UC Davis continues to grapple with rape prevention

At the start of the school year, Sam Alavi greeted fellow UC Davis students with T-shirts. One of them read “I just want the D.” No, not that D. In smaller letters, it spelled out “destruction of rape culture.”

Though students designed and distributed the shirts—an effort to spread awareness about sexual assault on campus at its peak period, the first six weeks of school—the university paid for them.

“Whether or not they actually care or they’re pressured to look like they care, the administration has been more receptive lately” when it comes to sexual-assault awareness, Alavi said.

University of California President Janet Napolitano wants to be a national leader when it comes to preventing sexual assault on college campuses. In July, she testified before the U.S. Senate on a litany of policy changes that have been going into effect over the course of the year.

But are those changes actually being felt by college students? At UC Davis, not really.

And that’s according to both students and also UC Davis spokesman Andy Fell. “It’s not so much that we changed a great deal so much as there’s policy now behind what we’re doing,” he said.

To UC Davis’ credit, part of the lack of concrete change is that the university’s resources for sexual-assault survivors were already better than those at other UC campuses. In essence, Napolitano brought other campuses up to UC Davis’ level.

Her biggest charge was to hire at least one full-time confidential advocate for survivors on every campus, and standardize advocacy programs UC-wide. Davis already had that covered, so its advocacy program’s name change—from CVPP to CARE—is, for the most part, just in name. The center recently added a full-time employee, though, for a grand total of three.

Napolitano’s other big focus is prevention education. This fall, incoming UC Davis students received in-person training about sexual assault and campus resources, a significant shift from last year’s online-only version. Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi also, for the first time, sent students an email the first week of school specifically about the issue.

“That’s a very small first step—and I wouldn’t say that’s at all enough,” said Alavi, the director of UC Davis student government’s office of advocacy.

Alavi wants to see more mandatory in-person education about sexual assault for all students throughout their years at UC Davis, not just when they step on campus for the first time.

Ivon Garcia, who spearheads the gender and sexuality division of student government, echoed Alavi’s desires for more education. And while there are new committees—both at the student and administrative level—dedicated to the issue, Garcia believes minority groups are being left out of the conversation.

“We have students who fit the victim trope: they’re largely young, cis-gender women, white, straight, able-bodied,” they said. “Everybody else has special, unique needs and they’re completely left out.”

Additional, optional education campaigns will be rolled out this year—including ones targeting trans, queer and specific cultural communities—but the administration isn’t sure how these will take shape yet, according to Fell.

Minority groups, however, are most likely to be victims. A 2000 Journal of Interpersonal Violence study suggests as many as 83 percent of disabled women are victims of sexual assault. More than one-quarter of Native American women have reported rape in their lifetime, according to the 2010 National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey. Transgender women are 1.6 times more likely to experience sexual violence, according to a 2014 report by the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs.

Several studies suggest minority groups—specifically Native American women, disabled and trans women—are most likely to be victims.

In 2014, 23 sexual assaults were reported on the UC Davis campus, a nudge fewer than the 24 reported in 2013. According to the widely cited 2007 Campus Sexual Assault Study conducted for the Department of Justice, one in five women experience sexual assault before graduation—likely, many rapes go unreported at UC Davis. Fell pointed to a new website as a systemwide attempt to make finding information and filing a report an easier, clearer process.

Still, there’s plenty missing from Napolitano’s list of ways to combat sexual assault, including how universities investigate sexual assaults and determine discipline—the most extreme being expulsion—for those found guilty. Instead, students who are accused of sexual assault now receive extra support: A coordinator has been hired on every campus specifically for the task.

“The recommendations are a very bare minimum,” Alavi said. “It’s unfortunately the students’ job and the tudents’ burden to push for something that’s actually a lot more accountable.”