Assault at Amherst CollegeBy
Angie Epifano
,
Epifano is a former student of the class of 2014
Issue
142-6
| Wed, 10/17/2012 - 00:07

TRIGGER WARNING: This content deals with an account of sexual assault and may be triggering to some people.

When you’re being raped time does not stop. Time does not speed up and jump ahead like it does when you are with friends. Instead, time becomes your nemesis; it slows to such an excruciating pace that every second becomes an hour, every minute a year, and the rape becomes a lifetime.

On May 25, 2011, I was raped by an acquaintance in Crossett Dormitory on Amherst College campus.

Some nights I can still hear the sounds of his roommates on the other side of the door, unknowingly talking and joking as I was held down; it is far from a pleasant wakeup call.

I had always fancied myself a strong, no-nonsense woman, whose intense independence was cultivated by seventeen harrowing years of emotional abuse in my backwoods home. May 25th temporarily shattered that self-image and left me feeling like the broken victim that I had never wanted to be....

http://amherststudent.amherst.edu/?q=article%2F2012%2F10%2F17%2Faccount-sexual-assault-amherst-college

President Martin’s Statement on Sexual Assault

October 18, 2012

Dear Members of the Amherst Community,

I write in response to the recent news about an incident of sexual violence and misconduct on the Amherst campus and to reports that the College has failed to treat similar incidents with adequate transparency or seriousness. A student’s first-person account in this week’s Amherst Student is horrifying—her rape, her painful efforts to deal with it on her own, and her subsequent experiences when she sought help on the campus.

In response to her story, still more accounts of unreported sexual violence have appeared in social media postings and in emails I have received from several students and alumni. Clearly, the administration’s responses to reports have left survivors feeling that they were badly served. That must change, and change immediately. I am investigating the handling of the incident that was recounted in The Student. There will be consequences for any problems we identify, either with procedures or personnel.

https://www.amherst.edu/campuslife/letters_president/node/436469

[Deep13]

1. Wow. nt

[Neoma]

2. I know this sounds weird.

But I'm glad I won't ever live in a dorm.

Ps. What kind of quack was that doctor? Goodness.

[FloridaJudy]

4. I've met a few really good, really caring psychiatrists

Last edited Wed Oct 24, 2012, 01:22 AM - Edit history (1)

But too many of them take the attitude "Oh well, this patient is crazy, so nothing she says can be trusted". The most nightmarish night of my life was the one I voluntarily checked into a mental hospital suffering from a near-suicidal depression because I'd just lost my job and was in danger of losing everything else because of a false-positive drug test. I actually had two doctors come straight out and say "Well you must have done something wrong, or they wouldn't have fired you". Not that the lab was using an unreliable test (which they were), or that some technician had mixed up the samples.

The next morning I pretended that everything was just yippy-skippy and I was fine now, and checked myself out again, thinking "I may be a little nuts, but those people are batshit!"* If I'd had to stay there any longer, I really would have been certifiable.

Really, the only thing I could compare it to was being in some red Chinese re-education camp, or locked up in a Soviet era psych hospital, where you start to question your own grip on reality. I can totally understand why some people wind up confessing to crimes they haven't committed, when everyone around them insists that they have.

Edited to add: when I said batshit, I was referring to some of the staff, not the patients. They were just screwed up people who needed help, and too many of them weren't getting it.

[get the red out]

3. Dear GOD!

It was like she was in some kind of totalitarian re-education camp. Not allowed to leave until she had thoroughly ingested the party line and was of no danger to the reputation of the institution.

I read a book recently about a woman who was raped on a college campus back in the 80's and how she was treated (very similarly but at a different university), and how the horrific crime came back to haunt her life many years later. It was "Crash Into Me" by Liz Seccuro. The similarity in the actions of the colleges these women attended once they told of their rape is so similar that it makes me wonder if there isn't a book out there somewhere on how to shut up a co-ed that wants to dare to demand justice and decent treatment after her rape instead of blaming herself and keeping quiet like a good little girl.

Disgusting!

[LadyHawkAZ]

5. I have never understood the school disciplinary thing

This isn't the first story I've heard where the college was allowed to handle the matter themselves. Wouldn't this be a matter for the police and state prosecutors? When did colleges stop being subject to state sexual assault laws? What am I missing here? I never attended so maybe someone who did can clue me in?

[One_Life_To_Give]

6. In principal it's about keeping a prank from becoming a lasting legal record

Underage drinking being one example. If we ever tried to prosecute every kid whom the school became aware of possessing alcohol under the age.
But once you start hiding the Drunk and Disorderly it becomes easier for some to justify hiding more serious crimes. Protecting the kids, school and alumni reputations all part of the supposed justification. And that doesn't even address attempts by some to hide the stats over fears it will reduce future enrollments.

[LadyHawkAZ]

7. For citations and minor misdemeanors, I could maybe see that

but this is a felony charge.

[Lugia]

8. Wow

That's sad.

[yardwork]

9. It's a long article but every word is important.

For instance, this paragraph:

Amherst has almost 1800 students; last year alone there were a minimum of 10 sexual assaults on campus. In the past 15 years there have been multiple serial rapists, men who raped more than five girls, according to the sexual assault counselor. Rapists are given less punishment than students caught stealing. Survivors are often forced to take time off, while rapists are allowed to stay on campus. If a rapist is about to graduate, their punishment is often that they receive their diploma two years late.

[stevenleser]

10. Colleges should be forced to report every violent crime to real police. Every assault, sexual or

otherwise should have to be reported to the non-campus police. That should be a federal law, and any administrators violating it should face both obstruction of justice charges and be charged as an accessory after the fact for any non-reported crime.

That will jumpstart us on the way to stopping at least the increased instances of sexual assault at colleges vs the general population.

[obamanut2012]

11. I thought they were

[stevenleser]

12. I think they sweep a LOT of them, particularly sexual assaults, under the rug with suggestions that

no crime occurred. I should clarify my original comment that any allegation that could be construed to suggest a violent crime may have occurred, including all variations of sexual assault, should be mandatory to report to off campus law enforcement authorities.

There should be no wiggle room where administrations can say "I didnt think she was telling the truth"