This is exactly why I went to a small, Division III, liberal arts school. There wasn't even a football team.

Sexual assault still happened, but because there was no emphasis placed on athletes (men or women) because of scholarships or school pride, athletes weren't treated any differently than non-athletes. Sport wasn't important in the school, so there was no institution or hierarchy to go through when a athlete got in trouble.

What's worse still about this story is that University officials (President Sally Mason and Coach Kirk Ferentz especially, it sounds like) COVERED EVERYTHING UP by withholding the victim's mother's letter of concern from the Iowa Board of Regents. That's why this case is blowing up just now, even though the alleged assault was more than a yr. ago.

My dad is a U. Iowa administrator (but in a dept. that has nothing to do with any of this stuff). He's been walking around with a migraine today because he's SO ANGRY at the University for how they apparently treated this female student. He's a longtime Iowa sports fan, but that doesn't matter a bit to him in comparison to this young woman's well-being.

I went to a Division I school (not Iowa) and lived in the dorm w/the football & basketball teams, so ElleStar's right about the athletic hierarchy. But I don't think the answer is for thoughtful women to avoid Division I schools. We just need more administrators who care about their female students. Some of them do, even at Iowa.

This horrible stuff happens everywhere all the time unfortunately. A woman was raped at my university, Bishop's University, in Lennoxville, Quebec, Canada a few years ago, and instead of doing anything about it, the administration swept it under the rug. No punishment was given to the football player and SHE was the one who ended up leaving the school. Disgusting stuff. The athletic hierarchy not only protects male athletes when it comes to sexual assault but also does not penalize them for poor grades. They often get extensions or do not have to do as much work as the rest of us. Just this year a football player scaled a wall of a 4 floor apartment building to break into his ex-girlfriends apartment, in which in vandalized and harassed her, and the administration did nothing. The football player was suspended from class and the team for only a month, however, my campus and town are very small so he was still out walking around and still working out at home, getting the notes from friends, so he wasn't really punished at all.
WHAT IS WRONG WITH OUR WORLD?!??!

Why the hell is this so often even left to the deans and/or coaches instead of the police in the first place? Even if they did take rape cases seriously, they don't have jail cells to put rapists in.

I heard a lot about schools covering up rape when I was a teen, decided that when I went to college I was going to call the real police instead of the school admins if I was ever attacked, and then was fortunate enough to not be attacked. Do other schools have rules against students calling the cops after being attacked by other students, or do these college towns have laws saying rape's a crime only if a non-studentstudent's accused and should be handled by the same people who handle plagiarism cases if a student's accused, or what?

That's the same shit UofI's athletics and central administration pulled when a female athelete accused basketball player Pierre Pierce of raping her in 2002. She took it to the city cops, but UofI tried to mediate a resolution between the two and then-basketball coach Steve Alford appallingly suggested they pray together to solve their differences.The entire treatment was outrageous, and garnered a ton of outrage, spurred university policy revisions and apparently accomplished no substnative change. Disgusting.

This is NOT just an issue with athletes. It's really common for college officials to encourage females who have been sexually assaulted to pursue recourse through the college's disciplinary system, rather than reporting the incident to the police. College officials will tell victims that the criminal justice process is brutal on victims, that it will all become public record, that they're unlikely ever to see a conviction, that the perpetrators are more likely to face consequences if students go through the college system (of course, the worst consequence the university can impose is to expel the perpetrator--although more often he just gets suspended or reprimanded)--all in the name of protecting the victims, but really it just allows the schools to sweep things under the rug and keep assaults out of their public stats. I definitely was aware that this happened when I was in college, although fortunately I never had to deal with it myself.

Not that this in any way excuses what happened, but did she report this to anyone other than the athletic department? The article doesn't seem to mention it one way or another (or maybe I'm not reading carefully)

This does happen everywhere, even at small schools without football teams. There was an incident at a women's college where the administration was slow to make progress and it was only made under great pressure from some of the student body.

