Last year we reported how a University of Portland student, after reporting being raped, was threatened by the school with charges of underage drinking.
In making the university's decision, UP judicial coordinator Natalie Shank suggested to Kerns that she could have been charged with violating university policies herself."Based upon my findings in my investigation, I am unable to determine if a sexual assault occurred," Shank wrote May 3, 2007. "I have reason to believe that intercourse occurred, but both parties admit to drinking and therefore, consent--or lack of consent--is difficult to determine. Given these facts, there are possible violations for which you could be charged."
Well, we have some good news. According to StudentActivism.net, the school's sexual assault reporting policies have been revised.
The school handbook now reads:
"To foster the safety and security of the entire community, the University of Portland encourages reporting of all instances of sexual assault. However, no disciplinary action will be taken without the consent of the survivor. To remove barriers to reporting, the University will not pursue potential policy violations of the survivor which occurred in the context of the sexual assault. Likewise, the University will not pursue potential policy violations of a person who comes forward to report sexual assault."
I love good news.
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This makes me extremely grateful for the policies of the school that I went to. Now, it certainly wasn't perfect, but you could not be charged with underage drinking if you came forward and reported sexual assault. My school also offered medical amnesty. You couldn't be charged with underage drinking if you went to the hospital, or took a friend to the hospital, for alcohol poisoning...
While this is good news, it's mind boggling that this wasn't the policy all along. As a general rule the school shouldn't pursue any disciplinary action for minor infractions--especially infractions such as underage drinking that are routinely ignored--against people who admit to them in the normal course of reporting someone else's major infraction. I really don't understand what goes through the minds of the Natalie Shanks of the world.
Ack! That shouldn't have been a reply to aamezz. Whoops! Although I will say that whether or not a school charges someone who ends up in the hospital with alcohol poisoning with a disciplinary violation, the action taken--mandatory appropriate alcohol counseling--should probably be the same.
Actually, this may be bad. Someone could claim a sexual assalt to escape persecution from another offense. That's a horrible loophole.
I highly doubt it, considering how much shit women have to go through when reporting an assault, amnesty or not. I really do not see a student getting busted for underage drinking and saying, "But... I was raped!" Please.
I hope they have it set up so that once you are written up for another offense, you can't say "oh wait I was raped." The right way to do it would be to say that if you report a sexual assault, and in telling the story of what happened you admit to other policy violations, they won't pursue those.
Its like those rules where they say that if you call 911 because someone overdosed, you don't get in trouble for doing drugs with them. It doesn't work after the fact.
But I don't know how they set it up, so you might have a point.
Also, the penalties for drinking usually aren't that big a deal-- if the police catch you you're in trouble, but if the school catches you you usually have to take a class or something. Its not bad enough to take drastic action to get out of if you actually were caught drinking.
How exactly would that work? You get busted for drinking or drugs or paraphernalia, and you claim--what exactly? I was raped, so please don't charge me for these infractions?
The policy allows that you won't be charged for other infractions in the aftermath of reporting a sexual assault.
There's no loophole here.
I love good news, too. And the stories are few and far between these days.
Good news? Maybe, but I'm wondering if you've read the rest of their policy. It reads:
I guess I understand why they are talking about how sex outside of marriage is in violation of Catholic teachings (even though it makes me cringe that it's attached to a sexual assault policy, I'm not sure it belongs there, of all places). However, I do take serious issue with the last sentence, which to me implies that action could be taken against the survivor, since s/he allegedly engaged in sexual intercourse outside of marriage as well (even though it was rape/non-consensual). This is contradictory to the previous part, which assures the survivor that s/he will not be taken to task for policy violations due to the report of the assault. It worries me, because as a survivor I could potentially read that as, "nothing will happen to you if you report...but oh wait yes it will". It's too ambiguous, and perhaps not deliberately so, but I'm unsure as to why else they would word it that way.Hi little,
I am one of the students who organized the protest. Although I agree that tidbit of the policy is problematic, before it was revised it said that students who were "perceived of" doing something antithetical to the Catholic church would risk being asked to leave the community, which was even more terrifying.
I should mention that it is not part of the sexual assault policy, but the Sexual Intimacy Policy.
Because of the amnesty clause in the Sexual Assault Policy, than the Sexual Intimacy Policy should not be an issue for any sexual assault survivor.
I had similar concerns before the revision.
It also concerns me that a survivor's past history could be used to discredit her charges if the University decides she has "violated the standards of human dignity." What does that even mean? Too vague and should not be attached to SA policy.
How exactly would that work? You get busted for drinking or drugs or paraphernalia, and you claim--what exactly? I was raped, so please don't charge me for these infractions?
The policy allows that you won't be charged for other infractions in the aftermath of reporting a sexual assault.
There's no loophole here.
Sorry this was supposed to be a reply to Lilly.
I am very happy to hear this. I hope it's applied to other crimes as well.
When I was in college at U. Penn, I and a group of other students and non-students who were playing an RPG in the common room saw a group of male students dragging another male student, who was screaming, struggling and yelling for help, to the elevators. We went searching all the floors of the high rise trying to find him, and when we did, we reported his location to the front desk and asked them to call the police. We were happy, and I wrote an article about the good deed I thought we'd done.
He called me later to yell at me because he was charged with underage drinking when the cops showed up.
Physical, non-sexual, assault should *also* trigger a "no prosecution for drinking violation" exemption for the victim at colleges.