While the University created a Sexual Assault Advisory Board this spring to focus on sexual assault on campus, a group of Brown and Rhode Island School of Design students banded together to form a task force intended to bring additional attention to the issue, which some say Brown fails to adequately address.
Associate Vice President for Campus Life and Dean of Student Life Margaret Klawunn, a member of the University committee comprised of administrators and students, said the board's purpose is to improve communication with students on sexual assault issues.
The student task force has a more activist role, according to post- columnist Amy Littlefield '09, also of the Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance. "We started this task force to start raising awareness about the resources that do exist and to start pushing the University for better resources," she said.
In crime statistics for 2006 recently released by the Department of Public Safety, four cases of sexual assault were reported, but Littlefield said she believes this number is lower than the number of actual offenses.
"Investigations of allegations of sexual assault are, by their very nature, extremely sensitive processes and we work hard to insure that we respect the privacy of all parties involved," Klawunn wrote in her e-mail. "Protecting privacy and adhering to confidentiality standards shouldn't be confused (with but is) sometimes misconstrued as keeping the issue quiet."
Last fall, DPS revised its crime statistics after The Herald reported that the statistics showed no sexual assaults in 2005. Four on-campus sexual assaults reported to the
Office of Student Life were left out of the crime summary, Klawunn said in a Nov. 1, 2006, article, attributing the change to an "administrative error."
Frances Mantak, director of health education, said sexual assault is an under-reported crime on all college campuses, not just at Brown.
"Anyone who understands this information doesn't pay attention to reported statistics, because it is the most under-reported crime," she said. Mantak estimates that three to five students come to Health Services each year with reports of sexual assault, but that many victims of assault do not self-report.
"What we're finding out more and more is not just that Brown hasn't been paying attention to the issue," Littlefield said. "It's that Brown ... is trying to keep the issue as quiet as possible."
Klawuun disagreed, writing in an e-mail to The Herald that "the administration works very hard to address this issue in a variety of ways," including holding a session at first-year Orientation, a Web site that was launched last year and informational campaigns held in dining halls, residence halls and other areas around campus. Other methods she cited were training for Residential Peer Leaders and having a nationally-known trainer educate campus life staff and interested students.
But Kristin Jordan '09, a member of the student-led task force, said her own case last year - she said she was sexually assaulted - was mishandled by the University.
At an open hearing last week regarding DPS's reaccreditation, Jordan described her case, saying DPS failed to respond in a time-efficient manner after one of her friends called DPS for her. Furthermore, she said, when she contacted DPS to check on her record, it was not on file.
"I understand that DPS can only report the assaults that are reported to them," she told The Herald. "The thing that's a problem for me is that they don't even seem to translate the ones reported to them into their statistics."
"I think in a lot of ways, the school has an image to uphold," Jordan said. "In general, the Brown institution doesn't do anything unless it's pressured to. I think that's colleges in general ... I think the administration gets very busy with other things ... that sometimes they miss things like this."
That's the task force's objective, Littlefield said - to push the University for better outreach and education, a sexual assault hotline that will be available 24 hours a day, a peer education program, more programs aimed at prevention and more training on sexual assault for staff.
The task force has recently begun holding support sessions for victimsand is in the process of creating a resource center in the Sarah Doyle Women's Center available to anyone interested in learning more. The first session was held last Wednesday, and Jordan said it was a success.
"I was happy with the turnout and I was happy with the commitment people had to the group," she said. "Being attacked or raped or assaulted is such an oppressive thing that being able to find your voice and then to amplify your voice through the task force is just empowering," she added.
In addition to helping found the student task force, Littlefield is a member of the University's advisory board, which she said has not yet had an official meeting. The board met informally in September, Klawunn wrote in an e-mail to The Herald, "to discuss plans for the semester, training needs for group members and anything else that individuals were interested in discussing." She noted that two separate meetings were held due to student representatives being unable to arrange a common meeting time.
"The main goals are for information sharing and trying to make things work better for everybody," said Gail Cohee, director of the Sarah Doyle Women's Center and a member of the board. "Students may enter the system at all different types of places," she said, and the board wants the input of students to know what does and doesn't work.
