Daily Campus

I congratulate the writers on this piece. It is exceptionally hard journalism, and on such a difficult subject. Thank you for brining this to light.

Thank you so much for openly and honestly bringing this issue into the campus consciousness. University actions like the ones discussed in your article are but a microcosm of the vast "rape culture" that we are living in. This is an environment that blames victims (usually women) and defends or protects rapists (usually men) due to a misinformed and insensitive view of sexual assault. Just because you know the person who raped you doesn't make it any less terrible or damaging. By treating "acquaintance rape" differently, SMU is asserting that it is less of a crime or some anomaly. Even by using that term, they are feeding the myth that there are levels of rape and that some are less severe than others. A boy does not rape a girl because he or she is drunk; a boy does this because he is a rapist. A boy does this because there is something inside him saying that it's ok to impose yourself upon someone else's body against their will. We need to educate these boys before they begin to normalize sexual assault.

It is absolutely appalling that Patti LaSalle's office has more say in what information the SMU community gets about crime than the police department.

It is cowardly that Shafer and Turner both will hide under so-called exemptions to public records laws to keep information out of the public. The laws don't prevent them from releasing the information; they only exempt them from mandatory disclosure.

Given all its recent troubles, SMU needs to take a long hard look at its policies for releasing information to the public, because the status quo just isn't working.

AND this only talks of women. Men have been raped, also. No one talks about them, not even them, but it happens, frequently.