Take Back the Night 2007

By Scott Tibbs, October 10, 2007

I attended the Take Back the Night rally last night. The annual protest against sexual assault and domestic violence was postponed due to a rainstorm.Friends of Middle Way House, the Feminist Majority, RAISE and the Women’s Student Association were all there with informational tables. As one speaker said, TBTN recognizes silence as a force that perpetuates violence.

Carol McCord, dean of the Office of Women’s Affairs, said that the fact that coming to college increases a woman’s risk of sexual assault fourfold is unbelievable and unacceptable. She’s right. There are many factors in the culture on this campus and college campuses generally that contribute to sexual assault, but the fact that it is so common is cause for great concern. We may not agree on solutions, but we should all agree that the problem needs to be fixed.

Following are pictures from the rally.

There is a related problem that has become more apparent in the wake of the scandal at Duke University and the crimes committed by Mike Nifong. I sent the following e-mail to Dean of Students Richard McKaig about this problem:

---- Original Message ----
Subject: IU policy on rape
Date: Wed, 10 Oct 2007 04:16:20 -0700 (PDT)
From: Scott Tibbs
To: McKaig@indiana.edu
CC: lslone@indiana.edu

Dean McKaig,

I meant to ask you this at the Take Back the Night rally last night. In the wake of the Duke University scandal and Richard Brodhead expelling men from campus who had committed no crime, what is Indiana University’s policy on dealing with false accusations? How would you handle such an incident? Has the woman who made a false accusation earlier this year been disciplined by Indiana University, and if not, why not?

Also, I have a question for Officer Slone. Why was this woman’s name not released? I understand that sexual assault victims’ names are generally not released, but she’s not a sexual assualt victim. She’s a criminal. Why should she get special protection?

–Scott

http://www.heraldtimesonline.com/stories/2007/03/30/news.qp-662970.sto

The Indiana University student who said she was abducted and raped by two men last month recanted her story to authorities Thursday afternoon, admitting that she concocted the story, police said.

The 19-year-old woman told investigators earlier this week that she?d been abducted by two men as she walked home from work on the night of Feb. 22.

But during a follow-up interview with Indiana University Police Department Detective Sgt. Leslie Slone on Thursday, the woman admitted she’d made the story up, police said.

IUPD Capt. Jerry Minger said the woman told Slone she engaged in consensual sex with a man at a local motel that night.