[3/23/17] Students at the University of Missouri–Kansas City could soon decide to boot staff and administrators responsible for “victim-blaming and invalidation of rape” if officials accede to the latest demands of campus activists.
One object of students’ ire: an email from Vice Chancellor Mel Tyler in which he “routinely” referred to an alleged rape as “alleged.”
They are also upset that the reported rape went unacknowledged by administrators for two days after local media began reporting on it.
Jackson County prosecutors have charged a Colorado man with rape, saying surveillance video shows him carrying an unconscious female student into a locked dorm and past a security desk last month.
University protocol calls for the desk attendant to call law enforcement when a student is incapacitated, according to the Associated Press, though it’s not clear whether the on-duty desk attendant was there at the time.
The administration has said it didn’t send a security alert to students because the suspect, an undocumented immigrant, had already been apprehended off-campus when the rape was reported, according to The Kansas City Star.
Spokesman John Martellaro later apologized to students for initially saying that “the victim went out willingly with the suspect” and “after socializing … she was taken advantage of, or raped, whatever you might call it.”
