Current and former students at two more prestigious colleges have reportedly filed federal complaints alleging mistreatment of campus sexual assault victims — the subject of a major investigation by the Center for Public Integrity.  

The New York Times reported that the complaints were filed against Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania and Occidental College in California, alleging violations of the Title IX civil rights law, and in Occidental’s case, the Cleary Act, which established strict rules on reporting of campus crime. Over the past couple years, other elite schools, such as Wesleyan, Yale, Amherst and the University of North Carolina, have been plagued by similar allegations.  

In 2009 and 2010, the Center – in collaboration with NPR – did a series of investigative pieces entitled “Sexual Assault on Campus: A Frustrating Search for Justice.” The series revealed that students found “responsible” for campus sexual assaults often face little or no punishment from school judicial systems, while their victims’ lives are frequently turned upside down.

The House of Representatives passed federal legislation aimed at combating campus sexual violence on Thursday, including it in a bipartisan renewal of the Violence Against Women Act following months of congressional gridlock. The Senate has already approved the measure, which means passage is virtually assured; President Barack Obama could sign it into law as early as next week.

In a vote of 286 to 138, House members approved a reauthorization of VAWA that incorporates, as Section 304, the Campus Sexual Violence Elimination Act, known as Campus SaVE. The final tally came after lawmakers had defeated a Republican-backed amendment that would have omitted the act’s language from VAWA altogether.

Campus SaVE is meant to address problems highlighted in an investigation of campus sexual assault by the Center for Public Integrity. Published in a six-part series starting in 2009, “Sexual Assault on Campus: A Frustrating Search for Justice” — done in collaboration with National Public Radio — showed that campus judicial proceedings regarding allegations of sexual assault were often confusing, shrouded in secrecy, and marked by lengthy delays. Those who reported sexual assaults encountered a litany of institutional barriers that either assured their silence or left them feeling victimized again. Even students found “responsible” for alleged sexual assaults often faced little punishment, while their victims’ lives frequently turned upside down.

“The victims’ rights components [of Campus SaVE] were designed around the gaps identified by the Center for Public Integrity’s report,” said Daniel Carter, a long-time victims’ advocate now with the VTV Family Outreach Foundation, who helped draft the original bill. “This would not have been possible without that series.”

The 'Alice in Wonderland' saga of Notre Dame football star Manti Te'o and the girlfriend who turned out to be a hoax has ignited a new round of criticism over the school's handling of a sexual assault allegation against a different football player more than two years ago.

Notre Dame hired a private investigative firm in an attempt to unravel fact from fiction in regard to Te'o and the fictitious girlfriend, Lennay Kekua, who was said to have died last fall. Notre Dame athletic directior Jack Swarbrick later held an emotional press conference to defend Te'o and cast him as the victim of a cruel ruse. 

That was quite a contrast, critics charge, to the treatment afforded freshman Lizzy Seeberg, who reported to campus police in August 2010 that she'd been sexually assaulted by a football player. Police waited two weeks before interviewing the player. By then, Seeberg had committed suicide. Notre Dame said a "thorough and judicious" investigation was conducted. The player was later found "not responsible" in a closed-door campus judiciary hearing. 

As our Kristen Lombardi reported last month, the circumstances surrounding the Seeberg case are actually far from unusual. Colleges have long struggled mightily in their attempts to deal with charges of campus sexual assault.

Read Lombardi's story here.

Notre Dame’s high-profile re-emergence among college football’s elite has focused new attention on the university’s long-standing claims that it does things “the right way” — that football players are treated like anyone else on campus, with no special favors.

The boasts of lofty moral standards have long struck other schools’ fans as a bit sanctimonious. But they are getting fresh scrutiny now, in part because the bright lights of college football’s biggest stage have brought renewed attention to a two-year-old case involving a Notre Dame player and chilling allegations of sexual assault.

In August 2010, 19-year-old freshman Lizzy Seeberg accused the athlete of sexually assaulting her in his dorm. She filed a report with campus police, which sat on it for two weeks before even interviewing him. By then, Seeberg had committed suicide. Administrators would later convene a closed-door campus disciplinary hearing—three months after Seeberg’s death became national news—in which the player was found “not responsible.” In the university's only direct comment on the case, Notre Dame's president, the Rev. John I. Jenkins, told the South Bend Tribune in December 2010 that university police had conducted a "thorough and judicious investigation that followed the facts..." He acknowledged, however, that the inquiry could have been conducted "more quickly, perhaps." The player, who has not been publicly identified, reportedly has never missed a game, nor presumably will he miss tonight’s national championship contest with Alabama’s Crimson Tide. Meanwhile, a small but vocal number of critics are asking pointed questions about how this case was handled, and wondering aloud whether Notre Dame’s righteous rhetoric is really a fiction.

