Picture this: you’re in your dorm room hanging out with a new friend you met on campus. With a change in the conversation’s tone, things start to feel off. The friend proceeds to push things too far, ignoring your “no” and crossing boundaries. They proceed to sexually assault you.
As someone you see day-to-day during and after classes, avoiding them is not an option. Whether to report the assault to the police or to go through the university is a difficult decision to come to, especially without an understanding of the systems. And yet, this decision is made across campuses every year, as well as at the University of Idaho.
Esther David is now a senior at UI who started Fall 2020 with their freshman ex-boyfriend in tow. Previously in their hometown, David had been sexually abused by the same boyfriend. After their breakup, David’s ex threatened to kill them.
When their ex began at UI, David hoped to avoid him. Instead, he began his harassment. From following David across campus to showing up at their workplace at the university cafeteria, the stalking began.
“I tried working in different places, I asked to move to different stations, and they always would show up. Or they would sit like right behind me and talk about me,” David explained.
David eventually went on to report their stalker, first filing a report with the university and then speaking with a campus police officer in October 2020. With the incidents of sexual assault occurring outside of Moscow, no police action could be taken.
“He just said he was sorry, and that he would speak to my ex about it. But I was like, really looking for something that could be done,” David said.
Eventually, a no-contact order was put in place by the university, meaning neither David nor their ex could interact with each other. Except, being on the campus of a public university, there were exceptions.
“(The officer) said that, because we both have a right to be on this campus, because we’re both students, that that wouldn’t be applicable. And I was like, ‘Yeah, but this man threatened to kill me.’” Esther David
“We had a class together… and then I also worked at the (university cafeteria),” David said. “They said, whenever I was working, I still had to treat him like a normal customer. But there were times where his friends would come specifically to my line when I was serving food.”
The harassment and intimidation continued despite the no-contact order. When David said that their stalker was still bothering them, nothing was done. David hoped to place a restraining order on him through the MPD, but was unable to, with their ex having overlapping classes.
“(The officer) said that, because we both have a right to be on this campus, because we’re both students, that that wouldn’t be applicable,” David explained. “And I was like, ‘Yeah, but this man threatened to kill me.’”
Overall, David did feel the officer they interacted with was helpful, explaining realistic options to them and giving their ex a warning. But in another incident, when David needed help, an officer asked them “Are you doing this for attention?”
“That was an experience that really made me not like the police,” David said.
One of the first moves David made in addressing their stalker was filing a conduct report with UI’s Office of Civil Rights and Investigations. Here, they were led through many steps of reporting, interacting with different offices and staff members at the university. Most were friendly, but only a small few seemed to be there for David.
One staff member seemed more concerned about their grades, saying that they must be doing fine if David’s grades were in order.
“It feels like the university doesn’t really support victims of stalking and that they’re kind of just letting it happen,” David said.
From 2019-2020 the university saw 20 incidents of stalking, third to the 39 cases of sexual assault and 50 incidents of sexual harassment that were reported on campus according to the Title IX annual report.
The conclusion David came to, whether offices to report were friendly or not, none were useful in actually holding their stalker accountable.
“I don’t really know what like the rules are and stuff behind that, but I feel if you’re doing something that can get you a criminal charge, you should not be in the school,” David said.
Despite all the effort, and having to take the emotional toll of recounting their assault while the situation was still fresh, nothing came out of it. The stalker still attends the university and David sees him regularly. This has left David with a healthy skepticism of the university’s system for reporting.
“How come students get expelled for, academic dishonesty but not for like, threatening to kill and rape?” David said.
David’s difficulties are just one of many experienced by individuals in the university system. Cases like Mairin Jameson’s from 2013 show how little has changed in the past decade.
“I Wasn’t Even Raped” was the title of the blog post that Jameson, a former UI athlete, wrote in October 2018. Jameson wrote that her first encounter with Jahrie Level made her feel uneasy and on edge.
“He was arrogant and clearly disrespectful to women by how he spoke to me. I said ‘hello,’ but purposefully did not give him my name,” Jameson wrote on her blog. ” He ended our first conversation with, ‘fuck with a baller, baby.’ I’ll never forget those words.”
Level began to make advances on Jameson even though she displayed no interest.
“I was walking through a crowd of tables, and he grabbed my waist and tried to get my attention,” Jameson said in an interview. “I just did a spin move and kept walking, made it very clear that I was not interested and really didn’t appreciate the kind of advances that he was making towards me.”
April 30, 2013, at CJ’s Nightclub, Jameson said Level sexually assaulted her.
“He came up behind me,” Jameson said. “I was wearing a skirt and he put his hand up my skirt and touched me inappropriately.”
“I would know that he would rape me given an opportunity for it to go further. He would take advantage of the situation, and I didn’t feel safe around him.” Mairin Jameson
Looking for a way to report this assault, Jameson first went to her sports advisor Sue Steele. Jameson wrote on her blog that Steele put her in contact with the campus detective at the time, retired Moscow Police Lieutenant Dave Lehmitz.
“He gave me two options: file a report or handle it with the athletic department,” Jameson said. “I naively thought that being an athlete at the university, the athletics department would surely protect me.”
