Kent State Not Informing Students About Rape

Video & Graph by Pamela Marotta, Story by Kristie Graybill, Photos & Video by Xiafan Li

Kent State University is not informing students about rape that occurs in the dorms. According to Kent State’s Campus Safety, Security and Fire Safety Bulletin there were 7 sexual assault incidents that occurred in the residence halls in 2013. When a criminal incident or emergency happens on campus, a safety email or text message called a Flash Alert is sent to all the students at Kent State. In 2013 there were 30 Flash Alerts sent out and not one of them pertained to these sexual assault incidents last year.

When asked if she feels that students deserve to know if there is a rape in the resident halls Dr. Shay Davis Little, Kent State’s Associate Vice President for Student Affairs, refereed to flashalerts.

“Well that’s what flashalerts are for, they’re for safety notifications when there’s a safety risk to campus,” said Davis.

Davis referenced flashalerts when asked about rape, but there were no flashalerts sent out after these crimes occurred. Does Kent State believe rape is not a big enough threat to warrant a safety notification? A robbery, power outage and fires have all warranted flash alert messages.

Every university in the United States has to give out warnings, report crimes and release crime statistics each year for federal grants as part of The Clery Act. The Clery Act requires that universities, ​“issue timely warnings about Clery Act crimes which pose a serious or ongoing threat to students and employees.” Clery Act crimes can range from sexual assaults, to homicides, robberies and arson.

Lieutenant Chris Jenkins of the Kent State Police Department says that they follow The Clery Act by sending out the Flash Alert messages. Jenkins explains that the Kent State Police Department receives a tip from their dispatch, creates the alert message from that tip, then sends it to University Communications and Marketing at Kent State, who then send it through the Flash Alert system.

The problem is that most Flash Alerts are about weather advisories and rarely about criminal activity. In the 30 Flash Alerts that were sent in 2013, only one pertained to anything criminal: a robbery. Jenkins says they do send out Flash Alerts pertaining to criminal incidents, but only if the incident is a big enough threat.  The 4 of the 7 sexual offenses in 2013 that were reported to the police weren’t committed by the same perpetrator, and because of that Jenkins says a warning wasn’t needed.

“If we feel that there is a continuing threat to the university community and it is a qualifying offense like a robbery or sex assault, a violent offense that might bring harm to other members of the university community then we will initiate notification,” stated Lieutenant Chris Jenkins, Kent State Police Department.

Jenkins also says that a council is put together to determine which crimes are violent enough to issue a Flash Alert warning or a statement from the university. The council is made up of representatives from the Board of Trustees, Residence Services, The Sexual and Relationship Violence Support Services (SRVSS) at Kent State and the Kent State Police Department. When we requested to see documentation to prove these evaluations occur Jenkins said that they don’t keep any records of the meetings and that they are vocal meetings.

We also requested the initial incident reports of the 7 sexual offenses that were reported to the Kent State Police Department in 2013. The police department only gave us the date, location and time in each case of the 4 that were reported stating that, “…I’m able to get you not the actual report itself but I can get you basically the general information…” When we reminded the police department that the report should be public record regardless of an investigation they responded with, “…an initial report may be different somewhere else then it is here…”

We sent in another public records request to Lt. Jenkins, who gave us incident reports with the date, time, location the caller and the officer who responded, but there were no descriptions of the incidents. Page 3 of Kent State Police Department’s procedure manual states that in an incident report there must be a “case narrative” and an “incident narrative” but the document that Lt. Jenkins claims is the incident report does not have this information.

Not only were students not notified in a timely manner about the sexual assaults from the police departments, but the university has a closed-mouth policy when it comes to rape in the dormitories. Resident assistants (RAs) are told that they shouldn’t inform other students or other RAs on campus when a sexual offense occurs. Multiple anonymous RAs have confirmed that they were not informed about sexual assaults in the residence halls, and if an incident does occur that they are not allowed to warn residents. One such RA, Shawn Wilson, was taught to not inform other students or RAs on campus about sexual assault because it could lead to gossip.

“Normally issues that happen inside your hall stay in your hall cause you don’t want gossip to spread, you don’t want to like spread rumors across campus. It’s normally like if it happens here it stays here you keep it hush hush. We call it Vegas, cause what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas,” Wilson said.

Josette Skobieranda Dau, Assistant Director for Residential Communities within Residence Services at Kent State, oversees the RA training efforts at the university.

“We’re not necessarily going to report out hey we had six cases of sexual misconduct in the first two weeks, we’re not hiding it but we’re not actually reporting it back,” Skobieranda Dau said.

The Clery Act states that Clery Act crimes must be reported but this could mean sending a report at the end of the year, as Kent State did. Clery Act Expert, Mark Goodman explains that changing The Clery Act could benefit students. Rape is required to be reported by it does not clarify that the report be made as the time of the crime.

“Students don’t believe the crime is actually a serious risk for them, so hearing that an incident has been reported and occurred on campus might make them take more precautions,” state Mark Goodman.

Mark Goodman is not alone in his belief that students should be informed about rape, a new movement is being seen on college campus’ called the Campus Accountability Project. This project demands that students are informed when a rape occurs on campus and promotes transparency.

For more information click on this link http://safercampus.org/campus-accountability-project