On a Monday night in November, at an office near the University of Texas at San Antonio, more women showed up for an informal meeting to talk about sexual assault than they had chairs.

Kimiya Factory, 20, one of the UTSA students who organized it, was struck by the women’s openness about their experience with rape. She also was struck by how many stories were aired about alleged assailants who had faced no apparent consequences.

The women, about 40 in all, listened quietly to each other. Most of the incidents they described occurred at off-campus apartments — and the names of four or five male students, prominent in campus life, came up again and again, Factory said in a recent interview. The meeting lasted four hours.

She can’t say whether or how the university investigated those cases — or even say if the victims reported what happened to authorities. But Factory, a political science junior minoring in legal studies, is convinced that “rape culture” is as pervasive at UTSA as in the larger society. She believes the university’s response to sexual assault is inadequate.

Making that point in a manifesto posted in campus bathroom stalls, the women soon plunged the university community into a murky debate.

Factory and her friend Taylor Waits, 21, another organizer of the meeting, aren’t cooperating with a UT System investigation of the issue they helped raise, citing the confidentiality of victims’ stories. That drew a plea from the UTSA student government president.

The UT probe was launched after someone circulated flyers purporting to identify alleged assailants and hinting at a vigilante ethic against them — but Factory and Waits, a communications senior and former Miss UTSA, say they have no idea who was behind that.

‘We are disgusted’

The women’s manifesto appeared just before Thanksgiving break.

“We, the women of UTSA, are choosing to take a stand against the rampant sexual assault, and abuse on campus and in the world,” it began, calling for societal change and offering the organization as a forum where women could confide in one another.

“We are disgusted that your abusers continue to function on this campus and you have to relive your trauma every day as they get to walk freely amongst society,” the letter said, offering rape victims an email address to contact the group, and warning their assailants — without naming anybody — that they were known, even if unpunished.

UTSA president Taylor Eighmy praised the group in a campus-wide email for raising awareness of “an important issue,” adding, “Sexual misconduct of any kind is unacceptable, and UTSA must be an institution of zero tolerance.”

Within hours, Eighmy sent another email, having learned about anonymous flyers that named alleged assailants or displayed photos of men with horizontal bars covering their eyes. The photos came with a cryptic message: “utsafinest, #weknowwhatyoudo, #exposed, #whosnext.”

Eighmy announced he had asked the University of Texas System to hire a law firm to conduct an outside investigation to make sure the school is on the right side of Title IX, the federal law that guarantees equal treatment of men and women in institutions of higher learning.

Seven rapes were reported in campus residential facilities last year, including four cases that UTSA police referred to the Bexar County District Attorney’s office, which dismissed three of them, university spokesman Joe Izbrand said. Police have no suspect in another case, and the remaining two were not reported to police, he said.

The federal Clery Act requires colleges to disclose how many students report assaults that happen on campus, public property immediately adjacent to it or on college-owned property. The seven cases included four that were referred to the university’s Student Conduct and Community Standards Office, where one resulted in a one-year suspension and another in probation, Izbrand said.

Students who report assaults anywhere can be provided with services like counseling or a class schedule change, which at UTSA is done by an office called Equal Opportunity Services, or EOS. The university could not provide statistics on the number of complaints investigated by EOS or their outcomes.

Factory and Waits, a former Miss UTSA, said they never saw the accusatory flyers, which Izbrand said were posted in an off-campus apartment complex a day after the group’s letter went up.

In an odd throwback to an earlier era, the flyers were distributed on paper and seem to have no online presence. Weeks after Eighmy’s action, Factory and Waits said they had not even heard of the photos. Both had heard rumors about a list of names circulating. One of the meeting attendees received an angry call from her alleged assailant, apparently in response to being named, Factory said.

Factory and Waits said they don’t condone the publicizing of the men’s names — it hampered their organization, they said, since members were spooked that their personal stories were being shared.

Factory said the law firm conducting the investigation, Ice Miller, emailed her in early December asking for her help. But she and Waits say they have no interest in participating.

“The university wants me to give them names and tell stories that aren’t mine,” Factory said. “What I’m doing is at the permission of these women, and they like what we’re doing.”

UTSA student body president Brittany Garcia urged the women to work with the investigation, posting a video to her Twitter account last week in which she praised university leaders for “trying to figure out how to make (the campus) better.”

“So now it’s kind of up to you guys. They can’t fix everything unless they know specifics of what’s going on,” Garcia said.

‘Unfortunate reality’

Factory did finally agree to a meeting Friday with Eighmy and other university leaders, who she said encouraged her efforts and sought her input on how to expand the Office of Student Advocacy, Violence Prevention & Empowerment.

“I love the campus and want to make it safe, better,” Factory said.

Factory and Waits, who are both African American and involved in black student organizations, said they have participated in multiple meetings with Eighmy to discuss the university’s racial climate. Eighmy has created task forces to investigate ways to eliminate implicit bias, but both women believe little to no action has resulted.

Currently, the EOS works with UTSA police when an accusation of a crime is made against a student, said Maria Perez, EOS interim director and Title IX coordinator. A “respondent” to an accusation might or might not be allowed to remain on campus during the investigation, depending on circumstances, she said.

The office’s findings then go to the Student Conduct office for adjudication. The police department might separately pursue a criminal investigation.

“But really the message, at the end of the day, is figuring out what resources (students) need because we want them to be successful as students,” Perez said.

Perez said she couldn’t say whether accused students have been investigated multiple times through multiple accusations. She said she could not talk about specific cases because of federal privacy law.

But Perez said she has some concerns that not all student reporting is streamlined. An allegation about sexual assault made during counseling services is kept confidential — a counselor could not share the report with EOS. And outside law enforcement agencies investigating a possible crime by a student might not notify the EOS.

Izbrand, however, said several UTSA offices “coordinate closely, as privacy laws permit, to identify and address potential patterns of repeat behavior.”

“The unfortunate reality, though, is that we can only address these situations when they are reported, and in most cases across college campuses nationwide, they are not,” he said.

While freshmen and transfer students are told at orientation that students can go to police or Equal Opportunity Services if they’ve been raped, Factory and Waits think they should always include law enforcement. Izbrand said the university wants victims to do both, “so we can fully investigate the matter and take appropriate action.”

Factory said she’s met with the Bexar County District Attorney’s Office’s victim advocates about seeking their services when these incidents occur.

“Rape is a crime. Sexual assault is a crime. I want police and the district attorney involved, not some internal court,” Waits said.

Krista Torralva covers several school districts and public universities in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. Read her on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | Krista.Torralva@express-news.net | Twitter: @KMTorralva