Rapists should be expelled and tried in a court of law
TO THE EDITOR:
Central Michigan University is considering if they should expel students who have committed sexual assault. If the debate is limited to expulsion, it has already been accepted that student-on-student rape is not a crime.
Rape is more than a Student Code infraction – it is a violent crime. According to statistics, one in four female college students and one in 71 males will be sexually assaulted. CMU has 10,000 coeds, that means 2,500 will become victims during their four years here.
But consider these statistics reported by Central Michigan Life “The Red Zone,” 8/23/14; Number of sexual assaults reported on campus, according to Clery Center for Security on Campus, include three in 2010, five in 2011 and six in 2012.
In another article, “Youth in Revolt,” CM Life 3/29/14, according to compiled reports from CMU and Mount Pleasant Police Department, there had been only one sexual assault between July 2012 and Jan. 24.
If a victim knows that the worst thing that will happen to their assailant is expulsion. but remain free to harass, stalk, intimidate or assault them again, why would they want to infuriate their attacker by getting them expelled? Facing that, it would seem that victims would be more likely to leave CMU than their attackers.
Case in point: Last year it was disclosed, after CM Life used a Freedom of Information Act request, that the Delti Chi fraternity had a history of offenses, including sexual assaults, that went back 15 years. The sum total of their punishment was the fraternity was suspended and one student was put on academic probation for one semester.
“(Tom) Idema (Director of the Office of Student Conduct) said just because the group wasn’t charged with the assault doesn’t mean that an assault didn’t occur,” according to “No Warning,” CM Life 4/20/14. Accusations of stalking and intimidation were never followed up on.
And what of those who actually go too far and the university applies their ultimate punishment, expulsion? They can transfer to another college to find new victims. This scenario is not speculation. In a White House Council on Women and Girls report, 7 percent of college men who admitted committing or attempting rape, 63 perfect admitted multiple offenses “averaging six rapes each.”
None of those men were ever convicted of a crime. When they are expelled, does the university warn the community or the next university they attend that they are sending them a sexual predator? How would the university explain to the next victim of a rapist they set free, that they had acted responsibly and done everything they could?
Is the university’s treatment of sexual assaults protecting rapists from serious punishment and leaving them free to attack again? It seems there isn’t a safer place for a rapist to be than enrolled as a student at CMU.
Matt Mertz
Mount Pleasant
