Eric Langborgh

    A report of an attempted rape at the University of Massachusetts that sparked on-campus hysteria has been revealed as a fraud. The development has led the campus community to question whether a number of other high-publicized assaults were fabricated as well. Despite creating widespread fear and causing needless expenditures, some campus feminists are suggesting that the false report of attempted rape was a positive development since it raised awareness. 
    Bomb threats or pulled fire alarms made in jest or made to make a political statement are usually punished harshly with severe fines and/or jail terms.  However, if you add to an already frenzied situation and cause similar panic among the student population by faking an assault on yourself, your dignity will be protected at all costs and the state will fail to enforce its own laws against false reporting.
    Such apparently is the case at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst (UMass), where campus and other law enforcement authorities have declined to prosecute the woman who cried “wolf.”
    Following three previous alleged assaults on women during the month of November, two of which reportedly were rapes, 500 students had gathered in protest and in a show of solidarity against what many on czmpus called a culture of violence against women. Nerves that were already at a fevered pitch came unraveled around 1:15 p.m. on November 16, when a 30-year old woman with blood streaming down her face ran up to police stationed at the rally. She claimed that a knife-wielding man in the adjacent parking lot had just assaulted her when she exited her car.
    However, on December 3, the woman’s lawyer handed a signed statement to the police admitting she had made up the attack and that her wounds were self-inflicted. Officials have declined to release the name of the woman or her lawyer, and they refuse to disclose her motive, saying only that she is a “non-traditional” 30-year old student and a citizen of Massachusetts.
    Indeed, even before the woman’s statement was released by police to the press corps, there was much rumbling around campus about the credibility of not only the latest alleged assault, but the previous three, as well.
    On November 2, a string of reported assaults on women at UMass began when one student claimed she was grabbed from behind and raped by a man wearing a ski mask near a pond located in the center of campus. The assault reportedly occurred around 6:30 p.m.
    The following Tuesday, November 9, a woman claimed that she was pulled into the rhododendron bushes near the Student Union building, adjacent to the pond, and raped at 2:30 p.m. On the following Sunday, November 14, a third woman reported being attacked with pepper spray and beaten by three men near the same pond at around 9:30 p.m.
    In each case, the names of all alleged victims and their medical reports have been withheld from the public and, according to UMass police, no suspects have been found, no charges have been filed, and no witnesses have stepped forward. Nevertheless, “they are open investigations and we continue to work on each of the investigations separately,” UMass Police Chief John Luippold, Jr. said.
    As certain alumni have explained to Campus Report and as photographs of the area confirm, the area of the alleged attacks provides very little cover for the type of assaults alleged to have occurred without many eyewitnesses being present. The area is surrounded by the Student Union Building, which is the center of campus activity, the 26-story W.E.B. DuBois Library, and the Fine Arts Center, with well-traveled walkways connecting each. With one attack happening in broad daylight and another at a time of much student activity in the area, some observers have questioned the stories’ veracity since the only witnesses appear to be the alleged victims themselves. “That is one of the rumors that has been circulating,” acknowledged the Interim     Director of the News Department at UMass, Barbara Pitoniak.
    Still, widespread concern and sometimes-outright fear swept the campus in the wake of the reports, prompting the University to invest heavily in safety precautions. Among other expenditures, the administration spent nearly $100,000 for 15,000 “shriek alarms” distributed free to students and staff, and for a heavy police presence to patrol the campus.
    In addition, grounds maintenance staff cut back bushes near the Student Union building and installed extra lighting and a “Help” phone in the area. The shuttle service expanded its hours of operation, parking regulations were dramatically relaxed, the Student Council spent over $2,000 to hire martial arts instructors for three days to teach students self-defense, and speakers were brought to campus to discuss ways to combat violence against women.
    Marta Calas, Acting Chair of the Women’s Studies Department, applauded the University for its actions following the alleged attacks. “The campus has made a long-term commitment on violence against women issues,” she approvingly noted.
