Reported rape

An employee reported a rape this Tuesday, February 19. The incident took place during the fall 2012 semester at an unknown location. The victim, a female student, declined to press charges or request an investigation.

“We have no information that we could conduct an investigation,” Director of Public Safety, Hugh Harris said. “There’s nothing really more that we can do when the person does not want an investigation. And it gives us no more information to work with.”

The case is the second reported rape this school year that had occurred during a previous semester. On November 2, 2012, a female student reported a rape which had taken place at Kirby House on April 11, 2012.

According to Director of Gender and Sexuality Programs Gene Kelly, it is not uncommon for rape victims to wait a considerable amount of time before reporting the incident.

“Most people on this campus would not think of a drunken hookup as a sexual assault,” Kelly said. It is after some time, he said, that victims decide that they had been taken advantage of.  But a delay in reporting rape does not make it any less serious.

“I don’t think we should classify someone who waits to report sexual assault as less credible as someone who reports it the next day,” Kelly said.

Some sexual assaults and rapes will go unreported, said Kelly.

“I’m always sad when we deal with [sexual] assault,” he said. “But we will never know if there has been an uptick in sexual assault.”