Rape cases roil University of Memphis campus with protests, town hall meeting planned

[TexasTowelie]

University of Memphis students held a protest on campus for a second day on Thursday over reports of an alleged off-campus rape of a female student. Next week, school leaders plan to give all students a chance to address sexual assault during an "open conversation" event.

In an email Thursday, the school announced that U of M president David Rudd and other school leaders are hosting a two-hour event from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. Oct. 18 that will address rape on college campuses and sexual harassment.

The focus of the event will be "ridding our campus of this abhorrent behavior, prevention, and how we can improve our response during active investigations," according to an email about the event.

The university is holding the town hall meeting after a student said that she was raped twice in 20 days earlier this year in separate off-campus incidents.

Read more: http://www.commercialappeal.com/story/news/crime/2017/10/12/alleged-rape-cases-roil-university-memphis-campus/756565001/

[Rhiannon12866]

1. My senior year in college, there was a rape on campus on Halloween night

That was a very strange year, female students were suddenly afraid to go anywhere alone at night. I remember seeing lone girls running from place to place - and when I had an evening lab two friends would walk me there so neither of them had to walk back alone. Guys signed up to walk female students home from the library at night - so of course there was a rumor that the perp might be among them. I remember hearing that they finally caught the guy when I was at an end-of-year gathering at my professor's house. It was a small school - and I don't think these incidents were that prevalent then, or at least we didn't hear about them.

[TexasTowelie]

2. Typically the guys on my campus would walk home their girlfriends/study partners since the ladies

dorms were on the opposite side of the campus as the mens dorms and frat houses. In addition, the lighting on campus was inadequate when I was a student so there were several areas where an assault could occur. The campus is brightly lit now, but I think that most of the women have someone accompany them at night.

I only heard about one story about a girl getting raped on the pool table at one of the frat houses, but I don't know whether the story was actually true.

[Rhiannon12866]

3. I think they worked on the lighting after that incident.

It's a very rural area, on top of a hill, and my campus was built in an apple orchard, it's all woods so there are a lot of trees. I don't remember it being very well lit, I often carried a flashlight. But no one gave it much thought before, it was a very safe area. Along with the terrible weather, that's another way things have changed for the worse.