In late May, the board of regents at Baylor University demoted its president, Kenneth W. Starr, to chancellor and fired its football coach, Art Briles. Both were accused of ignoring complaints of sexual assault, and even threatening one victim with retaliation.
In short, according to The New York Times, the university leadership had “created a cultural perception that football was above the rules.”
On June 1, Starr resigned from the chancellor position, stating, “I have to and I willingly do accept responsibility. … The captain goes down with the ship.” Hooray!
In stark contrast to this admission of blame and responsibility regarding sexual assault, “The Hunting Ground,” a dramatic documentary released last fall, names dozens of American colleges — including such prestigious institutions as Harvard, Notre Dame and the University of California at Berkeley — as being guilty of ignoring charges of sexual assault, especially if the perpetrator is a star athlete.
According to the film, dismissive administrative responses to complainants range from victim blame (“What could you have done differently?”) to total denial (“That kind of thing doesn’t happen here!”).
Not surprisingly, it is the students rather than the administrators who have taken on such institutional injustices. In January 2013, Annie Clark and Andrea Pino, who had been raped shortly after arriving on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, found their complaints ignored. So they filed an anti-gender discrimination complaint to the Department of Education, which in turn initiated a federal investigation of 55 collegiate institutions across the country for potential Title IX violations.
Closer to home, Colorado college students are taking their own kinds of actions.
University of Denver student Jessica Davidson was raped by a peer in her junior year. Davidson, now a senior and vice president of the student body, has made ending sexual assault at DU her primary mission. “I take this on in order to prevent my perpetrator, or anybody else, from assaulting or raping again,” she said.
One of Davidson’s goals is to educate students that, in any sexual encounter, only the word “yes” means yes. “No means no” is not good enough, Davidson said, because it puts the burden on the potential victim. Those who are either intoxicated or who enter a state of immobilized trauma can become physically unable to say “no” or to shout for help. This silence can then be assumed by the perpetrator to be consent.
“Many students, here and elsewhere, are still reluctant to report,” she said, “both from fear of retaliation and the belief their complaints will not be taken seriously.” Nationwide, it has been found that close to 90 percent of victims do not report their assaults.
Davidson is one of three Colorado student leaders who traveled to Washington recently to receive the White House Champions of Change Award, in the area of preventing sexual violence.Another is Cody McDavis, a University of Northern Colorado basketball player and a leader on the National Student-Athlete Advisory Committee.
McDavis, in conjunction with the NSAAC, led the “Itap on Us” challenge from the White House, which initiated a national student competition between universities to produce a video emphasizing the role of students in preventing sexual assault. For the last two years, the winning video was played at the men’s and women’s Final Four event.
McDavis, now graduated, said his leadership also involved talking to male students, some of whom came to him confused and asked, “What exactly is sexual assault?”
“It is important that they know that assault is not technically confined to rape,” said McDavis, “but includes any sexual advance on a woman that she does not say ‘yes’ to.”
In short, only “yes” means yes.
Go, student activists!
Dottie Lamm (dolamm59@gmail.com) is a former first lady of Colorado and a retired adjunct professor at the University of Denver.
To send a letter to the editor about this article, submit or check out our for how to submit by e-mail or mail.
