Call ‘sex’ incident what it was

Regarding the article “Ex-UCF student sues, says school expelled him over sex allegations,” OrlandoSentinel.com, April 18: The Sentinel’s depiction of an alleged rape as sex is disappointing, especially because April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month. The article describes an incident of alleged sexual assault as two students drinking at a party “went back to the man’s offcampus apartment, where they had sex.”

The article examines the University of Central Florida’s decision to continue investigating sexual-assault accusations using the “preponderance of evidence” standard, rather than requiring victims to produce “clear and convincing evidence,” as is now permitted by the Department of Education’s reversal of Title IX guidelines. But the article calls preponderance of evidence a “lesser” standard.

It’s not lesser; it is the appropriate standard for noncriminal investigations, and the same standard schools use to enforce rules like Title VI, which prohibits race discrimination. To hold sexual-assault victims to a different standard than other victims would itself be discriminatory.

In a country where one in five college women experience sexual assault or attempted sexual assault; where only a fraction of those incidents are reported and even fewer investigated; and where people of all genders who report sexual violence are consistently doubted, blamed and re-traumatized by trying to hold attackers accountable; we applaud UCF for refusing to impose inappropriate burdens on survivors. We hope other schools follow suit.

We also hope the Sentinel will reconsider the way it writes about campus sexual violence. Delia Coleman director of strategic communications, Equal Rights Advocates, San Francisco, Calif.