Pace University forced a student rape-victim to have the incident investigated after she quietly asked a campus doctor for precautionary STD testing.
The victim did not want to report the incident because she felt the end result wouldn't be worth the pain of publicly talking about the traumatic event, reports The Huffington Post.
"I said I don't want an investigation, don't want the police involved at all, don't want an in-school investigation, but they told me it had to happen," the student told HuffPost. "I did not want to report my rapist, because it is a very miserable and tedious process in which the victim rarely gets justice."
The investigation began when the victim confided in her doctor at the university's health center after she asked to be tested for sexually transmitted diseases.
Scott Trent, a Pace spokesman, said the investigation took place for public safety reasons because a sexual predator on campus can put other people at risk, reports HuffPost.
This particular incident brings up the controversy of what the university's role is in dealing with sexual assault cases on campus.
A recent survey, published by the Senate Subcommittee on Financial and Contracting Oversight, found that out of 236 colleges and universities, 41 percent had no investigations of alleged sexual assault, despite sexual violence reports to the Department of Education.
"A lot of schools think under the Clery Act that they're required not just to keep the statistic but to investigate, and that is wrong," said Laura Dunn, founder of the survivor advocacy group SurvJustice to HuffPost. "And under Clery, health centers are exempt [from reporting requirements]. They are supposed to essentially be confidential sources [for students]."
