THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
THURSDAY, JANUARY 30, 2014
PAGE 9
REGIONAL
Swimmer's death casts light on campus sex assaults
ASSOCIATED PRESS
COLUMBIA, Mo. — Colleges and universities are struggling with sex assaults on campus, even as they spend more time and money to comply with stricter enforcement of gender discrimination laws.
But the case of a University of Missouri swimmer, who said she was raped in an episode her parents say led her to suicide presents a challenge: How do schools balance protecting their student populations with the needs of victims like Sasha Menu Courey, who chose not to go to police?
A police investigation is now underway, but Menu Courey's parents say the university and its athletics department should have already investigated their daughter's alleged off-campus rape by as many as three football players in February 2010.
University leaders said they didn't learn about the purported attack until after Menu Courey committed suicide 16 months later. They said they followed the law and didn't have specific knowledge of the incident or a victim to interview.
President Barack Obama last week announced a new task force on college sex assault, citing statistics showing that 1 in 5 females are assaulted
while in college but only 1 in 8 report attacks. The White House called it a public health epidemic.
At least 50 schools have bolstered their efforts in recent years. Complaints of Title IX violations related to sexual violence are also increasing, a sign that Catherine Lhamon, assistant secretary for civil rights in the U.S. Department of Education, attributes to new vigilance on campus.
Lhamon's department recently announced an investigation of Penn State University's handling of sexual harassment and assault complaints. The University of Colorado and California State University-Fresno have been ordered to pay millions for Title IX violations asserted in victim lawsuits.
"Obviously, there are all too many that still need prompting," she said.
At the University of Missouri, extensive efforts have been made to reduce sexual violence on campus. An equity office led by a lawyer oversees compliance with Title IX, the federal anti-discrimination law more commonly known for ensuring equal gender participation in college sports. Counseling and help is available through two campus agencies.
Students who eschew legal
intervention can seek a campus disciplinary hearing. The university can also help students switch dorms or classes, or bar contact outright.
"There are many resources out there, but there's not really any (sense) that she was provided with those resources," said Zachary Wilson, development director of the Missouri Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence. "It's difficult for sexual assault survivors to go at it alone."
The school said in a statement Tuesday that a 2012 Columbia Daily Tribune article about Menu Courey's suicide briefly alluded to the alleged assault, but didn't meet the legal standard that the school "reasonably should know about student-on-student harassment that creates a hostile environment."
The university didn't immediately investigate after Menu Courey, who was from Canada, killed herself in June 2011. She had by then withdrawn from classes at the university's urging and lost her financial aid.
The 20-year-old, who had attempted suicide two months earlier, was in a Boston psychiatric hospital after being diagnosed with borderline personality disorder.
request for more information a year ago after it discovered an online chat transcript with a campus rape counselor in which Menu Courey mentioned an earlier attack.
The school also said Menu Courey's parents ignored its
Missouri initially responded to an ESPN story about the swimmer by defending its handling of the case, then said it was turning over information to Columbia police.
University President Tim Wolfe wants the school's governing board to pay for an independent legal review of how officials handled the case. The Board of Curators was considering the request Wednesday.
"One of our students is dead," Wolfe said. "Our goal is to help the Sashas of the world."
Wolfe said the university was committed to bolstering its mental health services. He also noted his own daughter was a first-year college athlete.
Other sexual assault cases have been linked to Missouri's athletic department, including former running back Derrick Washington's 2010 conviction for sexually assaulting a tutor in her sleep. Basketball player Michael Dixon transferred in 2012 after two sex assault claims against him went public, though he was never charged.
In suburban Toronto, Mike Menu and his wife, Lynn Courey, have channeled their
In this photo provided by Mike Menu is his daughter, Sasha Menu Courey. Menu Courey was allegedly raped by three University of Missouri football players in 2010. Menu Courey committed suicide 16 months later.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
grief into a mental health foundation named for their daughter. They aren't looking for money from the university, just accountability.
sure that changes are made," he said. "We need more than Band-Aids. We need a transformation."
"We just want to make
NFL
NY-NJ security tightens for upcoming Super Bowl
ASSOCIATED PRESS
NEW YORK - Despite no specific terror threats against the Super Bowl, federal and local authorities have heightened security and studied intelligence about recent attacks on mass transit in Russia, law enforcement officials said Wednesday.
"Certainly, we're keeping an eye on activities around the world, but as of this time, there are no threats directed against this event that we're aware of," New York City Police Commissioner William Bratton said at a security briefing in Manhattan.
Because this year's Super Bowl has the distinction of relying on mass transit to take up to 30,000 fans to the game, the deadly bombings in the southern Russian city of Volograd have raised worries here, said Col. Rick Fuentes, head of the New Jersey State Police. The suicide attacks on a trolleybus and a train station that killed more than 30 people within weeks of
the Winter Olympics also prompted a series of meetings among the planners for Super Bowl security, he said.
The department has deployed hundreds of extra uniformed and plainclothes police officers to the area. It's also relying on
Local officials are counting on the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security "to keep an eye on and brief us on those events," Fuentes said. "There is a concern with mass transit and we've prepared ourselves for it."
In Manhattan, the NYPD is drawing on its experience securing the annual New Year's Eve celebration in Times Square, the New York City Marathon, the U.N. General Assembly and other high-profile events to secure "Super Bowl Boulevard," a 13-block street fair on Broadway.
Trains, buses and cars taking fans from New York and parts of New Jersey to the stadium and back again "are going to be scanned, they're going to be checked, they're going to be swept," he said.
bomb-sniffing dogs, portable radiation detectors and a vast network of surveillance cameras to detect trouble.
The state police plan to assign up to 700 troopers at the stadium on Sunday, Fuentes said. A security center has been set up in a hollowed-out building across a highway from the stadium that's slated to become a mammoth retail and entertainment complex.
In the weeks leading up to the Super Bowl, the NYPD rehearsed its response to a variety of potential threats, including "the backpack left unsecured scenario," Bratton said. "We are very, very well-prepared."
A 24-hour FBI command center will monitor the latest counterterrorism intelligence, said Aaron Ford, head of the FBI's Newark office. of security.
"This year we're going to try to go blackout - free," Miller said.
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