gottfredson.JPG

Michael Gottfredson, president of the University of Oregon

(Motoya Nakamura/The Oregonian )

When Michael Gottfredson, president of the University of Oregon, tells his faculty Senate that "we have a responsibility to become leaders in the nation in creating a campus that is safe from sexual violence," you can understand why Jennifer Freyd takes it personally.

And when Gottfredson insists the university "met our obligations under the Clery Act" in properly logging allegations of sexual assault against three Duck basketball players, you need to understand why Freyd calls bull.

On Monday, Freyd, a UO psychology professor, filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education, alleging that "the university engaged in a pattern of very serious violation of the Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act."

Freyd -- who has done extensive research on sexual assault on campus and what she terms "institutional betrayal" -- maintains UO violated the act when "it failed to log" the March 9 report by the victim's father to university police of "alleged sexual assaults involving students ... in two apartments both at the edge of campus."



"I also believe that the University of Oregon did not follow the Clery Act when it failed to issue an email alert regarding this March 9 report," Freyd argues, "particularly when it learned a week later that one of the alleged perpetrators had a prior report of sexual assault at a prior college."

In Wednesday's speech to the faculty Senate, Gottfredson said "speculations" that the university did not act in the best interest of student safety were "very, very inappropriate."

You need to know why Freyd takes that very, very personally, too.

Freyd reminded me Wednesday that she has been researching the issue of sexual violence on campus -- Eugene's and others -- for two years.

"When people act like this problem just came to our attention on May 5, they don't understand what those of us know who have been working on this problem," Freyd said.

"Most people don't have a clue about the rules of the Clery Act. The reason I knew we didn't have (the alleged assault) in the police log is that I've been looking in the police logs for months."

With only limited cooperation from Gottfredson and the university administration, Freyd adds.

When Freyd's research indicated that 46 percent of the women dealing with unwanted sexual experiences felt betrayed, and further traumatized, by the institution where those incidents occurred, she said, "I felt it was my duty to go to the president and say, 'We have a problem.'"

Freyd first met with Gottfredson in March 2013. "He seemed open to hearing what we had to say. He expressed willingness to work with us," she said.

His follow-through, however, was lousy. Because many insurance companies now require universities to train employees on taking reports of sexual assault, Freyd said she and her grad students sought the administration's assistance in determining whether the training was effective.

"They kept delaying and delaying," Freyd said. "Finally, we had to do the research without their help."

Freyd surveyed 590 people. "There are limitations on this study; I'm not saying it's the final word," she said. "But we have no evidence the training does any good. It's passive. Looking at slides. The occasional multiple-choice question.

"The university is outsourcing education to an insurance company and it doesn't work. What's wrong with this picture?"

How did Gottfredson frame the issue Wednesday? "We have an opportunity -- I would say a responsibility -- to become leaders in the nation in creating a campus that is safe from sexual violence."

But Freyd said that when she twice tried to take those survey results to Gottfredson in April, she got "only a

of the troubling conclusions.

Freyd had a

with Robin Holmes,

, on what's known as the "sexual misconduct journal."

Freyd is incredulous that those essay-writing assignments, often based on interviews with volunteers at Sexual Assault Support Services, appear to be "the most common sanction given to those who have committed a sexual assault."

Holmes told Freyd, "As you know, because we are not a legal entity, we are limited in what types of sanctions we can exact once this horrific behavior has occurred." She further argued, however, that her office was working through "the appropriate governance channels" to toughen the available sanctions.

But far more often than not, Freyd says, Gottfredson has not engaged with her advocacy or that of the UO Coalition to End Sexual Violence.

"We've been jumping up and down, yelling on this subject," Freyd said. "We formed the coalition because our individual efforts weren't working."

Freyd and her students have talked to victims, analyzed sanctions, dug through police logs, published numerous papers and lobbied the university president's office in an extended effort to "make the campus a safer place."

That work eventually earned Freyd a trip to the White House to talk to that leader's task force on dealing with sexual assault on campus.

It just didn't rate a mention from Gottfredson.

"We didn't exist in his speech," Freyd said. "He did not mention that we have been reaching out to him for over a year individually, and for months as a coalition. They had all these opportunities to fix a lot of things, and they blew us off."

-- Steve Duin