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When a Student Came Forward: Inside a College Rape Inquiry

By WALT BOGDANICH

A freshman said she was sexually assaulted by football players at Hobart and William Smith Colleges. The school’s investigation, which swiftly cleared the men, left her wishing she had remained silent.

The woman at Hobart and William Smith is no exception. With no advocate to speak up for her at the disciplinary hearing, panelists interrupted her answers, at times misrepresented evidence and asked about a campus-police report she had not seen. The hearing proceeded before her rape-kit results were known, and the medical records indicating trauma were not shown to two of the three panel members.

One panelist did not appear to know what a rape exam entails or why it might be unpleasant. Another asked whether the football player’s penis had been “inside of you” or had he been “having sex with you.”
 

(A note from the Editor of The Freepress.blogspot.com: as a Hobart graduated Class of1970, I am ashamed of the way the Hobart & William Smith colleges handled this case. My heart is with Anna).

Rafael Martínez Alequín (Hobart 1970)