Eugene weekly., June 12, 2014, Image 13

her recollection of that night. “I said, ‘I know you have a
daughter and you wouldn’t grill her the same way.’” EW
has contacted ESPN for a response from the former coach.
If Bellotti, now a lauded ESPN analyst, was surprised by
the allegations, he shouldn’t have been. One oft-cited study
found that although male student athletes comprise only
3.3 percent of the collegiate population, they accounted for
19 percent of sexual-assault perpetrators.
Goodman says her best friend, a grad assistant for the
team, was pressured about her allegations as well, leading her
to fear he would lose his job if she kept pursuing the issue.
UO spokeswoman Julie Brown says, due to federal
privacy laws, the university cannot comment on, or confi rm
or deny that an investigation took place.
EPD spokeswoman Melinda McLaughlin researched
the incident based on names provided by EW. She says,
“This investigation was reviewed by the DA’s offi ce and
due to a lack of evidence, the case was not fi led for criminal
prosecution. Based upon the investigation the case was
closed and cleared as ‘unfounded.’”
At that time the district attorney was Doug Harcleroad,
and current Lane County DA Alex Gardner was a county
prosecutor.
Goodman says she was told by the UO that another
woman, the player’s roommate and also an athlete, claimed
to be in the house at the time of the alleged assault and said
she didn’t hear cries for help or Goodman saying no.
“What was the point of me screaming?” Goodman
asks. “He was so much bigger and stronger than me.
I needed to make sure I lived. Nobody knew he was
giving me a ride home. He could have snapped and
killed me, and nobody would have known — those are
things that run through your mind.”
Goodman says, “As soon as I said I kissed him, as
soon as I said he put a condom on,” people said it wasn’t
rape. When she said she’d had an abortion, she was
asked if she took DNA evidence from the fetus.
Peggy Whalen of Womenspace points out that the
type of questions female rape victims are often asked
would never get asked of a male robbery victim: “Do
you normally go out drinking?”; “So what were you
wearing?”; “Have you given money away in the past?”
Whalen says, “It’s absurd to hear those questions in
that context, and that’s what we ask victims every day.”
Womenspace works to prevent intimate partner
violence and support survivors, but, as Whalen points
out, victim blaming crosses the spectrum from so-called
date rape to domestic violence.
“I hate terms like date rape,” Whalen says, “because
we don’t call it date murder or acquaintance murder;
it’s a way of making [rape] less so and less big of deal.”
The Red Zone
Many UO students will tell you that such behavior
— drunken group sex in a bathroom at a campus-area party
— happens all the time. According to the “First Report of
the White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual
Assault,” “One in fi ve women is sexually assaulted while
in college. Most often, the assault happens her freshman
or sophomore year.” The fi rst several weeks of college are
called “the red zone” because that is when a freshman is
most likely to experience rape or attempted rape.
What called the recent UO rape investigation to the
public’s attention was the fact that the allegations were
made against three basketball players — and that offi cials
quickly decided not to prosecute.
Lane County DA Alex Gardner elected not to press
charges of forcible rape against Damyean Dotson, 19,
Dominic Artis, 18, and Brandon Austin, 19, citing among
his reasons that the 18-year-old woman was not so drunk
that she “appeared to have been affected to the point of
perception or memory impairment.” In other words: She
wasn’t drunk enough.
Robin Olafson, the Sexual Assault Examiner Program
coordinator for the Oregon Sexual Assault Task Force,
says in the 12 years Olafson has been providing emergency
room medical and forensic care to those who have been
sexually assaulted, she has seen hundreds and hundreds
of patients, “and I’ve only actually been subpoenaed fi ve
times.” She adds, “If we measure our success based on
prosecution rates it would be pretty depressing.”
Some women, Olafson says, go through the examination
and never choose to fi le charges. Oregon keeps rape kits for
six months, she notes, giving those who have been raped
time to decide what they will do.
A look at the response to the recent victim’s report sheds
light on why many women might choose not to pursue justice.
A report on the alleged rape was fi led with the UO
police on March 9, with the EPD being notifi ed four days
later. Although the UO knew that the investigation into the
victim’s allegations was ongoing by the time the NCAA
tournament began on March 18, it nevertheless allowed two
of the basketball players under investigation to participate.
The school pulled the players from the team after
several hundred students rallied on campus and the story
made national headlines. Playing in the tournament netted
basketball Coach Dana Altman a $50,000 bonus, while
Athletic Director Rob Mullens received $25,000. Altman
would have gotten thousands more had the Ducks made it
further in the tournament — they lost to Wisconsin in the
round of 32.
Sports are big business at the UO. The athletic
department’s projected revenues and expenses for 2014 are
each around $93 million. UO’s focus on its sports began to
rise in 1994 when it sent its football team to the Rose Bowl
for the fi rst time since 1958.