Well, to put this case in context, this is after the Duke Lacrosse scandal, which demonstrated that universities who take precipitous action against the accused in such cases can face significant civil liability, should the allegations fail to stand up. US v. Morrison is another case in point: the accusations failed both to sustain criminal charges and to succeed in a civil case.

I'd be in favor of requiring any such accusations to be reported to law enforcement for any other action to be taken. If a crime did occur, then that's the proper venue to deal with it, and felony charges, much less proving the charges beyond a reasonable doubt, provide sufficient grounds to take any other appropriate action. Most colleges and universities that I'm aware of have policies to suspend and/or remove from campus students who are charged with a felony, and some states have laws barring students facing charges for felonies committed on campus or university property from campus.

My experience agrees with everything said about or against high profile collegiate male athletic programs. It was football for my university, the University of Hawaii, most recently known for reaching the 2008 Sugar Bowl through questionable selection of opponents, which is an entire issue in itself.

In addition to the sexism, it's about the money. Administrators did not see anything bigger than a successful sports program to promote the school to prospective students, athletes and sponsors, and bring in money. Having, for example, an outstanding Hawaiian Studies department or Asian Studies department, does not compare to having a successful athletics program.

Please compare the "average" current and approved salaries for coaching and administrative staff at my old university. You will see that a head coach (men's golf) may get as little as $33-56,000 and various assistant coaches $24-36,000 which is in itself outrageous:

http://www.hawaii.edu/cgi-bin/uhnews?20080215145000

Compare this to the former football coach's salary of $800,000 ("making him the HIGHEST-PAID public employee in the state" as of 2004) and his refused offer of $1.7 million to continue on after the attempt at the Sugar Bowl, along with promises to "improve facilities." I am so sorry in his new position with $2 million per year, the coach feels UH made him a series of broken promises.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/June_Jones#Hawai.CA.BBi

Why is a college football coach put above the ten campus university's president, the state governor, or a host of other essential roles in the state? Don't even ask me to begin what's wrong with raising the coach of a struggling (2004) team or the team he leads, to that level of importance.

You know, it is kind of depressing to see how little has changed, despite a hue and cry raised by feminists over lo these past 3 decades, since my own college days of the 1970's.

Back then, when I was attending college in Pittsburgh, a couple of mighty QBs from the Univerity of Pittsburgh (not my school)--the Panthers, I think---beat up a couple in a local bar. They both sustained serious injuries---she being a 100-lb nurse (1) and her boyfriend a slightly built character around 5'6". I was appalled and was sure the thugs would be kicked off the team, or at least suspended.

No Chance.

And to add insult to injury, I clearly remember a local radio editorial (!!) in which the commentaror excoriated the victims, claiming they were troublemakers and deserved what they got.

Yeah, folks, some things don';t change. College athletics--particularly football---is a big money maker for the school and so they will "look the other way" when confronted with even the most despicable player malfeasance. I mean, the idea of two beefy quarterbacks beating up two normal-sized people--one of them a woman---turns my stomach and I thought, in my young naivete, that everyone would feel that way. Apparently not.

Too bad nothing's changed....

I've never been in this situation, but I've always wondered, why report it? Why not wait a few months, then secretly buy a gun and carry out the punishment yourself? If you know there's only a --what, about 10%-- chance of the rapist ever being imprisoned, why not save yourself the trouble and quietly kill him yourself? If you're not related to or dating him and you haven't reported the rape, the police won't even suspect you and you'll save countless other women from being raped by that one guy.

I'm wondering who is encouraging these women to report CRIMINAL acts to the school instead of the police. If they had gone into their homes and robbed them (a much less heinous crime, given that it's property not a violent crime), I would think that they would go to the police. I had the joy of being assaulted, along with a couple friends, by a D1 football player (fortunately it was not sexual and no one was seriously injured although he did end up spending 19 months in prison), I never for a moment thought it was an issue that should be handled by the school. Violent crimes should be handled by the legal system.

