Sexual assault on campus got renewed attention as students returned to campus this week for orientation. View Full Caption Shutterstock/Pete Spiro

HYDE PARK — A list accusing a dozen University of Chicago students of sexual assault circulated online as students returned to campus over the weekend.

The names posted online for only a day on the Hyde Park List Tumblr page accused 12 straight and gay undergraduate men of “gender-based violence” before being taken down Sunday.

The list, first reported on the website Jezebel, echoes a list of alleged rapists that circulated on Columbia University’s campus in May and drew international attention.

Physical copies of the list were also seen in women’s restrooms around campus, according to students.

“A lot of people see the list as endangering the reputations of the men, but I see it as a last resort,” said Olivia Ortiz, an undergraduate linguistics major who was sexually assaulted by another student and was frustrated with the university’s response.

Ortiz said she thinks the action is the work of someone who feels they will not get justice working through the university’s system for complaints.

The Hyde Park list was posted anonymously by “concerned citizens” who claimed they were “keeping the Hyde Park community safe from people known to commit varying levels of gender-based violence — since the university won’t.” An email to an address attached to the list was not immediately returned.

The Department of Education opened an investigation of the University of Chicago's handling of Ortiz's case and other sexual assault cases in February, the student newspaper, The Chicago Maroon, reported. The federal government later released a list of 55 universities under review.

At the time, alumni said they had pushed for 20 years to get the university to improve its record on handling sexual assault claims.

"We are dismayed that there has been insufficient progress to address sexual violence crimes on campus since we were students in the 1990s," wrote alums Andrea Laiacona Dooley and Katie Romich in a petition signed by 600 alumni. "As alumni of the University of Chicago, we are deeply concerned that shortcomings that we identified in our university’s approach to sexual violence when we were students apparently still persist. ... It is past time for the university to implement the current standard best practices for sexual violence prevention and response on campus."

The university recently completed rewriting its policy on sexual misconduct in July as part of the federal investigation.

A representative for the university declined to comment on the list of allegations, but the dean of students expressed the university’s commitment to a providing a safe campus on Friday.

“Sexual violence concerns us all deeply, and the university has fostered a particular commitment to addressing sexual misconduct and unlawful harassment and discrimination — that is essential to sustaining an academic community in which all can participate freely and fully,” Michele Rasmussen said.

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