UA athletic department forum tackles rape culture, Orlando Bradford case

Under a cloud of allegations involving sexual misconduct, the UA athletic department hosted a discussion Thursday night about law and rape culture.

The event was part of I Will Week, a student-led campaign in its fourth year that works to end rape culture on campus by raising awareness of sexual assault and promoting consent.

Throughout the week, organizers held events on campus to educate students about issues including masculinity, dating and relationships and LGBTQ rights. Representatives from more than 20 campus groups were on the UA Mall throughout the week, offering resources about where to get help with issues involving sexual harassment or assault, said student body President Matt Lubisich.

“It’s really great that the university and students are addressing this issue head-on,” Lubisich said.

As part of the campaign, students were asked to sign the I Will Pledge, committing to help end the normalization of sexual violence in society. As of Friday afternoon, 3,000 students had signed the pledge, with one more event still on the agenda.

Syndric Steptoe, a former UA and NFL player and director of alumni career and professional development, addressed a group of about 20 students during the discussion Thursday night. Steptoe said rape culture is normalized in kids through advertising, music and society, and that it’s up to everyone to make a change.

“This is an issue that women can’t get rid of,” Steptoe said. “It’s going to take men to step up and answer that call to end that culture.”

Steptoe told the students that part of the reason he’s so passionate about the issue is that his mother was a victim of domestic violence, and what he watched her go through was “unbearable.”

Society teaches women not to get raped instead of teaching men not to rape, Steptoe said, adding that the problem is that young men are not being educated to treat women as equals, rather than objects.

“When are we going to say enough is enough and come to bat for women?” Steptoe asked the group.

Twenty to 25 percent of students will be sexually assaulted while attending the UA, said Janis Gallego, an attorney who works for Associated Students of the University of Arizona’s legal services division. Half of those rapes will take place at fraternity or sorority houses. Students that identify as LGBTQ are twice as likely to be a victim of sexual assault.

But less than 20 percent of UA victims report sexual assaults to police, Gallego said.

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“More people need to report on our campus,” she said

In many cases, the student code of conduct is stricter than Arizona law, where the standard of evidence is beyond a reasonable doubt, Gallego said. A student only has to be found to have more likely than not to have committed a code of conduct violation to be found guilty.

Gallego also reviewed with the group the laws regarding domestic violence, various types of sex crimes and talked about how Arizona is a non-expungement state, meaning a conviction will stay on a person’s criminal record for life.

“I’ve always lived by the motto ‘When you’ve seen better and know better, you have to do better,’” Steptoe said, telling students they need to share what they’ve learned and to call people out when they make comments or conversations that perpetuate rape culture. “Have these conversations.”

One student asked Steptoe and Gallego if they knew what happened with the UA administration’s handling of the Orlando Bradford case. Bradford, a former running back, was arrested in September 2016 for assaulting two girlfriends. Campus police reports indicate that another women had come forward months before Bradford’s arrest to say he’d been abusing her, but little action was taken in response to her accusations.

The student said campus officials had “swept the situation under the rug,” to which Steptoe replied, “Oh, yeah.” Steptoe said he’d been shocked at what had happened with Bradford, who he’d worked with in his previous position as associate director of Arizona Athletics C.A.T.S. Life Skills.

Steptoe also expressed remorse about the situation, saying, “I was not having enough of those conversations with him.”

But while he was unsettled by Bradford’s actions, Steptoe said that Bradford’s roommates’ lack of action while witnessing the abuse was what upset him most about the situation. Bradford’s roommates, all fellow UA football players, watched multiple times as he hit his girlfriends, police say. On all but one occasion, they did nothing.

Gallego reminded the group that if a student doesn’t want to move forward with a Title IX investigation, there’s not a lot the school can do to remedy the situation. It’s unclear if the UA opened a Title IX investigation in response to UAPD’s report involving Bradford, as the UA previously declined to produce those records, citing student privacy laws.

“Students don’t have to go to UAPD, but they can at least make a report to campus and the Office of Institutional Equity will investigate,” Gallego said. “Maybe it’s not the first report (about this person.) Maybe it’s a pattern.”

The first step in eradicating rape culture is to talk about it, Gallego said, telling the group that part of being an adult is learning to have uncomfortable conversations.

“Don’t feel these conversations can’t be had, because they can,” Steptoe said. “And it’s time to start having them.”