By Michelle Wang

The 20-year-old University of Maryland student had just spent the entire day pacing around her friend’s room. She tried distracting herself by reading a book and going on a drive, but it wasn’t enough to calm her stress. She was anxiously waiting for a verdict, for a single text telling her whether or not her abuser would be removed from his fraternity.

The woman, a survivor of relationship abuse, recalls her freshman fall in College Park. She remembers being excited that night when she met a man who was a member of a fraternity. They soon started dating. But then the relationship became abusive.

“When I wasn’t with him, I felt really, really, really bad, and it makes it very hard to function when someone only wants to be with you half the time,” the woman said. “He was very verbally abusive. His behavior was very inappropriate. I would call him sexually abusive.” 

The woman said that he raped her on repeated instances while she was impaired. As a member of a sorority at UMD, she grappled with how to handle her abuse, since her boyfriend was a fraternity member.

At UMD, sexual assaults are a lengthy process to report that often do not result in justice for the victims. 90% of sexual assaults go unreported on college campuses, according to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center. 

UMD’s sexual assault reporting process 

Each year, the University of Maryland’s Office of Civil Rights and Sexual Misconduct (OCRSM) publishes the Annual Student Sexual Misconduct Report. In 2023-2024, out of 251 reported incidents of sexual misconduct, 140 of them did not wish to discuss further. Only 19 submitted formal complaints, which is the only way the university can take punitive action against the perpetrator.

According to OCRSM, in order to submit a formal complaint, survivors first submit a sexual misconduct report. The report then needs to be further assessed, which in rare cases turns into a formal complaint when the Title IX Written Notice of Designation is completed. Only then can the investigation process begin. As part of the investigation, both parties need to submit reports, which may result in a hearing. 

K. Frances Lieder, a visiting fellow in the University Honors Program who specializes in sexual violence, believes that these barriers to reporting sexual assault indicate that the survivors are not the primary concern of the university.  

“The fact is that for universities and for a criminal justice process, there isn’t actually anyone whose job is to first and foremost take care of survivors,” Lieder said. “The primary concern is finding the person who did it and punishing them appropriately.”

For members of sororities and fraternities, Greek life at the University of Maryland has an informal investigation process. Both the Interfraternity Council (IFC) and the Panhellenic Association (PHA) have a vice president of risk management who is the liaison for reports on sexual assault. Each sorority and fraternity also designates a risk chair who is the point of contact for sexual assault reports. 

Many survivors of sexual assault in sororities choose to have their reporting process internal to Greek life. 

“Not a lot of people report [sexual assaults] or want to go through with the judicial process of it,” said Laura Gelsomini, a junior psychology, criminology, and Chinese major and the former risk chair of Zeta Tau Alpha. “Most of the time, I would cut off the frat, or I would contact the frat’s president and the risk [chair]… A lot of times, if [the survivor] didn’t have to see them again, then they were fine with it.”

The Survivor’s Reporting Process

In the woman’s case, the process was simple.

She met with the president and risk chair of her sorority, who then contacted the risk chair of the PHA and the risk chair of the fraternity that her ex-boyfriend was in. She gave a verbal statement, screenshots and other evidence of her relationship abuse. 

The text came in around 6 p.m., months after her abuse, and told her the news she had been waiting all day to hear – her abuser had been unanimously removed from the fraternity. 

The woman started jumping up and down in relief. The process was over. 

“I didn’t go through the school, but I felt supported by, weirdly enough, Greek life,” the woman said. “I was like, ‘No way these frat men are going to say, yeah, we believe you.’ And actually, they did.”

She said that she was considered one of the lucky ones throughout her reporting process. 

“Because they believed me, and they didn’t take a long time,” she said. “The investigation was terminated very quickly. They were very validating, even to my face. And I don’t get the sense that that happens a lot.”

The woman said that the simplest route was to report the incident within Greek life, without needing to go through the university. 

“I worried that it would be very traumatic,” she said. “But I think the easiest route was just getting him kicked out of his frat, and I think that was so effective, and that help was such a relief and relieved a burden on me. That was enough for me, at least for now, as long as he leaves me alone.” 

According to the woman, survivors often don’t have much control over the process and are fearful about escalating their situation. As a result, many don’t seek punitive measures from the university’s OCRSM office. 

She said that her goal was not to seek punishment but rather to ensure that this wouldn’t happen with another person. Ideally, she hopes that her abuser would take accountability and feel remorse. 

When handling situations of sexual misconduct, universities tend to focus on punitive measures, which can create a quasi-criminalistic process. 

“I very much believe in restorative justice practices that center survivors and that start from a place of what does a survivor need to heal,” Leider said. “Different survivors need different things. And so it is not necessarily worrying about bringing someone to justice, but rather providing enough resources to make a survivor feel safe, feel comfortable talking about their experiences.”

Advocates say that many survivors of sexual assault are reluctant to report assaults because they want the agonizing process to be over as soon as possible. 

“I’m really not out to hurt him,” the woman said. “I’m just out to protect myself and hopefully other people, as well. It’s hard because you don’t want him to hurt other people. But at the same time, it’s so painful to report going through that process, and it’s very anxiety-provoking.” 

Featured Image: The University of Maryland’s Fraternity Row on Wednesday, May 7. Photo by Michelle Wang