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THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 2014 THE INDEPENDENT WEEKLY STUDENT NEWSPAPER AT BOSTON UNIVERSITY YEAR XLIV. VOLUME LXXXVII. ISSUE III.
As universities enter third week of “red zone,” BU, Boston crisis centers address sexual assault concerns BY STEPHANIE PAGONES DAILY FREE PRESS STAFF
After a night of celebrating with friends, Sarah Brattain, a senior in the College of Arts & Sciences, knew she had too much to drink and asked a friend to walk her home. She went straight to bed and assumed she was safe, but she woke up to find an unwelcome guest in her room. “I woke up to one of my friends in my bed. I had not seen him that night at all. His hands were in my pants, and he was touching me,” she said. “I was panicking because the last thing I remembered was walking home, making the conscience decision to come home because I knew that I had had too much to drink.” The man in her bed was no stranger to Brattain. The pair had been friends for almost four years. He always got too close, she said, but he seemed harmless. While she always had her guard up, she never expected things to escalate the way they did. “I went to the hospital the next day to get the rape kit done because I didn’t know what had happened,” she said. “He basically shrugged it off and said ‘I don’t know, I was drunk, too.’ He told me that he couldn’t sleep, and I looked really peaceful sleeping and so he just crawled in my bed when I was sleeping.” Brattain’s story is not uncommon. Since she opened up about the incident, she has been contacted by almost 60 people, between the ages of 14 and 62 , who have experienced attempted or completed sexual assault. At the beginning of each academic year, there is an increased risk of sexual assault on college campuses, leading to the first six weeks of school termed the “red zone.” “It [the red zone] is often identified as the first six weeks of the semester. There are several time frames — four weeks, six weeks, two months — that have been looked at to
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attempt to identify when predators are more active and first-year students are more at risk of being sexually assaulted,” said Maureen Mahoney, director of Boston University’s Sexual Assault Response & Prevention Center, in an email. “These [time frames] are positive in terms of bringing awareness to campuses. But predatory behavior doesn’t have an expiration date.” Tuesday marked the third week of “BU’s red zone.” All students should be cognizant of this high-risk period as they get settled into college life, Mahoney said. “We think it is important to recognize that most students are assaulted by someone
they know — a partner, a classmate, a friend or acquaintance, a co-worker, someone they’ve met at a party or social function,” she said. SARP, a service established by BU to provide advocacy and assistance to students who have experienced trauma, opened in 2012 after there were several allegations of sexual assault from members of the BU men’s hockey team, which led to the arrest of two of their players. In May, BU was placed on the U.S. Department of Education’s list of 55 colleges and schools under Title IX investigation for the alleged mishandling of a complaint that
was filed October 2013. “Since that time, the DOE has said there are Title IX complaints at additional schools, but also made clear that a complaint [or] investigation is not evidence of a violation,” said BU spokesman Colin Riley in an email. About 1 in 5 women, or 1 in 71 men, reported being sexually assaulted in the United States in 2012, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Nineteen percent of female college students have experienced sexual assaults or attempts, and
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Taxicab, rideshare companies debate safe hiring practices BY ADRIAN BAKER DAILY FREE PRESS STAFF
Uber, a ridesharing service widely used by Boston-area college students, debuted a bring-your-own-device program in August to streamline drivers’ ability to find customers, a move that has prompted taxicab unions and other organizations to raise safety concerns. Uber previously issued devices to its drivers that enabled them to find fares. But as of Aug. 27, drivers with an iPhone 4S or newer model can download an app so they can pick up riders with their personal phones. In early September, the app, which Uber intended to be available only to approved drivers, was leaked on the Internet for download by anyone with the proper device.
Boston Taxi Driver’s Association is one of several critics of Uber’s new program. Easier access to the app could enable unscreened drivers to offer rides, said Donna Blythe-Shaw, BTDA’s spokeswoman. “It makes it less safe for the public because anybody who has their own device can sign up with Uber and then lend that device out to somebody else,” she said. “You don’t even know who’s going to be in your car now.” Blythe-Shaw said registered Uber drivers might lend their phones to unregistered drivers in a mutually beneficial agreement. “Just think about this. You’ve got a smartphone, somebody else can’t afford one or has a reason that they can’t get hired by Uber,” she said. “So you say, ‘OK, I’m going to lease you my phone for the day for 100 bucks. Good deal to you, right?’ And then the guy goes out and makes 200 bucks.
What’s to stop somebody from doing that?” Anti-fraud features built into Uber’s software are the solution to that problem, said Taylor Bennett, Uber spokesman. “These comments are ridiculous and
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Though a Boston area taxi association has raised concerns over Uber’s background check practices, Uber claims it vets its drivers more thoroughly than Boston cab companies do.