“I told him to stop and asked him why he wouldn’t let go of me,” she said. “He was just stronger than I was. I couldn’t do anything to get away when he pinned my arms back [and] then laid his body across mine to keep me from getting up. He took off my pants and spread my legs to do what he wanted.”
She later spoke with a therapist at home but was frustrated with the response. The therapist said she was not “entirely convinced” that the sex was not consensual, according to Sarah, who anonymously submitted her story to SHARE — Sexual Harassment/Assault Advising Resources and Education.
The U.S. Department of Justice estimates that one in five college women, like Sarah, is a victim of sexual assault. Yet few of these students choose to report incidents to their universities. A new study from the Center for Public Integrity revealed that even when these investigations found a student guilty of sexual assault, 75–90 percent of convictions did not result in expulsion.
Following national trends, few cases of sexual assault are reported to the University. And of those recent reports that ended in findings of guilt — including that of a repeat offender — none resulted in expulsion. Survivors and survivor advocates said that these trends reflect and exacerbate a broader culture in which victims fear that their stories may not be believed.
The University’s disciplinary process
The University’s approach to assisting victims of sexual assault focuses on informing students of their options, SHARE director Suraiya Baluch said in an e-mail.
These choices result in varying disciplinary ramifications for accused perpetrators. Students can have a confidential conversation with a SHARE counselor or peer adviser, talk with a dean, file a report with Public Safety, or contact the police and press criminal charges, Baluch said.
Only five cases of forcible sexual offenses were reported to Public Safety in 2009, and two were recorded in 2008. Of the cases reported in 2009, three were categorized as criminal sexual contact and one was an off-campus incident.
The University’s disciplinary process is independent of any legal action that may be taken, University spokeswoman Cass Cliatt ’96 said in an e-mail.
When a sexual assault is reported to the University, it examines available evidence and determines whether the Committee on Discipline’s Subcommittee on Sexual Assault and Harassment should convene. Evidence that may be used during the process includes results of investigations conducted by the Office of the Dean of Undergraduate Students and from external law enforcement agencies. No attorneys are allowed to participate in the subcommittee’s hearings.
Twelve members of the Committee on Discipline declined to comment for this article, and another did not respond to a request for comment.
In the University’s most recent discipline reports, which cover the academic years from fall 2005 to spring 2008, three students were disciplined for committing forcible sexual offenses. Only the repeat offender was required to withdraw for an unreported amount of time, and none of the students was expelled.
Over the same period, seven students were expelled for other reasons, including instances of academic dishonesty.
Wendy Murphy, a Boston lawyer who filed a 2002 civil rights complaint alleging that Harvard required too high a burden of proof before beginning its investigations into sexual assault, said that Princeton and several other colleges also violate federal law. Harvard lowered its required standard of proof from "independent corroborating evidence" to "corroborating information" and then to "supporting evidence" over the course of the 10-month Office of Civil Rights investigation.
Murphy said that the burden of proof for conviction in Princeton hearings is too high. She maintained that Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which prohibits gender discrimination in educational settings, requires universities to convict a student of sexual assault if there is “clear proof by a preponderance of evidence.” She added that not doing so deprives students of equal and free access to education.
The University requires “clear and persuasive evidence” to confirm a violation, Cliatt said.
Murphy explained that while the “proof by a preponderance of evidence” standard requires more than half of the evidence to point to guilt, the “proof beyond a reasonable doubt” standard requires roughly 90 percent of the evidence to do so. Princeton’s standard, she said, lies somewhere in between.
Peter McDonough, the University’s general counsel, said in an e-mail that there is no legal standard requiring the University to adopt a lower burden of proof for its disciplinary cases.
“We are unaware of any controlling judicial authority, or any applicable federal or state statute, that requires the University to adopt a ‘preponderance of the evidence’ standard for student disciplinary matters involving allegations of sexual assault or harassment,” he explained.
Deciding to report
Students who decided to report sexual assault said that doing so was difficult.
Dominique Salerno ’10, who reported an incident in which a man not affiliated with the University exposed himself to her and tried to grab her, said part of the problem is the fear that victims won’t be believed.
“It’s a tough needle to thread,” she said. “Because sexual assault is really ... sort of the game of ‘he said, she said’ or ‘she said, she said’ or ‘he said, he said,’ it’s one person against another. They usually go unreported, and even when they are reported, it’s often so much later, when it’s harder to find evidence.”
Though Salerno chose to report her assault, she said she knows several students who decided not to report their assaults out of concern that they did not have enough evidence.
Salerno said she thinks that SHARE is an effective resource for students but that many of her peers avoid the University’s reporting process.
“Most people don’t even try to go through the University,” she said. “I know that some people don’t do it because they just think that they’re overreacting, and I think some people think that nothing can be done.”
Alison Daks, who manages sexual assault services at Womanspace, a local nonprofit agency that operates a 24/7 confidential hotline, said that many of the college-aged students she has advised have been in incidents involving alcohol. These victims often blame themselves, she said. “When there’s drinking involved, people question what happened and whether or not it’s sexual assault,” Daks explained.
