Daily Campus Discovers SMU Officials Were Mum About '06 Rape Increases

A Friend of Unfair Park who works at SMU sends along a piece published today in the Daily Campus that bears a most troubling headline: "Rapes rose 333 percent in 2006," meaning, of course, on the university's University Park campus. Even more troubling is the fact that university officials "never...

By Robert Wilonsky

April 24, 2008

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A Friend of Unfair Park who works at SMU sends along a piece published today in the Daily Campus that bears a most troubling headline: "Rapes rose 333 percent in 2006," meaning, of course, on the university's University Park campus. Even more troubling is the fact that university officials "never told the student body, parents or faculty members that women were reporting an average of one sexual assault a month on campus in 2006," according to writers Erin Eidenshink and Tiffany Glick.

It was not until October 2007 -- in a report required by the federal government -- that SMU finally acknowledged that 13 women reported being raped on campus the previous year. Since then the university has said nothing publicly about the 13 forcible sexual assaults.

When asked to explain the increase, SMU's police chief, Richard Shafer, said, "I don't know." --Robert Wilonsky

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