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Thursday, September 20, 2018

UMBC students protest over sexual assault, university response

Students flood Maryland-Baltimore County administration building to demand new policies around campus sexual assault.

Students at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, stormed the administration building and confronted the president this week, irate over the institution’s handling of sexual assaults. They accused officials of defending rapists and demanded that a contingent of students be removed or suspended.

The display stems from a federal lawsuit filed last week by two former UMBC students who said they were raped but that their reports were bungled or ignored. In one case, a student alleged that UMBC police discouraged her from filing a formal complaint and that the institution rushed the investigation. The other student said she was gang-raped by three UMBC baseball players who, she said, escaped punishment. A lawyer for the two women (whom Inside Higher Ed is not naming as victims of sexual assault) did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In addition to suing UMBC administrators and the University System of Maryland, the plaintiffs have named as defendants several Baltimore County officials, including the Baltimore County state’s attorney. They also named the county police department, which was the subject of an explosive 2016 BuzzFeed investigationthat found it did not thoroughly investigate rape cases and had labeled 34 percent of them “unfounded.” The national average is only 7 percent. BuzzFeed’s report prompted a review of department practices and cases.

Students began their protest on the UMBC grounds Monday evening and moved to the administration building -- over the weekend, the campus had been papered with posters proclaiming, “UMBC protects rapists.”

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4 comments:

  1. What can you say. Except “it’s BALTIMORE.”

    ReplyDelete
  2. The timing of the protest and fake out rage is always after democrats accuse someone of something. To funny. It didn't happen they are lying and should be charged for false report.

    ReplyDelete
  3. How about woman put clothes on there,

    instead of wearing clothing that prostitutes wear?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Unfortunately this is a real and scary subject (sexual assault) all across the nations campuses AND here in MD. Many know of or expressed displeasure with local Salisbury and MD State Police for incidents at Salisbury U and UMES. We all have also read about past problems at the Big UMD campus in College Park as well as other campuses across the state (Townson, Bowie St. Frostburg, etc).

    This problem is growing and the Gov needs to talk about it more!

    ReplyDelete

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