On October 1, DePauw University released its the 2014 Annual Fire and Safety Report, also called the Clery Report.
The federal government requires each institute of higher education that receives federal funding to release a Clery Report in an effort to ensure that students, parents and employees, both current and perspective, can have an idea of how safe a campus is. Sexual assault is one of several categories covered on the report.
In 2012, DePauw’s Clery Report recorded seven reported sexual assaults. This year’s report records 15 for 2013.
This editorial board saw a couple possible conclusions from this statistic. First, our campus could be experiencing an increase in sexual assaults. Or the bystander intervention and sexual assault training first-years and many upperclassmen go through each year is paying off and more sexual assaults are being reported. We hope it’s the latter. While bystander intervention is important and effective, the only way to get offenders off our campus is for victims to report their assaults. This editorial board realizes that simply reporting an assault is difficult, and we applaud anyone with the courage to file a report.
Unfortunately, filing a report may not be enough. In January of this year, the White House Council on Women and Girls released a report titled, “Rape and Sexual Assault: A Renewed Call to Action.” The report stated that 7 percent of college men admit to committing or attempting rape. Of that 7 percent, 63 percent are repeat offenders that average six assaults each. According to these numbers, about 70 of the 1,015 men on DePauw’s campus would be offenders.
Although 70 perpetrators in the 2,117 students on campus this semester seems small, the amount of damage event one offender can do is huge, and the figure does not take into account any perpetrator that does not identify as male.
This editorial believes that the only way to get the perpetrators off our campus is for victims to report assaults and go through with charges. But we don’t believe all or even most of the responsibility falls on the victims. Most of the responsibility falls on the bystanders.
In “Reported sexual assaults double from 2012 to 2013,” an article in this issue of The DePauw, Sarah Ryan, director of the Women’s Center, said talking about a sex crime is difficult. That’s on all of us. If we as a student body want sexual assault eradicated from our campus, we have to create a campus culture where it is OK and even encouraged for survivors to report assaults. We have to create a supportive environment that cares more about the survivor than the perpetrator, regardless of our relationship to the perpetrator. We have to create a campus culture where sexual assault will not be tolerated, and we have to send that message loud and clear.
-Nicole DeCriscio did not contribute to this editorial.