Ohio State accused of concealing rape details by legal blog
Published: Tuesday, December 4, 2012
Updated: Tuesday, December 4, 2012 23:12
 "Photo: Andrew Holleran / Photo editor")
Andrew Holleran / Photo editor
Park-Stradley Hall located at 120 W. 11th Ave.
However, Cuillier said the explanations didn’t add up.
“I don’t understand how that would pertain to someone sexually assaulting someone,” Cuillier said.
Denton added that University Police stands by their statements that the crimes are not an ongoing threat and there is no need for a public safety notice.
“After evaluating all the facts and circumstances of the recently reported cases, we do not believe that these incidents pose a continuing threat to students or the university community as a whole,” Denton said.
He also said that the Office of Student Conduct would need to be contacted for specific questions about any disciplinary action that has been taken against the suspects.
11 comments
Meow?
This "blog" is a tumbler account. Watch out for the LOL cats and OSU memes when you read the "blog" post. The downfall of news is when your using a tumbler account for news. Lantern: update the article and post the link to the tumbler account.
Anonymous
@Anonymous 15:04While your distinction between rape and sexual assault is important, that is in fact how rape is defined under Ohio state law and in the incidents reported, that will be the charge brought against the offender. An inability to give consent implies rape, and you seem to be denying that students have in fact been both sexually assaulted and rape. There is no distinction between "traditional" or "forcible" rape and acquaintance rape. Rape is rape, and your words are detracting from that very real fact. I do agree that the term "survivor" should be used rather than "victim", though.Furthermore, nobody has suggested anything about releasing personal information of the survivor, or the offender for that matter. There is simply concern about student safety. As it stands now, the university does not inform students about sex crimes if the cases are closed or being investigated. This fosters gossip and hearsay and causes much more of a panic than a warning saying the situation has been dealt with.
Anonymous
First of all. Blog post? Really? Let's talk about how that's super factual. Second of all? If the survivor and the attacker have been identified and there is no more threat from that specific instance, then there's no reason to incite a mass panic in a building of students. Lastly and probably of most importance. Get your terminology right. Rape and Sexual Assault are two entirely different things. Sexual assault can refer to the fact that under Ohio law, under the influence of alcohol (or any other substance) you are not legally able to consent to sex. That does not mean that a person was raped. Do not give someone a title that they didn't give themself. It can be incredibly damaging emotionally to have someone call you a rape victim when you are actually a SURVIVOR of sexual assault. It is deplorable that throughout this article we couldn't even manage to respect the people involved enough to think about them. Maybe they don't want everyone knowing that they've been sexually assaulted. That is why FERPA is in place. To protect everyone involved in the situation and to leave no paper trail tying them back to a haunting past.
Anonymous
I would think what the Police Department meant by a continued threat is that...there is not a single person creating a pattern of crime going out an raping students...i.e...serial rapist. These occurrences possibly two 'friends' or classmates, or they lived on the same floor. Sounds like the PD knows who committed the crimes and were handling it properly. It would be a whole other story if it was a pattern of one person committing these acts and they did not know who it was. As for FERPA... well everyone can complain about that until the cows come home. Seems like this comes up for every college with something private. It does not sound like the university is covering anything up. They simply won't release names of the victim and the assaulter because of privacy issues while a criminal investigation or student conduct investigation is continued.
Anonymous
Denton has suggested students look at OSU Police's Daily Logs if they are concerned. If the information is openly available there, then why won't the university meet student demands that a timely warning is sent out? It's not that difficult. However, a timely warning will never be enough. Warning students after an incident occurs probably won't amount to anything, since most students are in the dark anyway. Rather, the university needs to take this opportunity to make a name for itself and begin programs that promote a safe environment not just by teaching potential victims to defend themselves (which is of course valuable), but by opening discourses of diversity and human dignity. Create an actual GEC requirement that makes it a necessity for students to take a course on sexual assault. Institute a zero tolerance policy. There are so many ways to make OSU safer, but instead all we get is silence and denial.
Anonymous
To Courtney: While victim-blaming is all too common in rape/sexual assault cases, I think your comment is kind of ridiculous. Particularly with respect to dorms students take 0 precautions to ensure their safety. Several years ago, I witnessed this first hand, as an RA, when one of my residents was sexually assaulted. Her response to the event was "I NEVER could have imagined another OSU student doing this to me." Sending out crime alerts will at the very least inform students that these things happen at Ohio State. As it currently stands, most students don't even consider rape/sexual assault to be within the realm of possibility on campus BECAUSE the university is hiding its prevalence. Ideally, this stuff would never happen and there would be no need for students to fear each other. In reality, it does happen and students ought to be aware that not everyone can be trusted simply "because we're all Buckeyes."
Anonymous
Goldstein should read the FERPA policy more carefully: it protects students' privacy regarding personal academic information that is related to the school against outside parties (including parents and guardians). The victims have a right to have their privacy protected and not have everyone interfering with what they think involves FERPA and HIPAA.
OSU Student
"Denton added that University Police stands by their statements that the crimes are not an ongoing threat and there is no need for a public safety notice."The fact is that these rapes and a pattern of sexual assaults do represent a danger to the community. The fact that sex crimes are tolerated and not seen as a threat is a sad part of the rape culture that persists at many universities. There should be outrage an anger when a sex crime occurs just like if a murder occurs, I am not saying that we should disclose the alleged perpetrators identity, and especially not the identity of the accused, no one wants that. However, how about just a warning "Sex crimes were committed in North Campus dorms, the university police have identified the suspects and they are being taken in for questioning" would be a lot better than hearing about rapes and sexual assault from hearsay and rumors before the university decides to inform the students that something went down.
Anonymous
"University Police Deputy Chief Richard Morman and Denton each told The Lantern in different interviews that campus police was not sending out timely crime warnings because the sex crimes did not present a continued threat to the campus community." That is an extremely intelligent statement. Rape is always a threat whether it is one or 100.
Courtney Cornwell
'Will telling them about the rapes convince them to take extra steps that will stop them from being raped by someone else?' And the answer to that is clearly yes," Goldstein said.Thank you so much for partaking in victim-blaming, Adam Goldstein. It's great that you think survivors of rape and sexual assault should take extra steps to ensure that they won't be assaulted rather than placing the blame on the rapist or offender. It is never the survivor's fault and I sincerely hope that you change your mindset and watch your language or else you will never be seen as being worth anything more than the offenders themselves.
Doctor Sahn
Who reads blogs anymore? I'm gonna FERPA all over my HIPAA
is a member of the 