I want to be clear that I am not trying to blame the victim for the route she took (I imagine it took a lot of strength to make reports so quickly and to different people), I'm just curious as to how the college and/or athletic community pressures students to report crimes solely to the school.

"If you know there's only a --what, about 10%-- chance of the rapist ever being imprisoned, why not save yourself the trouble and quietly kill him yourself?"

I often follow this line of reasoning myself, which is one reason I must remain anonymous on this blog. My best answer is, if discovered, you would be the criminal, and the only known criminal, like women who castrate or shoot their abusers in their sleep. The husband becomes the victims in the eyes of the law and many of the general public, and the woman likely receives the only punishment.

"If you're not related to or dating him and you haven't reported the rape, the police won't even suspect you and you'll save countless other women from being raped by that one guy."

Unfortunately, 70-80% of the time, the offender is someone you know, up to and including one's friends, brother, uncle, father, current partner or spouse. Who would be prepared to exact such vigilante justice as a killing, on what would normally assumed to be a loved one? As for stranger rape or sudden assault, how difficult would it be to discover the assailant oneself?

True, if it's a stranger, you'd need the police to track him down. However, in that case at least there's a better chance of a conviction. Family members, you'd be on the list of suspects so it's not worth the higher risk of being caught. Date rape would require waiting more than a few months before seeking revenge. In cases such as the one mentioned in the original article though, I do think a carefully planned murder is the only chance the victim has for justice. I just cannot imagine relying on a system that has failed so many others, not when if I could quickly and efficiently handle it myself.

It appears there *were* a number of broken promises to support the former football coach of my university and his team, like one assumes, SOAP for athletes? I was not able to see beyond his personal compensation package or his style of coaching.

The way schools are able to build or maintain successful athletic programs, and attract further funding, is all about privilege (also keeping in mind Title IX and the situation before it). It's unfair to less wealthy, less successful schools and athletic programs.

Kristen, different survivors have different reasons for choosing whether or not to report a rape and to whome. Maybe she felt the athletic department would be more likely to help her? Maybe she feared the legal system?

I personally have not had a good experience with either school officials or the police. I went to the police department of the school where I was assaulted (because it was out of the jurisdiction of the city) and after abusing me for reporting the rape (they asked me about my previous sexual history, tried to convince me that I was a slut, put false information in my report, and tried to make me say things that never happened--I told them that I lay still after he wouldn't stop, and they tried to get me to say that was consent), they told me to go to through the school's judicial system.

The school was not better at all, and they've been pushing me around for over a year now.

I think when crimes like these happen on a college campus, both the administration and the campus police are looking out for the best interest of the school. Since this is often the case, either route will usually lead to the same conclusion-- a forgotten victim and a rapist set free.

*I hope it doesn't seem like I'm saying that it's worthless. to report a rape, it's just that my own experience and the experiences of so many survivors I've known has ended up the same. A person who has been sexually assaulted definitely should report it if s/he can and feels it is the best thing for him/her to do.*

AvidOne, I do hope that your comments are facetious. Unless you happen to have put in some work for the Gambino family or something, I highly doubt that you, or the vast majority of people out there, are equipped to "quickly and efficiently handle" a murder and get away with it. Certainly, rather less well equipped than the investigators looking into the murder, who would have handled far more murders, and with far greater resources, than you. And consider that if you were to slip up in even one particular (say, like buying a gun illegally, to avoid the paperwork, from someone who could be or who could become, even years later, a police informant), you'd be going to prison for many, many years, if not for life (or, for that matter, getting the death penalty).

Oh, and also keep in mind that by not reporting the original rape, you would have discredited and damaged your best opportunity at an excusable homicide defense. The police, prosecutors, and probably the jury as well would regard any later claims to a rape as a specious attempt to get off. "If she really was raped, why didn't she report it?" would be the question asked.

NUscoutmaster commented on July 23, 2008 7:52 PM: "I think when crimes like these happen on a college campus, both the administration and the campus police are looking out for the best interest of the school. Since this is often the case, either route will usually lead to the same conclusion-- a forgotten victim and a rapist set free."

