Today in rape culture: Vanderbilt and Amherst edition (cross posted HOF)

[intaglio]

via Opposing Views

Emphasis in final paragraph of excerpt mine

Both Vanderbilt University, in Nashville, and Amherst College, in Massachusetts, were slapped with federal complaints Friday for the alleged mishandling of rape and harassment cases.

Six former and current Vanderbilt students filed complaints with the U.S. Department of Education on Thursday alleging that the school failed to appropriately respond to their complaints and created a hostile environment that keeps victims from reported sexual assault on campus.

/snip

Two former Amherst students who were the victims of rape filed a complaint accusing the school of inappropriately handling their cases, including sending one to a psychiatric ward.

FFS sending a rape victim to a psychiatric ward!

[Bonobo]

1. You should fix the spelling of Amherst in your title.

But that's absolutely horrible. Horrible.

[intaglio]

2. An error corrected n/t

[Bonobo]

3. I found the Amerst student's account of the incident

Trigger warning because it is a very emotional account?

http://amherststudent.amherst.edu/?q=article/2012/10/17/account-sexual-assault-amherst-college

It seems that a year after the rape incident, she suffered a breakdown in class and made some statements that suggested suicidal thoughts. She was taken to Cooley Dickinson hospital (about a 5 min walk from where I lived for 10 years and a pretty decent hospital in Northampton). It was Cooley Dick that decided to move her to a psych ward and not Amherst.

And as it turned out, the psych ward was the best thing for her, but Amherst treated her very shabbily when she returned. She credited the psych ward with making her stronger and healing her, but Amherst fucked her over badly.

[ismnotwasm]

4. What a horrid story

I hope we see some justice out of the publicity

[Posteritatis]

5. The extra bit of vileness about the psych ward part...

...is that a lot of schools these days are so fanatically risk-averse that they have a policy of expelling, or refusing admission to, any students who they find out have ever been hospitalized for mental health reasons because zomgliability (or just PR). I don't know about Amherst College in particular, but given what they did there...