The sexual assault controversy resulted in the university apologizing to the female student for the way they handled the case. Although too late, the victim has sworn to be a voice for victims of sexual harassments and assaults.
In an anonymous op-ed article that was published in Rice University’s student newspaper, a woman wrote about the sexual assault controversy and how the university handled the situation. In the opinion piece, the woman expresses her disgust on what she considered as mistreatment from the school administration and injustice to herself.
The article details how last year, the female student was assaulted by the male student on campus. Traumatized by the event, she sought help from the school administration in anticipation that justice will be served and her assailant will be held accountable. The sexual assault controversy was severely mishandled by the school and in the fall of 2018, the male student was eligible to graduate.
The school’s argument for allowing him to graduate was that he had attained enough credits and therefore, deserved to graduate. There was no follow up on the case and the school became defensive about their decision.
In the op-ed, the female students referenced directly both the school management and the male student saying:
Rice may have let you off the hook, but I certainly have not. I will continue to fight for my own personal form of justice. … Justice means fighting for current and future survivors of sexual assault. You messed me up, and I’m still working through the repercussions of that.
Students response to the sexual assault controversy
She continued by stating that the sexual assault controversy will act as a motivator to ensure that she fights for other students that will experience a similar incidence in the course of their time in the university. This statement resonated with a lot of students at the university. A petition by the students was started to condemn the school for their response in this case, and also to propose some problems that need to be resolved by the university. The Opinion article went viral on Twitter with a lot of retweets and this put the school in a difficult place and they had to explain the decisions they had made.
Content warning: The following opinion piece is about sexual assault.
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"When Rice handed him a degree, they handed him a certification that what he had done was fine."https://t.co/IIHAtnlbtX— The Rice Thresher (@TheRiceThresher) September 25, 2019
Apology from Rice University but the offender was off the hook
Rice University decided to issue a formal apology to the female student on Monday. President David Leebron and Bridget Gorman, dean of undergraduates, issued her the apology about their failure to hold the male student accountable by saying,
We apologize for failing to realize how the decisions made in this case would impact her, and for the failure to keep her informed throughout the process.
The female student has made it very clear that her primary complaint in the op-ed was the fact that the male student was let off the hook and allowed to graduate without any repercussion. She narrates how she found out within the last week before graduation that he would graduate. The fact that he graduated early, not suspended and might have left the institution without getting the message that what he did was wrong is frustrating to the sexual assault victim.
Rice University is ranked #17 in National Universities. Schools are ranked according to their performance across a set of widely accepted indicators of excellence.