She decided to report only to the university, letting the athletics department know, meaning she would have to recount her sexual assault yet again to prove that Level should not be a Vandal. Still, Jameson was told that due to the assault being off-campus, the university couldn’t do much.
“I would know that he would rape me given an opportunity for it to go further. He would take advantage of the situation, and I didn’t feel safe around him,” Jameson said.
Instead of a punishment, Level was offered optional counseling while the football coaches would continue to mentor him.
“I had lost all respect for the leader of my athletic department for their failure to protect me and I began to consider transferring,” Jameson stated. “I did not want to be at a school where not only he got to remain, but at a school where the people whose job it was to protect me were failing me. I no longer knew what a Vandal represented.”
Unbeknownst to her at the time, the lack of action by the athletic department would later be scrutinized as they failed to act according to university policy.
For support, Jameson eventually reached out to the Women’s Center on campus where, within minutes of telling her story, the center was on the phone with the Office of the Dean of Students.
“From there, things moved fairly quickly,” Jameson wrote in her blog. “I met with someone and was informed in our first meeting that they could have him suspended from campus almost immediately and could begin their investigation into the assault.”
The center was able to connect Jameson with the MPD to further investigate the assault. Police were able to find footage of the assault at the bar, allowing Jameson to press charges.
“He did get repercussions because I continued to push and push, and he did get removed from the football team,” Jameson said.
The Women’s Center said that the athletic department being unable to act due to the assault happening off-campus wasn’t true. Changes in Title IX should have prompted the athletic director to report it to the Office of the Dean of Students.
“Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough training on Title IX and there was a disconnect of what they can report,” Jameson said. “I also think (Steele) brought in the police officer, which was the right thing to do, but it immediately should have gone to the dean of students.”
Instead, the incident went up to Athletic Director Rob Spears and football coach Paul Petrino, who have since left the university.
“I truly felt like Rob Spear and the football coach were trying to protect the football player,” Jameson said. “I truly felt like he was our best wide receiver on our team and that’s why they handled it the way that they did and my opinion didn’t matter.”
In July of 2013, The Argonaut published a piece about Level transferring out of the UI to Stony Brook University in New York to play as a wide receiver.
Jameson recounted that in October 2013, the university did a full investigation and voted to expel him. It was brought into question whether to notify the university where Level had already transferred. Jameson was never told what decision the university decided to make.
Since then, Jameson settled a $160,000 lawsuit against the university for mishandling her sexual assault.
Working on cases like David and Jameson’s, Erin Agidius is the Title IX coordinator and director of UI’s Office of Civil Rights and Investigations. The office deals with educational outreach as well as investigating reports of discrimination and harassment.
Emilie McLarnan from the Office of the Dean of Students is associate director of violence prevention programs, dealing with students on a one-on-one basis when addressing their situations.
McLarnan said she hopes students see them as a resource to discuss what can be done in their individual situations, not just as mandatory reporters. Agidius and McLarnan clarified that they are happy to talk about the process. In some cases, an incident can be put on the record without issuing a formal complaint.
When a student reports to the OCRI or Office of the Dean of Students, it doesn’t mean the police have to get involved. Instead, it is up to the student.
“I’m working with a student right now who’s heavily involved with the police and her case, (but) some students don’t ever report to police,” McLarnan said. “If they report to Erin’s office, she will not share that information with law enforcement, unless the student wants her to or there’s like, really outstanding circumstances.”
If a student wants, the OCRI can start by providing confidential resources for support, such as Alternatives to Violence on the Palouse.
“If they don’t know what they want to do, or what’s going to happen, or how they want to move forward, they can start with a confidential resource and talk through their experience, talk through processes,” Agidius said.
A point of hesitation that Agidius finds common is the burden of proof.
“We have our burden of proof. The institution is the one that’s expected to gather the information,” Agidius explained. “The caveat being that if there is a situation that heavily relies on stalking or harassment, I have to have that person provide me with the text messages, with the Facebook messages, with the call log. I can’t get that information on my own.”
As a victim, Jameson felt the burden of proof falling to her. She remembers the first meeting with athletic director Spear and the questions that were being asked regarding her assault.
“A lot of the very first questions were like, ‘were you drinking, what were you wearing?’” Jameson said. “You get kind of victim-blamed and I think we already put enough blame on ourselves but we don’t need other people to ask us those questions.”
Agidius admits that there are faults in the system, partially due to federal regulations that dictate how processes must be handled. For example, the need to file a formal complaint while going through an informal resolution.
“That is a requirement under the regulations that I think is just— it’s one extra barrier, it’s one extra step that a person needs to take, in order to try and reach some sort of resolution,” Agidius explained.
These extra steps were another challenge for both David and Jameson in reporting their assaults, becoming a deterrent rather than an avenue to be heard. It made it difficult to properly address these assaults. Jameson said that she used to minimize the seriousness of her assault as she knew that other victims had it worse.
“I think women go through this all the time, and men too, I got my butt grabbed in a bar, and you’re not gonna go and hunt that person down,” Jameson said. “But when is it not okay? Where is the line? And at what point do we actually look into it making sure that there are consequences for those people that realize that this is not okay and you cannot get away with it anymore.”
For those dealing with violence or sexual assault, the Women’s Center and OCRI are available as resources to take the next steps.
Daniel V. Ramirez and Haadiya Tariq can be reached at [email protected]