Survivor
continued from page 1
stop remembering.”
Paige woke up the next morning
and could recall next to nothing
about the night before. Her sorority
sisters filled in the gaps.
Another woman from the sorority
had followed them back to the fra
ternity house because her boyfriend
did not trust Jared. The woman
knocked on Jared’s door, but Jared
did not respond until her boyfriend
began kicking on it. When Jared fi
nally answered, both he and Paige
were naked.
“All I thought happened was I
was really drunk and made a fool of
myself,” Paige said.
But little things set the wheels
spinning in Paige’s head. She found
it odd that the next day, Jared re
turned only her shirt, bra and shoes,
saying that she had vomited on her
pants and underwear. Jared told
Paige she had gotten really sick the
night before, and that he and some
of the other fraternity members had
taken care of her.
Upon being reached, Jared would
not comment on either the police
case or the University proceedings.
Later that year, one of Jared’s fra
ternity brothers told Paige that he
was not like “that guy [Jared]” and
that he would not “do that” to her.
“I didn’t really know anyone in the
sorority until this year [and] I didn’t
really know what happened,” Paige
said. But “after that, I was like, I guess
something else did happen. ”
The longer Paige spent at the
sorority, the more comfortable she
became — and the more the tales of
that night started pointing to one
conclusion. Then two other women
in her sorority said they were raped
by members of Jared’s fraternity.
And Paige broke down.
She could not stop crying for
days, she called her mom, and she
began to look for help: Paige real
Area resources
Sexual Assault Support Services
343-SASS
Office of Student Life
346-3216
ASUO Women’s Center
346-4095
Counseling Center
346-3227
Department of Public Safety
346-6666
UQ Crisis line
346-4488
Student Judicial Affairs
346-1141
Source: Alliance for Sexual Assault Prevention
ized she had been raped.
The process begins
Telling her family and friends
was one thing—but sharing her sto
ry with University officials was
quite another.
The first place Paige turned to for
help was the Sexual Assault Sup
port Services, where she spoke with
an advocate who helped her deter
mine the next step she wanted to
take. Paige decided to report the as
sault to both the Eugene Police De
partment and the University.
To become a University case, an
incident must include a violation of
the Student Conduct Code that oc
curs among at least two students,
and must have occurred on campus.
If the incident did not occur on cam
pus but significantly affected the
victim’s academic life, it may also
stand as a University case.
“We have to be able to connect
[the incident] to campus,” said
Chris Losthiavo, director of Student
Judicial Affairs.
Loschiavo said he could not com1
ment directly on Paige’s case, but
would discuss the University
process in more general terms. Paige
said her experience happened at the
fraternity house, which makes it an
off-campus incident. So instead,
she proved that it impacted her aca
demic life. After realizing what hap
pened that night—more than a year
later—Paige had to lessen her class
load from 18 credits to 12, and stop
her internship with the Girl Scouts.
Eventually the weight of knowing
what had happened to her became
so great that Paige had to withdraw
from spring term completely and
live at home with her family.
The University offers sexual as
sault survivors three options in such
a case — either a formal, informal or
informative process — and each
leads to several possible outcomes.
The formal process entails a hear
ing in which an 18-member panel of
students and faculty members
makes a ruling on the case. The in
formative process does not involve
judicial action but instead focuses
on coping with what happened.
Paige decided against the formal
process because it would have re
quired her to be in the same room as
Jared, which she did not want. She
was also afraid that those speaking
on Jared’s side of the case would
place blame for the incident on her.
The formal process could also
take months because all parties in
volved would need to schedule a
common meeting time, and Jared
would have the chance to appeal
the board’s decision.
Had she chosen the formal route,
it might have led to Jared’s expul
sion. But Paige chose the informal
route, in which students found
guilty can’t be expelled.
Through this avenue, Paige, Jared
and all other witnesses separately
shared personal sides of the story
with Loschiavo, who then initiated
the investigation. If Jared is eventu
ally found guilty, he will not be able
to appeal Loschiavo’s decision. In
stead, he could be forced to do any
number of things, including partici
pate in educational programs and
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counseling, do community service,
leave the residence halls or give up
greek membership.
Weighing the options
Sheryl Eyster, assistant dean of
student life, helps students navigate
through either the formal, informal
or informative processes. She also
helps survivors to realize the as
saults were not their fault. Students
who do not want assistance or judi
cial action may fill out anonymous
forms to report the assault for statis
tical purposes, Eyster added.
But Eyster said she also helps
point survivors of sexual assault in
the direction of other campus and
community resources available to
them, such as SASS, the Student
Health Center and the ASUO
Women’s Center.
