By now, everyone has heard that Senior Associate Athletic Director John Chadima resigned after he allegedly sexually assaulted a student employee at a Rose Bowl party. Quickly forgetting the fact that senior athletic officials, including Athletic Director Barry Alvarez, knew of other parties, the athletic department and university handled the situation well. An investigation was completed and released in a timely fashion, and offices are considering multiple alcohol policy changes.
These changes need to come from top officials. Chancellor David Ward put together an investigation, and this will hopefully bring about justice for the student victim. But if officials like Ward and Alvarez do not actually create and enforce new policies, it will be doing the UW-Madison community a disservice. Officials have given every indication that their intent is to reform, but we must wait until these changes go into effect to judge any further.
However, the university's competent crisis management should not be the take-home message from this incident. No one should simply write off what happened as an issue specific to athletic departments-though it is hard to not notice the high-profile sexual assault scandals that have happened at other athletic departments at Penn State, Syracuse and The Citadel. We all need to understand that sexual assault is a problem that exists everywhere, not just in athletic departments.
Our university has a reputation as a party school. Drinking does not only happen over Rose Bowl weekend and neither do assaults. As Ward explained, overzealous, poorly monitored partying is "not an athletics issue, it's a social issue." The UW-Madison community should not sit around and congratulate officials for handling the athletic department well , especially when issues still exist on campus.
Sexual assault is not an uncommon crime on university campuses. One in four women are sexually assaulted in their lives. Of those, 95 percent of the victims knew their attacker. According to the Wisconsin Coalition Against Sexual Assault, 15 percent of victims in 2011 were male. This is a crime that can affect anyone.
Furthermore, 90 percent of victims will not report their assault. That is why it is important to note how courageous the student employee was to tell a different authority figure of Chadima's alleged unwanted advances. If we want to congratulate anyone for handling the situation well, it should be that student.
Chadima's alleged assault is one of the largest scandals in recent UW-Madison history. But university officials, students and the rest of the community should look at the incident not as a passing incident, but as an opportunity to address similar problems on campus.
Our campus has various groups that could help student sexual assault victims. Groups that aim to eradicate a culture that perpetuates sexual assault are Promoting Awareness Victim Empowerment (PAVE) and End Violence on Campus (EVOC). Victims of sexual assault can receive help from the Rape Crisis Center.
