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On the heels of the news that Tulane ignored allegations of druggings and possible sexual assaults at a frat party, another disturbing story.
Last July, Tulane student Anna Minkinow brought a complaint against a fellow student for raping her in a Tulane dorm. She chose to pursue the complaint through the university judicial system, which did not hold a hearing for nine months.
When the hearing was finally held in April of this year, Minkinow says, the panel behaved inappropriately and offensively. They found Minkinow’s attacker guilty of sexual misconduct, but rejected her request that he be expelled from the university. Instead they banned him from having contact with her, barred him from entering the dorms, and mandated that he seek counseling.
One day later, she says, he approached her at a campus event. He didn’t speak to her, but he stood in close proximity to her for fifteen minutes.
Not long after that incident Minkinow and a friend staged an impromptu campus protest in which they bound and gagged themselves to symbolize the silencing of rape victims. She has since met with the university’s vice president for student affairs to pursue measures to strengthen the campus’s code of student conduct.
One reform that Minkinow has not yet won support for is a minimum punishment for students found guilty of sexual offenses. Presently, the university provides minimum sentences for only three forms of misconduct: alcohol violation, drug violations and pulling a fire alarm.
Update: More on sexual assaults at Tulane here.
Late Update: We have learned that Minkinow has started a blog.
Twenty international students at the University of Sussex in England have been banned from taking final exams because they have fallen behind in their tuition payments.
More than 150 Sussex students staged a protest against the decision late last week. The president of the university’s student union described the proposed payment schedules and the timing of the university’s action as unreasonable.
The protest follows a successful Facebook campaign on behalf of one of the students, Luqman Onikosi of Nigeria. When Onikosi’s sponsor in England died, he was unable to raise the money to pay the fees himself.
The university recently agreed to allow Onikosi to take his exams and put off payment until September.
Update: A follow-up protest is planned for this Friday, May 9.
USA Today has a front-page story today questioning whether tuition increases lead to better education. The article cites a new study from the Delta Cost Project that found that tuition hikes were not correlated with increased spending on instruction.
Two hundred students at Mississippi’s Delta State University walked out of classes yesterday morning to rally against planned budget cuts at the state’s small public colleges. Among those protesting were DSU’s Statesman and “Fighting Okra” mascots, both in full costume.
Mississippi’s public higher education trustees have announced plans to divert funding from several smaller institutions to the flagship University of Mississippi. Ole Miss will receive nearly $2 million in additional funding next year, while DSU stands to lose $175,000. “They are taking money away from a school that produces teachers and nurses,” undergraduate Samantha Styers said, “and giving it a school that produces lawyers and engineers.”
The incoming chair of the state’s College Board said the entire system is “grossly underfunded, and that’s making us have to make very painful choices.”
Nathan Duff, editor of DSU’s Daily Statesman and an organizer of the walkout, said that the protests were not over: “we’re going to keep the pressure on.”
The College Board is slated to consider tuition increases at its next meeting in May.
A new report in the Chronicle of Higher Education finds that the enrollment of poor students at America’s wealthiest colleges and universities is on the decline.
According to the Chronicle, just 13.1% of students at private colleges and universities with endowments of $500 million or more received Pell Grants in 2006-07, down from 14.3% two years earlier. At the wealthiest public institutions, enrollment of Pell Grant recipients fell from 19.6% to 18% in the same period.
Pell Grants are awarded to students with family incomes of less than $40,000.
Berea College in Kentucky had by far the highest Pell Grant enrollment of the schools studied, at 77.4%. The highest among public institutions, and the second highest overall, was UCLA, at 35.2%. Only six of the 114 colleges and universities studied saw an increase in Pell recipient enrollment between 2004 and 2006.
studentactivism.net 
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