I t is no secret that the way we currently handle sexual misconduct cases within both the criminal justice system and the university system is flawed.
While UNC is making strides to combat this injustice, campus leaders need to realize the necessity of handling all cases under the updated policy in order to treat victims equitably and to apply the newer, better policy to potentially dangerous perpetrators.
According to public documents released to The Daily Tar Heel, only five sexual misconduct cases were sanctioned for violating the former University policy out of 19 initial complaints made between August 2012 and August 2014. There are six remaining cases pending a formal hearing or the informal process by the Office of the Dean of Students that will be heard under the 2012 policy.
We tend to treat cases of sexual misconduct as naturally occurring phenomena instead of crimes for which someone must be held accountable. In the frequent absence of physical evidence, accusers’ testimonies must stand alone. For this reason and others, sexual misconduct policies are difficult to prosecute.
Paired with evidence showing that most sexual assaults are committed by serial offenders, this situation contributes to highly dangerous environments if the responsible institutions are not equipped to remove these perpetrators from campus. The outgoing policy was completely hamstrung in this regard.
Without an effective policy that rightfully punishes perpetrators regardless of meaningless bureaucratic holdups, our University leaves its students vulnerable to brutal crime.
