On my way to work yesterday morning I heard a story on National Public Radio that caught my attention. It began, "We're going to spend the next few minutes on a problem college campuses have been facing for a long time now, yet the statistics continue to be chilling."
As a volunteer advocate for the Cleveland Rape Crisis Center, that was all I needed to hear to know what the story would be about.
NPR's coverage of how rape is handled on college campuses was both informative and sensitive, and includes both the recording of the story aired on NPR and an online transcript with additional statistics, links, and a discussion forum.
Thanks, NPR, for helping to promote awareness of this issue, and for lending your "voice" to survivors everywhere.
Campus Rape Victims: A Struggle For Justice
A college campus isn't the first place that comes to mind in a discussion about violent crime.
But research funded by the U.S. Department of Justice estimates that 1 out of 5 college women will be sexually assaulted. NPR's investigative unit teamed up with journalists at the Center for Public Integrity (CPI) to look at the failure of schools — and the government agency that oversees them — to prevent these assaults and then to resolve these cases.
A Hidden Attack
When a woman is sexually assaulted on a college campus, her most common reaction is to keep it quiet. Laura Dunn says she stayed quiet about what happened in April 2004 at the end of her freshman year at the University of Wisconsin.
"I always thought that rape was when someone got attacked by a stranger and you had to fight back," she says.
That night, Dunn was drinking so many raspberry vodkas that they cut her off at a frat house party. Still, she knew and trusted the two men who took her back to a house for what she thought was a quick stop before the next party. Instead, she says they raped her as she passed in and out of consciousness.
For a long time, she had a hard time even letting herself call it a rape. It just didn't make sense with the way she saw her life. For one thing, she had a boyfriend she had been dating for four years.
for the article in its entirety or to listen to the story, please visit:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124001493&sc=fb&cc=fp
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