Any Rapist at Occidental College is a Continuing Threat

OSAC condemns Dean of Students Barbara Avery’s mishandling and rationale for delaying the report of an Oxy student’s sexual assault on Sunday, 2/24/2013. Unacceptably, many students first learned about this sexual assault through news crews on our campus on Wednesday, 2/27/2013 and via media reports (including those here here here and here).

What do we know about “undetected rapists” on campuses?

• Of the small percentage of campus men who admit to committing sexual assault (4 percent), two-thirds of those men commit more than one rape (Lisak & Miller, 2002).
• On average, repeat rapists will commit 5.8 sexual assaults (Lisak & Miller, 2002).
• Undetected campus rapists are also likely to commit other violent crimes such as assault, battery, physical abuse and other forms of sexual abuse (Lisak & Miller, 2002).

Rape is a crime.

Students are not safe unless there is an effective system that alerts the campus population to the continuous threat that is represented by a rapist.

On Monday, 2/25/2013, Oxy Administration was notified of a sexual assault that had occurred on Sunday, 2/24/2013. The Oxy Administration did not share this information with campus until local media reported about the incident. OSAC has advocated for an emergency alert when any student reports a sexual assault. While the administration agreed to OSAC’s 12 Demands in November 2012, they did not follow through with the promise to execute #7: “Use Oxy’s Crime Alert System to Inform Campus of Reported Sexual Assaults.”

PROTEST Oxy’s unacceptable response to this incident on Friday March 1, 2013 at 12:30PM at the Fountain. Facebook RSVP here.

Have you been sexually assaulted at Oxy? Please find our resource page here.

Do you have a friend or loved one who has been assaulted? Here’s our Allies page on How to Help Support a Survivor.