Sadly, that's so true.

...and even if they are looking out for the best interests of the victim, even if they don't forget her or him, the conclusion will still include a rapist set free if the admins and the campus police try to handle the case by themselves. Unless someday a campus has its own prison as well as its own police force?

tommydagun commented on July 23, 2008 8:33 PM: "...Oh, and also keep in mind that by not reporting the original rape, you would have discredited and damaged your best opportunity at an excusable homicide defense. The police, prosecutors, and probably the jury as well would regard any later claims to a rape as a specious attempt to get off. 'If she really was raped, why didn't she report it?' would be the question asked."

Also true. They might also think stuff like "maybe she felt too ashamed to tell anyone about the rape until after the evidence of rape was washed away/healed/etc., maybe there was no rape and she's claiming rape now after killing him for being [insert name of demographic category like race or religion], where's the evidence for us to tell the difference?"

"I do think a carefully planned murder is the only chance the victim has for justice."

I often think so. Again, why I must remain anonymous.

"I just cannot imagine relying on a system that has failed so many others, not when if I could quickly and efficiently handle it myself."

I will dare to venture the average citizen is more likely to make errors than an equipped, organized, established system of law enforcement and justice. I accept what my wife says for example, about her former employer, former coworkers, former classmate/best friend's boyfriend now her husband; random men in public places, her evil stepmother, her aunt's nephew, and some other unidentified male relation she says sexually assaulted her or physically abused her for years on end. I planned to harm these people on sight or after stalking them, but could not take the chance I was in error. Japanese society would consider it poor form, and reflect poorly on other men and foreigners, for example, for me to beat my fiancee's evil stepmother upon introduction. Concern for error or error in judgment is separate from considering my wife a liar.

I was also in a position to knife to death the man who lured me to his car and assaulted me as it happened, in 1987, because I was in a habit of carrying a knife for self defense and he let his guard down because I was frozen in shock (18 year old boys don't usually expect to be sexually assaulted by men on school grounds, with witnesses present, next to a busy Waikiki street, yes?). It was my call, but after regaining some of my senses, I didn't consider it worth the bother to handle the police over me killing a white person on public property with witnesses in the distance. There would be too much doubt, and too many questions. I just went back to my dorm and cried.

So I decided to hate homosexuals for a couple of years, based on my Fundamentalist upbringing, until I realized how LGBTQQ issues affected members of my own family, leading to one man's attempted suicide, and one woman's estrangement from her father. I quickly got over the homophobia, but it appears my fear of being alone with strangers or men in places with limited avenues for escape (like cars, correctional facilities, and Narcotics Anonymous meetings) remains. I didn't even hitchhike or get into a marked government vehicle (sweeper) when stranded on the highway miles from home in the middle of the night last year, but steeled myself for a long walk. I consider that my problem now.

All this talk of murder had me thinking (back in reference to the original topic) how offenses like rape are handled in "Gemeinschaft" versus "Gesellschaft"-type societies. In many other parts of the world and many communities today, where a functioning legal system doesn't hold sway, a rapist might very well have a decent chance of being murdered at the behest of the victim or her family (of course, there's at least as likely, if not greater, a chance that the perpetrator and victim might wind up in a shotgun marriage, or that the victim herself would be murdered in an honor killing).

Presumably, the university administrations and athletic departments are attempting to deal with these sorts of cases in a pseudo-Gemeinschaft way. "We're all family." Of course, families often cover over and ignore, often for years, evidence of rape and other sexual violations. This isn't to tout the Gesellschaft answer, the criminal justice system, as perfect or offering perfect justice to victims, of course. But it's probably a better answer. I'd be in favor of making it mandatory, perhaps as a matter of law, for universities and their affiliated organizations, to forward all accusations of rape or other violent crimes, to law enforcement. The legal system has the resources, the proper checks and balances in place, and the mission to properly investigate and dispose of such cases, that make it better than the sort of incoherent pseudo-system that is apparently described operating on campuses.

