This is the first story of a two-part series spotlighting sexual assault survivor Laura Dunn, a 2007 University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate who became a primary advocate for the Campus Sexual Violence Elimination Act, which President Barack Obama signed into law March 7 under the Violence Against Women Act.
Laura Dunn was a focused student when she was a UW-Madison freshman in 2004. A member of the crew team and “very religious,” she rarely drank and planned to remain a virgin until she married her then-boyfriend of four years.
But nine years ago, on the night of April 4, 2004, Dunn’s college career took a dark turn when she entered a house party to drink with her new friends from the crew team.
“I had a lot of shots with different members of the team,” Dunn said in an interview with The Daily Cardinal. “I was only a freshman. I was getting to know people.”
It was only her second time drinking. Dunn became “very intoxicated” and her friends eventually cut her off from drinking. It was then when two of Dunn’s acquaintances on the male crew team offered to walk her to another party, which they said also involved crew team members.
Both said they needed to stop at home quickly before heading to the other party, and Dunn followed. She realized they walked her slightly off campus, and Dunn “knew she was in danger” when one of the men grabbed her and forced her to kiss him.
“I pleaded with them,” she said. “I told them I was not that kind of person.”
The men proceeded to take her into one of their houses, where Dunn said they both sexually assaulted her.
‘Rape-supportive culture’ on college campuses
To UW-Madison Sex Out Loud member Samantha Johnson, societal attitudes toward rape play a large role in enabling sexual assault.
That is why she refers to the commonly used term “rape culture” as “rape-supportive culture”–because whether or not someone commits sexual assault, Johnson believes everyone still contributes to the culture surrounding rape and should not ignore his or her prevention responsibilities.
To Johnson, “rape-supportive culture” on college campuses includes phrases tossed around such as, “My calculus exam raped me,” that trivialize the traumatizing crime sexual assault can be, while sayings including, “She’s asking for it in that short skirt,” support victim-blaming attitudes.
“Rape-supportive culture” is also why one in four women will be victims of completed or attempted sexual assault during their college careers, Johnson said.
Laura Dunn was part of that 25 percent.
Dunn was unaware at first she was sexually assaulted and blamed herself for the incident. She kept quiet, and suffered for it. She became overwhelmed with stress encountering the perpetrators of her assault regularly at crew practice, her long-term relationship came to an end and she struggled academically.
“It’s hard. I’ll say it that way,” Dunn said, unable to explain the thoughts she had after she was assaulted. “It’s hard to focus and it’s hard to get anything done. It’s hard to not have nightmares.”
Most people assume sexual assaults are gruesome, physical attacks perpetrated by a stranger, according to Dunn. But according to The National Sexual Violence Resource Center, 80 percent of victims know their perpetrators before the assault.
Dunn called acquaintance rape and alcohol-facilitated dating violence, which comprise the majority of sexual assault cases, “the thing you don’t see coming.” Eight of every 10 acquaintance rapes on college campuses are alcohol-related, according to the UW-Madison Police Department.
Of the 122 sexual assaults reported to the UW-Madison Dean of Students’ office in 2012, 40 percent of them involved alcohol and 28 percent knew their perpetrator. In 2011, 46 percent of incidents involved alcohol, while 58 percent of victims knew their perpetrator.
According to Dunn, when alcohol is involved, victim-blaming occurs because those assaulted feel it was their choice to drink. Additionally, she said it is difficult for victims to identify acquaintance rape and therefore hesitate to report their assaults to police, unaware they were victims of a crime.
Most people are unaware that if overly intoxicated, an individual cannot provide consent, according to Johnson. When alcohol is involved upon engaging in sexual activity, both partners should be aware of signs such as slurring words, stumbling, vomiting and not being able to recall what happened five minutes ago, which indicate a person cannot provide consent.
“It’s such an experience of the college atmosphere, to go out, drink and have sex,” Johnson said. “The two get so conflated and when you’ve drawn the line between tipsy and incapacitated, it’s no longer okay.”
Soon after Dunn realized she was assaulted, she quit the crew team after the fall 2004 season to avoid her perpetrators. She remained at UW-Madison until she graduated in 2007, despite having to see one of her perpetrators on campus.
“I stuck by what I deserved,” Dunn said. “And that was an education free from hostility.”
‘No one should have that experience while in college’
On July 13, 2005, Laura Dunn sat in her summer class and listened to her professor discuss rape in terms of genocide. The professor mentioned how sexual assault also happens on college campuses, and how the Dean of Students’ office had a special obligation to handle assault cases.
Immediately after learning about this in her class, Dunn reported her assault to the Dean of Students’ office, approximately 15 months after her incident.
Sexual assault is the most underreported crime, with more than 90 percent of sexual assaults on college campuses not reported to police, according to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center.
Reporting has its consequences, Dunn said, noting how her “internal” stress turned “active” after reciting her story to investigators numerous times, as well as having to provide friends’ phone numbers for interviews.
“It definitely shook me,” Dunn said. “Those two years of my college experience was dealing with the stress of a sexual assault, which is unfortunate. No one should have that experience while in college.”
Dunn experienced years in which she thought there was “no hope” when all of her attempts to obtain justice over her perpetrators failed.
“There was obviously years where I felt nothing good was going to come of this,” she said.
But when a journalist from the Center of Public Integrity, who was investigating Title IX complaints regarding the way universities were handling sexual assaults, contacted Dunn for an interview her luck in obtaining justice began to change.
“All this tragedy, all this failure, all this time and waste of my energy, actually turned into this story,” Dunn said. “All of the horror turned into something that is very powerful, and I do believe it directly contributed to the Title IX guidelines that came out in 2011.”
The second part of this series will run April 11, which will detail Dunn’s fight for justice and her advocacy for the Campus Sexual Violence Elimination Act, signed into law March 7.