‘Life
isn’t
over.
You’re
courageous
for coming
forward.’
— Kelly Goodman
In 1996, Nike founder Phil Knight and other donors
began a push to support the sports program and soon the
Nike swoosh became synonymous with the UO. The school
even rebranded its O in 2001, the year Goodman says she
was raped. That work continues — the UO announced June
6 that it has hired 160over90, the same fi rm Nike uses, for
more rebranding.
Recent years have seen a $90 million makeover of
Autzen Stadium, construction of a Knight-funded $41
million student-athlete tutoring center and a Knight-funded
Football Performance Center — estimated at $68 million
or more — complete with Ferrari leather furniture, custom
green PlayStation consoles and hydrotherapy pools. The
UO spent $35 million in 2013 on coaching salaries alone.
But it’s not just UO’s opulent facilities and athletic
successes that make headlines; it’s also the problems its
athletes have had with the law that have put the school in
the limelight.
In 2010, football players Jeremiah Masoli and Garrett
Embry pleaded guilty to stealing laptop computers and
other items (Masoli was later kicked off the team after
getting busted for pot); running back LaMichael James
was arrested for domestic violence for allegedly choking
his girlfriend; Duck placekicker Rob Beard was accused of
brawling in a bar.
In 2011 an Oregon State Police offi cer pulled over
a car going 118 mph. Football player Cliff Harris was at
the wheel and quarterback Darron Thomas was one of the
passengers. When asked “Who’s got the marijuana in the
car?” Harris famously responded, “We smoked it all.”
More recently, shortly after leaving the UO football
program, Colt Lyerla, who now plays in the NFL for the
Green Bay Packers, was arrested in October of last year for
cocaine possession. Then, on Dec. 13, 2013, football player
Troy Hill was arrested for menacing and felony counts of
fourth-degree assault, including strangulation, after he had
an argument with his girlfriend in his apartment. He pleaded
guilty to a misdemeanor charge of menacing in January, and
according to GoDucks.com, remains on the team.
A criminal record doesn’t often stop a sports star from
playing, nor does it stop him from entering professional
sports. Within one year of the 2003 rape allegations against
NBA player Kobe Bryant, he had a seven-year, $136
million contract and regained his Nike sponsorship.
For women who allege rape, though, the stigma can last
a lifetime.
Goodman sees a silver lining to the UO rape case.
Although it might have taken some time for the story to
come to light — and while the players did play for more
than a month after the incident — at least, she says, this
time a rape wasn’t swept under the rug.
Goodman didn’t cry when she talked about her own
experience. She only choked up when asked what advice
she would give the recent victim. “Life isn’t over,”
Goodman says. “You’re courageous for coming forward.”
Rape on Campus
Though it precedes the current UO rape scandal by
more than a decade, Goodman’s story bears a number
of similarities to it. Both women were reluctant to
come forward; both women had been out drinking;
both incidents involved athletes; and in both cases, the
Lane County district attorney did not fi le charges and
both reports led to victim blaming.
And though Goodman and the current victim found
themselves subjected to vilifi cation and accusations of
false reporting, studies indicate that the vast majority
of sexual assaults reported are factual. According to
the National Center for the Prosecution of Violence
Against Women, false reports hover around 2 to 8
percent. The study points out that false rape statistics
are sometimes skewed when a rape is deemed a false
report because investigators believe the rape didn’t
happen, not because the report was actually proven
false.
According to BB Beltran, executive director of
Sexual Assault Support Services (SASS) in Eugene,
one thing people can do to help those who have been
assaulted is “support survivors and tell them that they
believe them.”
On the surface, the university appears to be a bastion of
rape prevention.
The UO has a number of professionals and volunteers
trying to prevent sexual assaults and support survivors,
from its Counseling Center to its Sexual Wellness
Awareness Team (SWAT) and the Sexual Violence
Prevention and Education division of Student Affairs. Two
UO students, Samantha Stendal and Aaron Blanton, won
a prestigious Peabody Award for an anti-rape PSA they
created. Associate Dean of Students Sheryl Esyter says all
students under 21 entering the university take an online
education module that includes a section on sexual assault.
There is also a required online module about sexual assault
for faculty and staff.
In other ways, though, the university is failing rape
victims miserably.
UO professor Jennifer Freyd co-authored the recent
book Blind to Betrayal and has risen to national attention
for her work on institutional betrayal. Freyd has been
invited twice by the Obama administration to the White
House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault.
Months before the UO rape case made headlines, she says,
she tried to bring the institution’s attention to problems
with the way it was dealing with sexual assault.
Freyd’s background as a psychology researcher is in the
area of memory. Her work has focused until recently on
betrayal trauma theory. “Why is betrayal so toxic?” she asks.
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