The U.S. Justice Department on Tuesday announced it had opened multiple investigations into how local authorities and school officials handled a series of recent sexual assault allegations at the University of Montana. The adjudication of sexual assault cases on college campuses was the subject of a series of stories by the Center for Public Integrity.

Questions involving the handling of sexual assault cases have engulfed the university and its hometown of Missoula since late last year, when the school announced it had hired an outside investigator to look into allegations that two university students were drugged and gang-raped in December. That probe eventually grew to include other cases; the Justice Department said that at least 11 reported sexual assaults involving UM students had occurred in an 18-month period. The university faced criticism for how it handled the cases, as did the Missoula Police department and the county attorney. Several of the cases involve allegations against players for the school’s popular and successful football team, the Grizzlies. The university fired the school’s athletic director and head football coach in late March.

Nearly 2,600 sexual assaults were reported to the Pentagon last year, but the office in charge of overseeing investigations of these assaults has failed to live up to its duty, according to the Government Accountability Office.

In 2006, the Defense Department put measures to prevent sexual assault into place, and an inspector general was put in charge of oversight. So far, the GAO investigation found, “The inspector general’s office has not performed these responsibilities, primarily because it believes it has other, higher priorities."

If this continues, the accountability office warned, the IG "will remain limited in its ability to help ensure consistency and accountability."

The report highlights the longstanding issue of justice in sexual assault cases, which both the military and college campuses have struggled with in recent years. As an iWatch News investigation showed, sexual assaults often happen without consequence because of poor policies at the highest levels.

In a response, the inspector general's office said it agreed with the recommendations and would make GAO’s recommended changes for fiscal year 2012. Reported sexual assaults were actually down in fiscal 2010, from 3,230 a year earlier.

The IG office did not accept that it had failed to live up to its mission.

"We disagree with the characterization that the DoD IG has not performed its responsibilities," said Inspector General Gordon Heddell in a statement emailed to iWatch News. "We've addressed the important issue of combatting sexual assault with the most senior officials in the Department and together expect to make progress in addressing this issue."

The sexual assault expert hired by Reed College last year has submitted his resignation with the elite private college still embroiled in turmoil over its sexual assault policies, a set of disciplinary procedures that the college itself recently determined were partially out of compliance with federal law.

With Reed faculty joining their voices to a mounting student campaign for change, the college has already made changes in its polices to meet federal legal requirements. Kevin Myers, director of strategic communications for
Reed, said additional policy changes are on the way. Some of those changes were announced to students Wednesday.

The sometimes fierce debate on campus has caused clashes between students and administrators, provoked alumni, spurred graffiti and flyers on campus, and prompted guerilla theater in the college dining room. Though the college hired a sexual assault expert last year, in part to help navigate reforms underway since August 31, the expert, Pete Meagher, has told the college he is leaving May 31, with changes still pending.

Fifty-eight percent of Reed College students signed a petition urging policy reform, presented to the college president, board of trustees and faculty and student governments April 22. Faculty also submitted a petition, saying the college may be inadvertently harming sexual assault victims through its policies, and some student victims and advocates think Reed is violating federal law.

The Center for Public Integrity and NPR have received a prestigious Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award for the story “Seeking Justice for Campus Rapes.”  

The Center’s 12-month investigation with NPR showed that students who have been the victim of sexual assaults on campus face a depressing array of barriers that often assure their silence or leave them feeling victimized a second time. Meanwhile, students found responsible for alleged sexual assaults on campuses can face little or no punishment and go on to graduate, as colleges and universities ignore the problem.

“This was a meaningful and powerful investigation,” said Center Executive Director William E. Buzenberg. “The Center for Public Integrity is delighted to have collaborated with an excellent team from NPR in exposing a deeply troubling fact of life on too many campuses across the country. We know that as many as 50 million Americans read, saw or heard these compelling stories.”  

The NPR series was reported by correspondent Joseph Shapiro, who worked in collaboration with the Center for Public Integrity’s lead project reporter, Kristen Lombardi. NPR’s investigative team included Robert Benincasa and Susanne Reber; the Center’s team included Gordon Witkin, David Donald, and Kristin Jones.

“I’m pleased the story has had such a clear impact on public policy,” said Lombardi.  “It spurred congressional action on Capitol Hill and led the U.S. Department of Education to strengthen its oversight of how colleges and universities handle campus rape cases.”