Sexual assault is a problem many women, men and university officials must confront on a daily basis. Last year, Mississippi State University officials dealt with five police-reported forcible rapes.
Five reported rapes out of over 15,000 students does not mirror the national statistics, which show one in every four women who attend college will be the victim of sexual assault.
Director of Mississippi State University Sexual Assault Response Team Leigh Jensen said the actual number of college women raped is not accurately represented by that statistic, since many rapes occur off campus and go unreported.
“Since most students live off campus, most assaults occur off campus and go unreported to school police,” Jensen said. “Very few happen on campus or in residence halls. The actual number of women dealing with rape is much bigger than the statistics.”
“You have to remember the stigma that is placed by society on victims. That’s a main reason these assaults are not reported to the police,” Tina Mooneyham, graduate assistant to Jensen, said.
“It is very important to remember that rape and sexual assault are two separate but related violations,” Mike White, MSU dean of students, said. “The MSU policy clearly states those distinctions.”
MSU’s definition of sexual assault and sexual harassment are defined in the MSU policy, which was created by the Sexual Response Team on Nov. 22, 1993.
According to the policy, “rape and sexual assault are often thought of as synonymous. However, the legal definition of rape is a victim having sexual intercourse against her will and without her consent.”
MSU defines sexual assault as “any kind of sexual or physical contact that involves force of any form or coercion or intimidation.”
MSU policy also includes protection for individuals who are physically or mentally unable to give consent.
Mississippi State defines a helpless person as someone who “is unconscious or for any other reason unable to communicate unwillingness to engage in any act.”
MSU’s policy includes individuals under the influence of drugs or alcohol as being mentally incapacitated and unable to understand the implications and consequences of sexual acts.
Jensen said more than 85 percent of all sexual assaults occur between two people who knew each other before the incident. She added that preventing attacks is an issue that must be approached from all sides.
“We’re trying to look at changing the culture of violence against women,” Jensen said.
Jensen said the culture she and the eight-member sexual assault team are trying to change is not just in men, but in women as well. She added victims are not limited to the women assaulted.
“We treat all involved. Moms, dads, siblings and boyfriends are the secondary victims in an assault,” Jensen said.
“Education is the means to prevention,” Nathan Blevins, MSU crime prevention and Sexual Response Team member, said.
Blevins said dealing with sexual assault is different because of the emotions involved, which he said makes his job even harder.
“It is hard to keep your feelings out. We’re taught to keep our feelings neutral, but we’re still human,” Blevins said. “You instantly feel like the assault happened to you, while you really don’t know what the person is going through.
“As much as they train us to be tough ORobo cop,’ everyone has a mom or a sister, and it really hurts,” Blevins said.
White said dealing with students who break campus regulations is a large part of his job as the dean of students, but dealing with sexual assault is different.
“It’s quite awakening for me personally,” White said. “I didn’t realize until I joined the Sexual Response Team 10 years ago how prevalent the numbers nationally and here (MSU) were.”
Blevins said that one component, other than education, in helping reduce the number of victims is the required reporting of school statistics in the annual Uniformed Crime Report, which is submitted to the Department of Education and can be accessed from the Internet.
The Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act requires MSU and all public universities to supply a crime report annually to the Department of Education that includes numbers of reported rapes. This act helps fund MSU’s Sexual Response Team.
The Policy is named after a college woman who fell victim of rape, torture, sodomy and murder in her dormitory at Lehigh University on April 5, 1986.
“Our daughter died because of what she didn’t know,” Clery’s parents, Connie and Howard Clery, said in a Web site devoted to their daughter’s memory.