Soon, parents and seniors will be waiting for acceptance letters from their "dream" universities. Parents have watched their children grow through the years, knowing that their children will leave the home and begin their journey to adulthood.
A parent’s worst nightmare is for their child to be sexually assaulted while attending school. What compounds the nightmare is when the attacker is a fellow student. In the end, the university may refuse to act. Their child must attend classes with the person that hurt and damaged them beyond measure.
Do universities have a duty of care to their students? Are universities legally obligated to protect their students from sexual assault?
Campus Sexual Assault Is Not Just A Headline.
In 2015, news headlines were full of stories of young women who were raped or had an attempted rape while they were at university. Each year in the United States there are around 293,000 victims of sexual assault. Both men and women are open and susceptible to sexual assault with 4 out of 5 assaults committed by someone that the victim knows.
While campus sexual assault may also affect male students, the reality is that both genders are ignored and hushed by their schools. In 2014, a female student received no aid or understanding from her university and had to withdraw because of failing grades. In 2015, a male student was raped by a female student. She claimed he was the assailant after changing her narrative and he was expelled.
Surveys in universities across the nation report large numbers of sexual assault against male and female students. But in the end, 68% of sexual assaults are not reported to the police. 98% of rapists will never see prison or jail.
Rape and sexual assault are criminal acts. The university must protect students from other criminal acts like a violent, physical attack with a dangerous weapon, so why should rape be any different?
According To the Court of Appeal in California, Apparently Not.
At UCLA, a student attacked another student with a kitchen knife in a campus laboratory. The attacker has a known and long history of schizophrenia known to campus employees. The attacker was ejected from on campus housing in 2009 due to unwarranted aggression to his roommate. The attacker’s father warned a university employee that the attacker could “hurt other residents.”
The victim argued that the attacker’s actions were foreseeable. The university had a duty to protect the victim and any other student that may have been harmed. She was on campus for academic reasons at the time of the attack. In the end, it could have been another student and the attack could have been fatal.
UCLA argued that they took every precaution to prevent an attack from the student. They put him through intensive therapy in the university’s mental health program. They had a system of checks and monitoring. But UCLA refused to admit it had a duty to protect the victim.
But the Court ruled that the university has no duty to protect a student from other students. Universities and colleges are not like elementary or secondary schools. Adults attend their school and engage in adult activities. Since their students are adults, the university can no longer be charged to have the same duty of care as a secondary school.
The courts reason that sexual assault is not limited to a college campus. So universities cannot be held liable for a criminal wrongdoing by another student on campus grounds even if the assault was foreseeable.
Your Child Is Not Just A Student, They’re A Profit.
In the end, universities refuse to take steps to protect their students because it costs too much. Universities are there to provide higher education. In the end, they must market to students and corporations to keep their lecture halls and laboratories open. Tuition rates and textbook prices climb higher. Yet students go to universities for their dining halls, greek life, on-campus activities, and athletics.
College is no longer solely about getting an education; it's also about getting an experience. A university is now a brand. Schools come up with mascots, apparel, chants, rituals, and market themselves in the most appealing ways to get the best students on their campus. Schools spend an extraordinary amount of money to recruit the best minds and athletes in the nation. Like any good business: they spend money to make money.
It is true that sexual assault is not limited to a college campus. It is prevalent across the nation and every 107 seconds another American is sexually assaulted. But universities should not use it as an excuse to not act. Universities should realize their students are part of the school’s community. They implicitly trust their school to keep their environment safe and welcoming.
For a university to turn its back on a victim of sexual assault breaks the trust with all students.
Authored by Janice Lim, LegalMatch Legal Writer
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