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" Earlier this year we teamed up with SAFER (Students Active for Ending Rape) and launched Cosmo Fights Campus Rape, a campaign to stop the terrifying epidemic of sexual violence at universities and to help empower women to hold their college accountable for having strong sexual-assault policies. Because, as we reported, a survey conducted by the Chicago Tribune found that of the sex crimes reported on college campuses in the past six years, only seven percent resulted in arrests and less than three percent resulted in convictions. And the Penn State scandal, even though it doesn&amp;#039;t involve violence against female college students, is yet another reminder of how important Cosmo&amp;#039;s cause is\u2014and how necessary it is for everyone to get involved with the fight. As the New York Times put it, &amp;quot;the case is also emblematic of a parallel judicial universe that exists at many of the country&amp;#039;s colleges and universities&amp;quot;. As you&amp;#039;ve surely heard, Jerry Sandusky, the former assistant football coach at Penn State, was allegedly seen sexually assaulting a young boy in the locker room. According to reports, head coach Joe Paterno found out about these allegations from a grad student and reported them to the athletic director at Penn State. Both the athletic director and another top university were charged with failure to report to authorities what they knew, which is required by law. And a grand jury report explains that the university did not investigate and &amp;quot;never attempted to learn the identity of the child in the shower...No one from the university did,&amp;quot; according to an article on ABC News. &amp;quot;I think we&amp;#039;re just on the cusp of breaking the silence,&amp;quot; Colby Bruno, a lawyer who specializes in cases about campus sexual assault told the Times. &amp;quot;But there are a lot of very invidious ways that a school can go about squelching these reports. This is everyone&amp;#039;s problem; it&amp;#039;s not just a sports problem or a sports-icon problem.&amp;quot; And Penn State isn&amp;#039;t the only example of a school that might have covered up evidence. Earlier this year Yale University was found guilty of omitting certain &amp;quot;forcible sex offenses in its report of annual crime statistics when the crimes occurred&amp;quot;. One reason a school would under-report occurrences of sexual violence is that it makes their campuses seem unsafe to prospective students and their parents. So they fudge the numbers or try to handle the crimes internally rather than share the stats and risk making the school look unsafe and in turn, experiencing a decreased number of applicants. So what can you do to stop this terrifying phenomenon? Through the organization SAFER, you can see how your school&amp;#039;s safety policy stacks up and if it&amp;#039;s missing key elements, leaving you and your classmates vulnerable. Go here to find out how to to submit it and get it analyzed. If you do find that your college&amp;#039;s policy is lacking, SAFER will guide you through the steps to improving it and offering more support and protection. You can also donate to SAFER here and help fund programs and facilities that help end campus violence. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.cosmopolitan.com/lifestyle/news/a9862/penn-state-sexual-assult-on-college-campuses-111511/>