Rape and sexual assault are huge issues on US campuses, but according to the police chief of Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College (ABAC), Bryan Golden, they simply don’t exist.
In a story about rape on campus for ABAC’s student newspaper The Stallion, Golden said: ‘Most of these sexual assaults are women waking up the next morning with a guilt complex. That ain’t rape, that’s being stupid. When the dust settles, it was all consensual. It doesn’t happen here. It doesn’t show up here. There’s about as much a rape as a goat roping.’
Goat roping, in case you’re not up to scratch with your Georgia hillbilly speak, is when you lassoo a goat in order to capture it.
While editors and reporters for The Stallion were ‘shocked’ by his comments, ABAC’s president Dr Bridges has said of the comments: ‘They were unfortunate, they were insensitive, we have dealt with that.’
Golden was been suspended from his job without pay, but is now back on the job, having received sexual assault sensitivity training.
Dr Bridges, meanwhile, similarly insisted to 10WALB that campus rape doesn’t happen on his campus – perhaps not realising that plenty more rapes happen than are reported, mainly because victims don’t believe they’ll be believed. He said: ‘If you look at [the records of the health clinic, campus counselors and police department], they have an outstanding record for providing safety on campus.’
Perhaps it’s about time for all staff at ABAC to get a little clearer on how to deal with rape and sexual assaults. A free tip? Believing victims when they come forward, and acknowledging that some victims might never come forward.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.