Eyster said SASS is one of the
most-used resources for sexual as
sault cases. The program offers le
gal, medical and support advocacy
to sexual assault survivors as well
as a 24-hour crisis and support line.
SASS Community Education Co
ordinator Katie Antos added that
SASS members also explain the ad
ditional options available to sur
vivors, such as restraining orders or
rape-kit exams.
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only be done up to 72 hours after the
incident — becomes important evi
dence in many criminal cases, said
Sgt. Scott McKee of the Eugene Po
lice Department. McKee supervises
the EPD’s violent crimes unit,
which investigates sexual assault
cases. He said physical evidence
such as DNA and body fluid sam
ples could determine whether the
state prosecutes the suspect, but he
added that such evidence is not al
ways necessary.
“If someone gets a rape-kit exam,
it does keep options open,” Antos
said. “But it’s a very difficult time
and difficult decision someone has
to make in a short amount of time. ”
Although sexual assault sur
vivors have an option to file a police
report, Loschiavo said it is easier to
find someone guilty in a conduct
process than in a “court of law” be
cause the standards of evidence are
not as strict. He added that it is com
mon for the same person found
guilty through a conduct process to
not be criminally convicted.
To be convicted criminally, the
defendant must be proven guilty be
yond a reasonable doubt. When
Paige filed a report with the police,
the case was closed due to lack of
evidence against Jared.
The detective responsible for the
police investigation had Paige tape
record a telephone conversation
with Jared, Paige said. During the
call, Jared told her she had been re
ally drunk and that they had oral
sex, she said — a different story
from what he had told her before.
Picking up the pieces
Reports of rape on and around
campus are lower now, but Fitz
patrick said DPS has participated in
meetings with representatives from
the Women’s Center, the University
Health Center, the Counseling Cen
ter and the Office of Student Life to
find ways of more accurately report
ing sexual assaults.
Recently, the Clery Law, a federal
law that requires colleges and uni
versities to disclose information
about crime on and around their
campuses, has been criticized be
cause it does not require authorities
to report crimes off campus
grounds. Fitzpatrick said he plans
to attend a conference in June that
will address the law’s vague word
ing — and that will hopefully teach
campus representatives how to re
port crimes more accurately.
“We’re making progress,” he said.
Paige’s case is one the University
may have to report this year because
she told her story to DPS. The re
sults of her case are still pending,
but Paige said she expects them to
come any day now.
Even if Jared is not found guilty
through the conduct process, he
may still have to undergo educa
tional programs, such as counseling
sessions, to teach him about the
harms of sexual assault.
“The conduct process is not in
tended to be punitive,” Loschiavo
said. “It’s more educational.”
Loschiavo added that in most cas
es such as Paige’s, both parties were
drunk at the time of the assault and
cannot clearly remember what actu
ally happened — leading to incon
sistent “he said/she said” stories.
The conduct code states that a per
son cannot give consent when un
der the influence of alcohol, but
sometimes the accused cannot be
deemed guilty because memories of
both sides are blurry.
it doesn t mean it didn t hap
pen,” Loschiavo said. “The evi
dence just may not be there. ”
Paige said she cannot remember
anything from that night after leaving
the party. And Mary Wolf, an advo
cate with SASS, said it isn’t uncom
mon for rape victims to block out cer
tain parts of their experience.
Black-outs are ways of coping with
the bad things that have happened,
Wolf said, and can result from a cou
ple of factors. One might be that the
trauma associated with the incident
forced the victim to repress memories
of the assault. Another possibility,
Wolf said, are date-rape drugs, which
are oftentimes slipped in drinks and
cause temporary memory loss. “I
know that does happen a lot among
University students, because they are
vulnerable at parties and the bars,”
Wolf said. The night of the incident
was the first time Paige had ever been
intoxicated, she said. And the guilt
she felt about it stayed with her for a
long time afterward.
“Whenever I’d get upset, I’d drink
to forget about it. I always pushed it
aside,” Paige said. “I was affected by
it, but I was trying to pretend it was
n’t there.”
Since she has faced the situation
head-on, Paige said, that feeling has
changed. With help from friends,
family and counselors, she now
knows it is nothing she should feel
bad about.
Not only that, Paige said, but she
realizes that by putting a voice be
hind the stories of rape victims, by
saying that what happened to her is
not right, that maybe Jared and his
fraternity will get the education
they need to understand how rape
affects women — and justice will
have been served.
“I’m glad that I stood up,” Paige
said. “I think once more people start
speaking up, then others will come
forward.”
*Editor’s note: Both Paige and
fared have been given false names
to protect their identity.
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