BC Among MA Colleges With Open Sexual Assault Cases

NEWTON, MA -- According to a new database, there are 197 open investigations of sexual assault on campus at 161 colleges and universities nationwide, and more than ten of those are in Massachusetts.

The Boston Globe reports that this database from The Chronicle of Higher Education tracks the history of sexual assault cases, and lists Boston College, Amherst College, Berklee College of Music, Boston University, Emerson College, Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Massachusetts Maritime Academy, Tufts University, and UMass-Dartmouth. Open for four-and-a-half years, the University of Massachusetts-Amherst has the longest-standing unresolved investigation on the list.

The investigation at Boston College was opened in December of 2015, when a student who was accused and found responsible for sexual assault maintained that he was wrongly accused and sued the college. The assault “gained attention on the campus in 2013, when a student wrote an anonymous post on a Facebook page for student confessions claiming to have raped a female student. Administrators said the post was a hoax, but it prompted students to organize in protest of sexual assaults on college campuses.” The male student, who has graduated, is seeking damages.

In 2011, The Department of Education announced in a statement that it was strengthening its focus on handling reports of sexual assault at institutions, stating, “The sexual harassment of students, including sexual violence, interferes with students’ right to receive an education free from discrimination and, in the case of sexual violence, is a crime...The statistics on sexual violence are both deeply troubling and a call to action for the nation.”

Nineteen percent of 243 investigations since 2011 have been resolved, and in May of 2014, the DOE’s Office for Civil Rights said it would investigate 55 colleges for “possible violations of federal law over their handling of campus sexual assault cases,” reports the Globe.

Find open investigations here.

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