Only Half of Oregon’s Campus Sexual Assault Complaints Result in Punishment

Thursday, October 02, 2014

Shelby Sebens, GoLocalPDX Reporter

Photo Credit: Wolfram Burner via Compfight cc

Only half of the sexual assault complaints reported to Oregon’s public universities over the last five years resulted in punishment, according to an analysis by GoLocalPDX.

The punishments for students found guilty in the sexual assault cases ranged from expulsion to a forced letter of apology. The numbers mirror the national picture of investigations and punishments of sexual assault on college campuses, experts say.

“It seems to me that it’s being taken lightly, and that shouldn’t be the case at all,” said Susana Ruiz, a Portland State University (PSU) student and an advocate for sexual assault reform.

In exclusive interviews with GoLocalPDX, PSU student Eden Paul said she was raped on campus, but a PSU Student Code of Conduct Committee found the accused was not responsible.

The issue of sexual assault on college campuses has been dominating national debate. A Huffington Post review released this week found fewer than one third of sexual assault cases on college campuses resulted in the accused student being kicked out of school.

California passed a new consent law this week, making it the first state to require a "yes means yes" law on college campuses, meaning consensual sex requires an affirmative yes and cannot be given under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

“Your’e not going to feel safe if the perpetrators are not held accountable for what they’ve done. That’s not a safe environment,” said Vanessa Timmons, executive director of the Oregon Coalition Against Domestic Violence.

Multiple experts agree sexual assaults are vastly underreported; Timmons said that's in large part because victims see that perpetrators go unpunished. Timmons said she has sat with hundreds of survivors and heard time and again the reluctance to report for fear that nothing will be done.

“Why go to the authorities if someone’s going to be told to write you a letter of apology?” she said.

Of the 203 sexual assault cases reported by Oregon’s public universities over the last five years, 171 were investigated and 106 resulted in the accused being punished, according to documents obtained by GoLocalPDX through public records requests. The numbers are an average of all the reports from Oregon's eight public universities.

The range for false reporting of sexual asasults is between 2 and 8 percent, according to the National Sexual Assault Resource Center.

The University of Oregon, for example, took action on 100 percent of the complaints it investigated while none of the 10 complaints at Oregon Institute of Technology went through the school's internal judicial process.

Di Saunders, OIT spokeswoman, said eight of the 10 complainants chose not to go through the school's investigative process and two went through law enforcement.

Oregon's universities investigated 65 percent of the sexual assault complaints reported. At U of O, for example, the school received 45 reports of sexual assault complaints, but only investigated 29.

In some cases victims chose not to pursue the case, in some campus officials determined there was not sufficient evidence, and others were referred to law enforcement.

Criminal Action

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Critics question if it is appropriate for schools to be handling serious violent criminal cases such as sexual assault through an internal process, but victims' advocates and higher education experts say it's a necessary option for students who don't want to take their case to the oft-public and lengthy court system.

“You would create a totally hostile environment for the women and folks on campus” without university involvement, said Kevin Kruger, NASPA Student Affairs president. “There has to be some action that protects a student prior to the criminal proceeding.” NASPA is the National Association for Student Affairs Professionals.

In the case of PSU, Eden Paul is trying to get the Multnomah County district attorney to pursue a criminal case, and wondered from the beginning why law enforcement didn’t take action right away.

Chris Ramras, Multnomah County senior deputy district attorney, said he is still reviewing Paul’s case.

Experts said the judicial system can take anywhere from months to years to resolve, while schools have to adjudicate them in 60 days.

Ramras said it depends on the case and that the criticism of law enforcement taking too long is common.

“When people make these kinds of statements it’s hard to know what they’re referring to,” he said. Multnomah County has required timelines for cases.

In some situations, as with Paul’s case, a student may go through the university process and the courts.

“I don’t think that the two are mutually exclusive,” said Colby Bruno, senior legal counsel of the Victim Rights Law Center, an organization that serves the legal needs of sexual assault victims in Oregon and Massachusetts. “I think that both can work out just fine.

"I don’t think that we need to be draconian about choosing which ones victims should go to.”

Changes Ahead

Critics argue that schools need to focus on improving how they handle sexual assault complaints.

“To really effectively end this issue on campus it needs to be an absolute priority,” said Marina Rosenthal, a member of the University of Oregon Coalition to End Sexual Assault and a doctoral student in clinical psychology. “What (students) want is to not see their perpetrator when they're eating breakfast in their residence hall."

At PSU, Ruiz has started a Change.org petition in response to Eden's alleged rape case.

While schools might have improved policies in place for dealing with sexual assault, some still need better training, officials said.

“I think above all where we see the biggest problems are in the implementation of these policies,” Bruno said.

Kruger said the goal is to make the process as painless as possible and to improve training on college campuses.

“I would encourage campuses to help students form their own victims advocacy efforts, so there is a place for students to speak out on this,” he added.

School officials and higher education experts said the federal process in place to investigate sexual assault cases, known as Title IX, is improving, and that pubic awareness has made preventing and prosecuting sexual assault cases a higher priority for schools.

In the past year, the number of cases being reported and investigated at college campuses has surged thanks to new federal guidelines for reporting and investigating sexual assault cases.

“Three years ago someone being mistreated on campus wouldn’t surprise me that much," Bruno said. "A year ago or six months ago would definitely raise some flags on whether or not a school was carrying through with their obligation on Title IX."

Related Slideshow: Slideshow: Sexual Assault Investigations and Outcomes at Oregon Universities

Nearly half of the sexual assault cases reported to Oregon’s public universities over the last five years resulted in no punishment, according to an analysis by GoLocalPDX. The universities investigated 65 percent of the sexual assault cases reported. Of those investigated, the number of accused found guilty was slightly higher, at 62 percent.