Sarah said that she encountered resistance when she tried to tell her story, facing “the rape myth that confuses sex with rape.”
Increasing awareness
The student group SpeakOut hopes to end this feeling of futility. But for now, SpeakOut president Jillian Hewitt ’11 said that victims whose sexual assault cases involve alcohol are particularly likely to worry about the University’s perception of their credibility.
“You have victims who have been sexually assaulted who are scared to report it because someone will ask them as soon as they say something, ‘Oh, were you drinking?’ ” she explained. “Even in very clear-cut cases of sexual assault, victims are doubted.”
Hewitt said that the University should do more to combat this perception.
“The University has made it into something where they don’t take public and proactive steps to notify the student body and the public about how they are trying to help victims, how they are trying to deal with the problems of sexual assault,” she said.
Various groups at the University have taken steps to increase awareness of the seriousness of sexual assault and sources of support that survivors can rely upon.
In addition to SpeakOut’s advocacy, SHARE runs programs designed to educate students and to support and empower survivors of sexual assault, including “Sex on a Saturday Night,” “Take Back the Night,” workshops and counseling services. Baluch said that “Sex on a Saturday Night” — performed for incoming students during freshman week — and “Take Back the Night” have been around for roughly 15 and 20 years, respectively.
Lt. Nick Sutter, who has been a Princeton Borough police officer for 15 years, applauded the University for providing instruction about sexual assault to students. “It’s my understanding that there’s good communication between the University and the student population,” he said.
He echoed the University’s policy in saying that the primary goal of the Borough police was to provide assistance to victims. When sexual assault survivors come to the police, they can choose whether to pursue legal action.
“Sexual assault is a very sensitive situation that victims deal with in different ways,” he said. “I know the University feels this way — and I know we do — we’re here to try to help the student in any way. We’ll always work in conjunction with the University to achieve those goals of very simply helping the victim and protecting the victim.”
A question of equality
In spite of the prevalence of the problem, Kristen Lombardi, the lead reporter of the Center for Public Integrity study, said that there is a disconnect between colleges’ condemnation of sexual assault and the relatively light punishments they deal to students found responsible, though she did not specifically investigate the University.
“Most of the administrators that we talked with told us that they believe that sexual assault is one of the most serious violations because it’s not a victimless act,” she said. “It is one of the most serious violations that a student can commit against another student, but that message isn’t sent if the sanctioning is not among the most serious you can mete out.”
She added that the low rate of expulsion among convicted assaulters was particularly surprising considering the long-lasting impact that sexual assault tends to have on victims.
“For me, the seemingly light punishment of students responsible was pretty shocking because on the flip side, more often than not, the students that were victims dropped out,” she said.
Lombardi said that it is relatively common for students found guilty of sexual assault to graduate in four years, whereas assault victims have a higher risk of dropping out of school or failing to graduate on time.
Yet John, who was accused of sexual assault at an American college in the past five years, said in an interview that school administrators should be cautious in levying punishments in cases of alleged sexual assault. He was granted anonymity because legal proceedings against him are ongoing
Being accused of a serious university offense “has a significant impact on your reputation and your idea of yourself,” he said, adding that “this could be life-changing for people in how they view themselves and justice in general.”
While John graduated in four years, he declined to comment on whether the accusing student did the same.
John said it was important for any university to be “fair” in conducting investigations, though he was not involved in disciplinary proceedings at his university.
“If you end up housed for a year on something which may seem dubious, if they didn’t give you a fair shake, it’s unfortunate,” he explained. “I just think that people who are investigating the decision-makers need to understand that this isn’t someone just going off for a year to reflect. This could be life-changing for people in how they view themselves and justice in general.”
John called for “utilitarian calculus” to balance the effect of an investigation on victims and alleged perpetrators. When determining the appropriate burden of proof, he said that universities should ask, “Is it really going to promote safety, or is it going to be such a harm to the process that it really is bad for all people involved?”
Murphy said that the way universities respond to sexual assault cases sheds light on their priorities.
“If you say that your value system includes the idea that women are equal citizens and entitled to education without discrimination, the most severe of which is sexual assault, ... then you should respond accordingly to reports of sexual assault,” she said. “Part of my intention has been to expose that lie that most universities tell. They don’t really care as much about women’s equality and protecting them from targeted violence as much as they say they do.”
For Sarah, telling her story was a way to combat the dismissive culture she experienced at the University.
“It kills me whenever I hear someone at school dismiss sexual assault as something that doesn’t happen at Princeton,” she said. “So the one change I have the power to make is to tell everyone who believes that rape is something that happens to other people or is something that doesn’t happen on campus that it is possible that it has happened to some of their friends and, sadly, one day it could happen to them.”
Editor’s Note: Clarifying details about Murphy’s legal complaint against Harvard have been added to the online version of this article.
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