INDIANA
The Mennonite
Erin Bergen, a former student at Goshen (Indiana) College, has filed a complaint through Goshen’s federally mandated Title IX process. Last fall, she filed a report with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR), claiming discrimination on the basis of sex. In December 2016, the OCR contacted Bergen to inform her that they would investigate her complaint against Goshen College.
In an April 12 post on the website Into Account, Bergen, who was sexually assaulted while a student, describes her experience in filing the complaint after seeing patterns during her two years as a Goshen student. Bergen writes that “a survivor’s story and experience are minimized” and that “when a survivor does come forward they are met with skepticism.”
According to the Clery Act, colleges must report statistics of crime on their campuses. Nationally, 23.1 percent of all female undergraduate students experience rape or sexual assault through physical force, violence, or incapacitation according to RAINN, a national anti-sexual violence organization. Goshen, however, reported zeros on its Clery Act statistics from 2013-2015.
Bergen writes: “This does not reflect the actual number of sexual assaults that have occurred on campus. Students have brought forward concerns to the administration for years with little to no change taken by the powers that be.
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