It is Friday night, and a party is in full swing. A female student has a few drinks, and can feel the buzz. She asks one of her male friends, whom she trusts completely, to walk her home.
When they get back to her apartment, they are in the middle of a conversation and so she invites him inside to finish it. Sitting on the couch, they kiss a little, but when she tells him to stop he ignores it. He assaults her.
This is the sort of scenario several campus experts on sexual assault point to as more realistic than the stranger assaults many students think of as typical.
\[Sexual assaults are] so underreported because the large majority are committed by someone the victim knows,"" said Angela Bartucci, a UW-Madison senior, survivor of a stranger assault and founder of Promoting Awareness, Victim Empowerment, a student group dedicated to the topic of sexual assault.
UW-Madison officials recently drew fire for statistics on sexual assault and other campus crimes they are required to report under the federal Jeanne Clery Act.
The original statistics included two forcible and four non-forcible sexual offenses on campus in 2000. Newspaper reports questioned the low numbers, and university officials revised the statistics to include those reported to the Dean of Students Office as well as police. The new numbers include six forcible sexual offenses reported to UW Police and 13 reported to the Dean of Students Office.
Those who work on issues related to sexual assault agree these numbers don't tell the full story.
""Any time you look at statistics, they're going to be misleading,"" Bartucci said.
""This continues to be a seriously underreported crime,"" said Jean Chagnon, associate dean in the Dean of Students Office who is responsible for reporting the Clery data.
A 1995 survey of UW-Madison students found that one out of eight senior women reported being sexually assaulted, defined in the survey as having unwanted vaginal or oral sex, during their time here. Eighty-seven percent said they knew their assailants, according to Lori Henn, violence prevention coordinator for campus community partnerships at University Health Services.
Sexual assault statistics can be confusing because of differences in reporting criteria. For example, the assault described above, even if reported, would not be included in the Clery statistics, because it occurred off campus. It would be included in numbers UW-Madison releases under state statute requirements.
In 2000, UW-Madison students reported 58 sexual assaults, including 39 that occurred off campus but in Madison.
Chagnon said differences between the Clery and state statistics include the location criterion and forcible versus non-forcible distinctions for the Clery Act, as compared with the four degrees of classification under state statutes.
Assistant Dean Yolanda Garza, who is responsible for compiling the state numbers for the Dean of Students Office, said sexual assaults are reported to her in several ways. One is for students to self-report an assault to her office. Garza also receives referrals or reports from police, the campus Rape Crisis Center or other offices on campus because students may first report an assault to an academic adviser or faculty member. Victims can report an assault to campus officials without reporting it to police. Garza said her office encourages students to report to police, but does not pressure them.
""What we want to do is give back some control that they've lost, and so we're going to be respectful of their wishes,"" she said.
After filing a report, a victim may pursue the student judicial process if the assailant is another student, the criminal process, both or neither.
Henn said increases in UW-Madison assault statistics show students know there are ""good services and trustworthy people"" at the university.
Bartucci said encouraging reporting of sexual assaults is difficult because ""you don't want to revictimize the victim.""
Several of those interviewed said statistics were a starting point for addressing the problem.
Henn said the statistics help guide the university in its response to the problem of sexual assault.
""If we believe the statistic that says one out of eight, we're looking at a very serious social and individual and health concern on the campus that probably requires a complicated and profound response,"" she said.
Bartucci and Henn talked about the larger problem of changing attitudes toward sexual assault, including the need to involve men in the process.
""You focus on the numbers and you focus on the stats, but, you know, we still live in a victim-blaming society ... [that the] victim asked for it in some way is a common myth that people believe in,"" Bartucci said.
