Christine Temple

News-Leader

"What is sexual assault?"

The question posed to students by Sen. Claire McCaskill received little reaction during her visit to Missouri State University on Wednesday. She was on campus to discuss proposed legislation on combating sexual violence on college campuses.

"How many of you feel comfortable if I were going to say right now that I was going to give a pop quiz about what is criminal sexual assault, how many of you feel like you would get an A?"

A couple of hands went up in the room with dozens of students.

McCaskill said that response is her biggest worry when it comes to combating sexual assaults.

"That makes my heart break because many of these victims will never get help if they don't have the fundamental understanding of when the law's been broken," she told reporters after the discussion. "I think that the message came through loud and clear to this university and to other universities that were represented here that their students need more information."

McCaskill's visit to MSU was part of a statewide tour of 10 colleges to get feedback from students and staff about the Campus Accountability and Safety Act. Representatives from Springfield's Evangel University, Ozarks Technical Community College, Drury University and Cox College, as well as six other state colleges, were in attendance. Officers from the Springfield Police Department, the Greene and Christian county prosecutors and the representatives from the Victim Center also participated in the discussion. A few hundred people attended the event in MSU's Plaster Student Union.

The Campus Accountability and Safety Act, co-sponsored by McCaskill, aims to protect and empower students, and strengthen accountability and transparency for institutions. McCaskill said that includes "establishing stiff penalties for non-compliance."

Currently, the penalty for not following Title IX is the loss of federal funding, but McCaskill said colleges know that would never happen in reality.

"So there's no threat," she said. "So there is some fear about the penalty provisions that are in the bill because you can get fined up to 1 percent of your operating budget, and for a campus like Missouri State that could be millions of dollars."

McCaskill's legislation also requires colleges to enter into a memoranda of understanding with all applicable law enforcement agencies to define responsibilities and share information when assaults occur.

She said a focus by colleges on confidentiality can end up discouraging students to prosecute their assailants.

"If she's a victim, she might be feeling some blame. There's a natural tendency of victims of wanting to take an off-ramp into the more comfortable confines of Title IX," she said.

"What you end up doing is discouraging the victims for exploring the effort of criminal prosecution.... The chance to hold someone criminally accountable is diminished greatly with delayed disclosure."

MSU's director of safety and security Donald Clark said "there's room for improvement" on communication between the campus and law enforcement.

"The confidentiality issues for the victim are strongly considered and, rightly so probably, they take precedence over directly involving law enforcement early in the state of that investigation," he said.

McCaskill said it's important for victims to feel in control over how a report of sexual assault is handled, but they should understand the urgency of reporting.

"I want to make sure that she's getting all the information and that she understands that if a date rape drug is used against her and they don't have a blood test within 24 hours, the evidence is gone."

She said that with good education and information, victims will feel more safe to report, and know how a police report could help prevent a future crime.

"There are very few people who do this one time," McCaskill said.

McCaskill spent much of the discussion talking about how potential victims could prevent sexual assault.

Drury assistant professor of English Katie Gilbert asked, "How do we switch the conversation from, 'Do you know if you've been raped' to 'Do you know if you're going to rape someone?' "

McCaskill said education directed toward men will not be effective for everyone.

"Education will not help them because they're predators," she said.

McCaskill said students need to receive education on appropriate behaviors at a younger age. She said she has an upcoming project that will evaluate Title IX education at the K-12 level.

A student asked why the conversation is almost always about women as victims: "Men are assaulted, too. There are women who are predators as well.... There needs to be a greater advocacy for those male victims."

McCaskill acknowledged that men are also assaulted, and said gay men are particularly targeted. But the numbers are not as great as female victims, which she says is 1 in 5 women in college.

McCaskill said she plans to use the information she received from her visit to amend her proposed legislation. Over the course of her tour, she'll meet with representatives from about 40 Missouri colleges.

She told the group, "I want you all to be in the driver's seat here."

Assaults at area campuses

Between the seven forcible sexual assault reports at Springfield colleges, only two led to filing a police report.

Annual safety and security reports released this month by Drury University, Evangel University, Missouri State University and Ozarks Technical Community College outlined criminal offenses that took place on campus in 2013.

MSU's Safety and Transportation director Donald Clark said there were four rapes on campus in 2013. One case was reported to the police, and the other three cases were reported directly to the university. Clark said victims can decide whether they want to involve law enforcement.

An assessment of 440 four-year colleges initiated by Sen. Claire McCaskill found that less than 5 percent of rape victims report the attack to law enforcement.

According to the Springfield Police report on the MSU case, the sexual assault took place in a residence hall on MSU's campus in September 2013. Although police obtained a summary of the incident and spoke with the victim, the case never made it to prosecution.

The reported stated: "Due to having an uncooperative victim and not being able to identify a suspect, this case will be suspended at this time."

Drury had two cases of forcible sexual offenses on campus in 2013, down from six the year before. Spokesman Mike Brothers said neither case led to a police report.

OTC had one reported forcible sexual offense in 2013 at the Richwood Valley Campus, located between Ozark and Nixa.

According to the OTC Safety and Security Department, the incident in April 2013 was handled by the Ozark Police Department.

Evangel had no reported cases of any sexual offense. When asked by reporters if she thought that statistic was realistic, McCaskill said, "It's hard to imagine."

"I think most young people do not want to come forward. I mean this is the most personal, painful and private moment of a young person's life and to share it with anybody else, much less publicly, much less to be asked questions about it and be challenged about it, it is the most under-reported crime in America and particularly among young people," she said.

"It doesn't surprise me they would have a statistic of zero, I would be shocked if there was absolutely none."

McCaskill's assessment found that 40 percent of colleges surveyed had not conducted an investigation related to sexual violence in the past five years.

"You must do an investigation if there is a complaint of sexual assault at your institution," she said. "So what these universities were saying is, 'We've had no complaints of sexual assault over the last five years.' Well I just don't believe that's true at 40 percent of our colleges and universities."

Sexual assaults in 2013

Missouri State: 4

Drury: 2

OTC: 1

Evangel: 0