"I'd be in favor of making it mandatory, perhaps as a matter of law, for universities and their affiliated organizations, to forward all accusations of rape or other violent crimes, to law enforcement."

I cannot imagine why, other than covering one's ass as a public institution, or protecting a valued athletic asset, this is not already the case. How is keeping it within the school even argued to benefit the victims? (Other than, their own name and face not hitting the news.)

"The legal system has the resources, the proper checks and balances in place, and the mission to properly investigate and dispose of such cases, that make it better than the sort of incoherent pseudo-system that is apparently described operating on campuses."

I'll agree that professionals are better equipped than amateurs, though I may not agree with results received through the legal process. Since it has come up on another OP that a rape kit may be backlogged for six months or more, if law enforcement feels it merits follow up at all; it is too bad that private organizations cannot be authorized and publicly funded to aid in investigations and help clear those backlogs, to investigate what law enforcement is unwilling to investigate, or to set up those databases that law enforcement have not. (Publicly funded to avoid the well moneyed from pursuing justice more swiftly or surely than those who cannot afford to pay. I wonder how far cutting a football coach's ridiculous $2 million salary would go toward solving and preventing rape on campus?)

I don't know if the news of Australian professional football players behaviour towards women but it's gotten to the stage where they have to be educated. I don't mean I am suggesting that they be educated. They are actually being educated.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,23268502-7583,00.html%3Ffrom%3Dpublic_rss

You'd think it was a joke. It's not.

I'm appalled that all this talk about revenge and murder have gone with little condemnation. Do you really think rape victims ought to play judge and jury, and murder their attackers? Doesn't that make them just as criminal as their attackers? Is no one else disturbed by this line of thinking, and the little rebuttal it has received here?

JRO--

I agree with you, but I can see where the frustration that causes people to say that comes from. When the system is so broken and corrupt, it borders on insulting when officials keep telling women to "stay within" the very system that refuses to protect or defend them in the first place.

I'm not saying I support revenge murder--certainly not--just that I can understand why some people would want to "take the law into their own hands."

On another note--anedotaly, it seems like I hear about so much violence perpetrated by football players--collegiate and pro. I wonder if the nature of the sport (or the people who play it) has something to do with a violent predisposition? Certainly athletes in other sports have been accused of domestic violence and the like (pro basketball comes to mind) but it seems much more pervasive in football.

Just from my own college experience, the football players were always THE WORST when it came to things like dorm damage and disrespect of others. (It was a small, liberal arts D-3 school btw, so it happens in those places too). They also had the worst reputation when it came to how they treated women. I was a student-athlete myself, so I knew many of the athletes on campus and witnessed many incidents myself.

I don't have hard data or anything like that, but I can say that at my school, the football team (as a group) were the most destructive and sexist group of people on campus.

Colleges have varying policies about reporting on-campus crime. A large university like Iowa's most likely has its own police force made up of sworn officers, so for all intents and purposes they are a separate jurisdiction. Such a university could ask other jurisdictions for extra resources when it comes to major crimes (as do small jurisdictions anywhere), but they're not required to. The college where I work isn't large enough to have sworn officers, so we encourage students to report campus crime to the city police (and tell us about it, too, of course).

If a student is alleged to have committed a crime, he or she also has to deal with the on-campus judicial process. Plenty of times the local law enforcement will decline to prosecute a crime, leaving it to the school to sanction the student. This system works well when we're talking about petty crime, but it's definitely open for abuse by schools who want to keep their major crime stats down. If a school classifies a sexual assault, for example, as an alcohol violation, then magically it doesn't have to be reported under the Clery Act. And then there's the related problem that privacy laws prohibit schools from disclosing results of these campus judicial processes in many cases (as opposed to public prosecutions). It's entirely plausible that a male student could commit any number of sexual assaults on campus, go through the process each time, technically face a "punishment" (e.g. suspension) and not one bit of it would ever show up on a standard background check. When so many acquaintance rape cases hinge on the idea that the rapist was drunk and didn't know what he was doing, this inability to prove a pattern of past behavior is a HUGE problem for victims.

