When sexual assaults occur, MSU officials have a responsibility to keep personal details on victims private. Yet at the same time, they face the paradoxical responsibility to warn other students of current threats they might face. It is this teetering between duties in which officials can sometimes make the wrong call.
While the full details of the series of three unrelated sexual assaults - which occurred on Sept. 2, 3 and 10 in the Brody Complex - are not known and are under investigation, the university dropped the ball on warning students of the dangers they might face.
The first two assaults, one which occurred in Emmons Hall, the other reported from Emmons Hall (for which the actual location was not specified), were allegedly carried out by acquaintances of the women. Initially, it was stated that this previous contact with the alleged attackers was the reason no public announcement had been made. It took an article in The State News and another sexual assault - carried out seven days later - by a stranger in Butterfield Hall, before an e-mail was sent warning students to be on guard. Nobody needs to know the specifics, in all ways the privacy of the sexual assault victims should remain in tact, but students in the surrounding area should have received notice, if only so they can better protect themselves from similar crimes. An e-mail statement, devoid of names, would not single out the persons involved in the investigation.
Though it was hopefully not its intention, the university officials' delayed action suggests that rapes committed by strangers are taken more seriously than more common attacks by acquaintances. Students shouldn't be put in a position to even imagine fault lines in the university's security priorities. The timing of when details were released to the students, especially those living closest to where the alleged crimes took place, was off.
While the university already has an extensive public service campaign embedded into Academic Orientation Program and Olin Health Center's free sex-education seminars, some people might not pay attention until tragedy strikes closer to them. And it's not like this phenomenon is new to the human experience - the university can't help but notice it.
Even when something as horrible and personally devastating as rape happens, others can be warned to keep out of danger. This is the exact reason people strong enough to admit that they are victims of sex crimes often feel compelled to educate others to prevent similar crimes from happening again.
When anyone working for the university makes a decision not to disclose information to students there should be a largely appropriate reason. Any time spent waiting to inform students about violent crimes occurring around them is time lost to students who might have been better able to protect themselves from similar crimes in the future.
Sexual assault is not an easy subject to engage, and is unsettling to encounter, but all information about it should not be suppressed. Even if the case is effectively resolved, students need prompting from complacency to realize, for however safe they may feel, the world they live in could still hold danger for them.