    Carol Wallace, Director of the Everywoman’s Center on campus, though, took issue with the rumors that the first three attacks may have been fabricated. “[The false report] in no way diminishes the concern about issues of sexual assault in general, nor does it raise questions about the validity of the other reports.” Yet that is the very preception the false report has engendered. Unfortunately, what may have been legitimate incidents are being painted with the same brush as the concocted story.
    “False reports of crime, including sexual assault,” she contended, “are rare.”
    All feminist leaders on campus that Campus Report spoke with supported the decision to not press charges against the woman who recanted her assault claim, and pointed to positive ulterior motives and consequences of her action. Wallace, for instance, suggested that the woman’s falsehood “was maybe somehow a cry for help.”
    Calas agreed, saying that the false report actually added to the campus dialogue on violence against women. “What this case did to add to it was to create a sense that women are not safe on campus in many different ways, not just rape,” she asserted.
    “Violence is a discourse that is very present and is given legitimacy in this society,” opined Calas. “Maybe this person couldn’t have another kind of conversation to be heard. 
    She continued, “[The false claim] should be looked at in the context of how come this copurse of violence is so available that it becomes one way in which somebody that’s already in trouble can have herself be heard.”
    The theme that ran through the assertions of Calas, Wallace, and associate professor of Women’s Studies, Arlene Avakian, was that women are in a constant state of sexual harassment and assault, and therefore the woman’s false report was, in effect, harmless. As Avakian attested, “Violence against women is a major problem in the world, nationally, and on college campuses.”
    In fact, Avakian repeated for Campus Report the mantra of how one in four women are raped on college campuses. However, that claim, first coined in the pages of Gloria Steinem’s Ms. Magazine, fails to hold muster under careful scrutiny. The study consisted of responses collected from the already much avowed feminist readership of the magazine, and counted rapes to include women who responded that they had second thoughts following a voluntary sexual encounter.
    Regardless, this view holds such sway in society that, according to Avakian, “Police departments tell us only one in ten rapes are reported.” This faulty worldview may explain the lack of action taken by law enforcement authorities against the woman who racanted her fabricated assault. 
    That same concern demonstrated by feminists and police for the welfare of women, therefore, wasn’t present for the would-be target of the woman’s false report.
    Although a law was passed in the 1980s making it criminal to make a false police report, the district attorney’s office has decided against pressing charges. According to First Assistant District Attorney David Angier, the woman’s actions did not technically break the law. He cited two prerequisites to prosecuting a false claim: the false report must be demonstrated to have exacted harm upon an individual, or was meant to fraudulently start or disrupt a police investigation. Angier claimed this case did not meet those criteria.
    Still, observers have noted that similar false charges have in the past lead to much harm inflicted on individuals falsely fingered for crimes they did not commit. Any number of individuals could have been arrested for meeting the unclear identification of the woman’s attacker as “white, between 5 feet 9 inches and 6 feet tall, and wearing a red baseball hat.”
    Additionally,  law enforcement resources were recruited in the investigation of the alleged crime. Campus police cruisers following the allegation rushed around the school grounds looking for the suspect, many hours were spent interviewing possible witnesses in the weeks following, and the State Police were called in to assist with analyzing the evidence—in particular, the knife the woman used to slash her own face.
    In explaining the reason charges have not been brought forth and that the woman’s name hasn’t been released to the public, Assistant Northwestern District Attorney Cynthia Pepyne claimed such actions “could have a serious chilling effect” on other women filing assault complaints.
    Yet some, including the editorial board of the Daily Hampshire Gazette, found fault with that assessment. “We think that supporting the credibility of future victims,” opined the Gazette, and the placement of “innocent people in danger of being apprehended and questioned without cause” demands justice.
    Calas, nevertheless, disagreed with the need for justice, saying that she supported the position of the University to not pursue charges. “How many other women are constantly subjected to violence of many other kinds—verbal abuse, mental abuse, and organizational abuse—but that is not legitimate to say,” claimed Calas.
    She offered that it is only through the reporting of rape and sexual assault that these other “voices” are going to be heard. At UMass this past November, those “voices” certainly were heard, though the verdict is still out on whether any of the other assaults were staged or not.