i find all this talk of killing one's attacker without going through the legal system absolutely repugnant. the legal system is flawed, without question, but we all implicitly agree to follow it when we pass the age of majority and live in this country. i understand frustration, having been victimized myself without the arrest or conviction of the perpetrator, but the idea that vigilantism is the best or even an acceptable option is truly sickening. because, you know, an angry and frustrated victim should OBVIOUSLY be given a moral pass when harming or killing someone? that's horrifying. if the justice system can't get it right, i'm thoroughly unconvinced that an emotionally distraught person with (most likely) no forensic expertise is more likely to be able to target a stranger accurately.

i'm also really horrified by the idea that rape merits murder or the death penalty. rape is horrible, yes, but it's not in the same league as ending someone's life, and i find it insulting in the extreme that a few commenters here can't tell the difference.

Why the hell is this so often even left to the deans and/or coaches instead of the police in the first place?

While I would like to see each and every one of these assaults brought to the police, it's unfortunately no guarantee that the police and DA will take it seriously. About 20 years ago a student was brutally raped by a star player of the University of Washington's football team. It was an open-and-shut case, but the King County prosecuting attorney, Norm Maleng (may he rot in hell), buried the case. In fact, his successor, Dan Satterberg, also participated in making the case go away. There's even evidence of their complicity in the UW's attempts to terrorize the victim into silence.

So, as usual, the authorities can't always be trusted, and, to all other readers who live in King County, Washington, vote against Satterberg when he runs for reelection.

wickedwench commented on July 24, 2008 10:29 AM: "On another note--anedotaly, it seems like I hear about so much violence perpetrated by football players--collegiate and pro. I wonder if the nature of the sport (or the people who play it) has something to do with a violent predisposition?"

OTOH, there's a lurking variable: physical strength. Maybe yet another jerk with a violent predisposition is a proverbial "90-pound weakling" and neither passes the football team tryouts because he or she* lacks brawn nor beats up the woman he or she wants to beat up because he or she realizes the targeted woman could win the fight?

baddesignhurts commented on July 24, 2008 3:40 PM: "because, you know, an angry and frustrated victim should OBVIOUSLY be given a moral pass when harming or killing someone?"

...and/or someone who harmed or killed someone should OBVIOUSLY be presumed to be an angry or frustrated victim?

* How many schools have women's gridiron football teams, especially since there's a pro league (see http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/articles/2008/05/22/new_team_old_fascination_for_women_of_the_gridiron/ )?

Peggy Reeves Sanday wrote about this forever ago in her book _Fraternity Gang Rape_. It's pretty clear that not only are male athletes valued over female students, but that in general the sorts of male-oriented organizations like sports teams and fraternities actually require a certain amount of violence displaced against women in order to offset the submerged homoerotic behavior occurring.
Pretty interesting book....

I can also understand why someone would want to kill their attacker, although obviously this will ruin your life. For this reason, killing is not an answer for anyone who wants a future.

However, once the damage to the victim is done, it's extensive. In fact, some victims may well get pushed over the edge and experience such trauma that they snap, and commit murder. Should this happen, there should be a defence available based on PTSD or something similar to battered woman syndrome.

Meanwhile, here are some stats on our so-called justice system:

March 28 2008
Attitude problem at heart of low conviction rates for rape
http://www.sussex.ac.uk/law/documents/jennifer_temkin_rape_law_book_newdraft_0208.pdf
Despite increases in the number of rapes reported to the police, conviction rates have declined or
remained stagnant in many Western countries. In England and Wales, the proportion of reported
rapes that ended in a conviction declined from 32 per cent in 1979 to 5.3 per cent in 2004/5.

