Colleges struggle to make rules on sexual assault clear to all

BALTIMORE — As freshmen descend on college campuses, they enter the “red zone” — a period between Labor Day and Thanksgiving during which they are most vulnerable to sexual assault.

This year is different, though. It is the first since the U.S. Department of Education released a list of colleges and universities under federal investigation for their handling of rape and sexual assault complaints, and many schools made sexual assault awareness programs mandatory for incoming students.

The list, with 77 schools under investigation, was released in May. It represents one piece of a national conversation that gained unprecedented political momentum in April, when the newly minted White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault released its first report, alongside a website designed to advise colleges on how to combat rape on campus. Since then, Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., has introduced a bill to require annual surveys of students, and require schools to staff confidential advisers on campus.

Oklahoma State University, which is on the list, announced last month that students who do not complete a new 40-minute online course on sexual assault awareness will be barred from registration. Vice President for Student Affairs Lee Bird said the school took the unusual step of asking to be under federal review.

“Sexual violence has been a huge topic for years, but the politics around it and trying to find remedies is what’s changed,” Bird said, adding that the school offers “hundreds” of alcohol, drug and sexual assault awareness programs yearround. “This has been an issue for my 36 years and I imagine it will be an issue on campus for the next 30.”

On campus

One Johns Hopkins student, a rising junior, told AP in June that she was sexually assaulted in 2012 during her first few days on campus. She said her alleged attacker had taken her keys and phone, dragged her into his room and assaulted her.

A few days prior, the student said, she had gone to a sexual assault awareness workshop offered to incoming freshmen.

“At the workshop, they said anything after you say ‘no’ is sexual assault. I said to him, ‘Don’t you remember what we saw yesterday? This is going to be rape.’

“Then he said, ‘I didn’t go to that stupid thing.’ That’s when I really got scared.”

The workshop she attended is on this year’s orientation schedule again, and not labeled as mandatory. Hopkins spokesman Dennis O’Shea said freshmen are required to attend with their resident advisers, and those who do not sign up for it will be registered for a makeup session.