- only 1 percent of acquaintance rapes are *ever* reported.

http://www.aaets.org/article13.htm:
"A factor which inhibits reporting is... a low conviction rate for acquaintance rapists."
Conviction and Sentencing

Less than half of those arrested for rape are convicted, 54% of all rape prosecutions end in either dismissal or acquittal. The conviction rate for those arrested for murder is 69% and all other felons is 54%. (The Response to Rape: Detours on the Road to Equal Justice)

21% of convicted rapists are never sentenced to jail or prison time, and 24% receive time in local jail which means that they spend an average of less than 11 months behind bars. (The Response to Rape: Detours on the Road to Equal Justice)

USA
http://www.leaderu.com/real/ri9502/sommers.html
1985 Ms. magazine report by Mary Koss
In line with her view of rape as existing on a continuum of male sexual aggression, Koss also asked: "Have you given in to sex play (fondling, kissing, or petting, but not intercourse) when you didn't want to because you were overwhelmed by a man's continual arguments and pressure?" To this question, 53.7 percent responded affirmatively.

Britain:
Posted: 20 November 2006 - A new ICM survey commissioned by the End Violence Against Women campaign (EVAW) :

a significant minority of young people held views that condoned sexual violence.

For example, 27% thought it was acceptable for a boy to 'expect to have sex with a girl' if the girl has been 'very flirtatious'. The same view was held by one in twelve (8%) of young people in the case of situations where a boy had 'spent a lot if time and money' on the girl. Eleven per cent thought it was acceptable for a boy to expect to have sex if sexual activity had been initiated and the boy was 'really turned on'. In most cases more young men held these views than young women.

These views reflect those revealed in a 2005 ICM poll of British adults that found that around a third of people believed that in some circumstances, such as having been flirtatious or being drunk, a woman could be held responsible for being raped (2).

Teen Dating Facts
http://www.abanet.org/unmet/teendating/facts.pdf
- 45% of girls know a friend or peer who has been pressured into either intercourse or oral sex.
Liz Claiborne Inc., Conducted by Teenage Research Unlimited, (February 2005).
- Male peer support for violence against women is a constant predictor of male violence within post-secondary educational institutions.
Martin D. Schwartz & Walter S. DeKerrseredy, “Aggregation Bias and Woman Abuse,” (2000).

consequences
- 50% of youth reporting both dating violence and rape also reported attempting suicide, com-pared to 12.5% of non-abused girls and 5.4% of non-abused boys.
D. M. Ackard, Minneapolis, MN, and D. Neumark-Sztainer, Division of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, “Date Violence and Date Rape Among Adolescents: Associations with Disordered Eating Behaviors and Psychological Health,” Child Abuse & Neglect, 26 455-473, (2002).

http://www.icasa.org/docs/acquaintance_rape_-_DRAFT_7.doc

In a survey of 11 to 14 year olds (in Great Britain):

• 31% of the boys and 32% of the girls said it was acceptable for a man to rape a woman with past sexual experiences;
• 87% of the boys and 79% of the girls said sexual assault was acceptable if the man and woman were married;
• 65% of the boys and 47% of the girls said it was acceptable for a boy to rape a girl if they had been dating for more than six months;

In a survey of adolescent girls, 27% said they had unwanted sex because of psychological pressure.

A 1992 Seventeen magazine survey of 4,200 young women about sexual harassment in schools found that:
• 89% reported receiving sexual comments, gestures or looks;
• 83% reported being touched, pinched or grabbed;
• Almost 66% told their harassers to stop, and more than 33% resisted with physical force;

Sadly this sort of crap has happened with the University of Iowa before with the infamous Pierre Pierce and the way that case was handled.

Also since April 2007, 18 Iowa football players have been arrested, including five on felony charges.

Plus there have been more than 31 reported assaults against women over the past 12 months and several may have been committed by the same person in Iowa City. http://www.gazetteonline.com/section/crimedata03

Not only the university but the whole town needs to come together and say enough is enough! They need to take a stand against violence towards women. They need to take a stand against criminals representing U of I athletes.