What To Do If You Are Sexually Assaulted

A 24-hour, year round, confidential hotline has been made available for students to access a sexual assault advocate.

Call an advocate anytime at 214-632-6588.

The advocates provide information and support to victims as they make decisions about

  • medical
  • legal
  • housing
  • personal needs
DID YOU KNOW:

Definitions

What is domestic violence?
Domestic violence

  • Is any hurtful or unwanted behavior perpetrated upon an individual by an intimate or prior intimate.
  • Includes physical, psychological and emotional abuse
  • Is primarily a learned behavior whose effects, without intervention, become more destructive over time
Adapted from Turnaround, Inc

What is acquaintance/date rape?
Acquaintance or date rape

  • Is ANY non-consensual sexual activity between 2 or more people who know each other.
  • Can happen between friends, classmates, spouses, girlfriends, and/or boyfriends, people who just met, etc., or could be the crime of forcing someone on a date to submit to sexual intercourse.

What is stalking?
A stalker is someone that:

  • Repeatedly follows you, or shows up where you are
  • Repeatedly calls you, including hang-ups
  • Damages your property
  • Sends unwanted gifts, letters, cards, or e-mails
  • Monitors your phone calls or computer use
  • Uses technology to track where you are or where you go
  • Drives by your home, school, or work
  • Threatens to hurt you, your family, friends, or pets.
  • Finds out about you using public records or online searches, hiring investigators, going through your garbage, or contacting friends, family, neighbors, or co-workers.
  • Other actions that control, track, or frighten you.

From the National Center for Victims of Crime

What is sexual assault?
The Texas Association Against Sexual Assault defines sexual assault as “A violent crime in which the assailant uses sexual contact to inflict humiliation or to exert power and control over the victim.” 

What is Sexual Harassment?
Sexual harassment of an individual, as prohibited by state and federal laws and proscribed by university policy, is defined as unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, or other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature, particularly when

  • submission to such conduct by the individual is made a term or condition of employment or scholastic status, either explicitly or implicitly.
  • submission to or rejection of such conduct by the individual influences personnel or scholastic decisions concerning that individual,
  • such conduct has the purpose or effect of interfering unreasonably with the individual's work or academic performance or of creating an intimidating, hostile, or offensive working or scholastic environment for the individual

Examples of Sexual Harassment

  1. Physical contact of a sexual nature including unnecessary touching, patting, hugging or brushing against a person's body.
  2. Explicit or implicit propositions to engage in sexual activity.
  3. Comments of a sexual nature, including
    1. Sexually explicit statements or questions
    2. Sexually explicit jokes or anecdotes
    3. Remarks of a sexual nature regarding a person's clothing or body
    4. Remarks about sexual activity
    5. Whistling, ogling, or leering
  4. Inappropriate exposure to sexually-oriented graffiti, pictures, posters or other such materials
  5. Physical interference with or restriction of an individual's movements

What is a consensual sexual relationship?
Consensual sexual relationships between members of the University community constitute a dimension of sexually related conduct that requires explicit attention in a Sexual Harassment policy. When these relationships occur between peers, they do not violate institutional policy, although the working and learning environments of the University are not appropriate places for the manifestations of sexual intimacy.

However, a consensual sexual relationship between individuals who occupy different levels of authority in the institution automatically and inevitably carries the potential for evolving into a sexual harassment case of very serious implications, either from a subsequent change of attitude by the subordinate partner or from a contemporary complaint from a disadvantaged third party. Relationships of this sort are explicitly discouraged.

It follows that consensual sexual relationships between faculty members and students in a school or program, or between administrators or supervisors and staff in an office or program are especially discouraged. They are proscribed in those instances in which the partner with higher status and/or power has explicit or implicit authority over, or the power to reward or punish, the partner with lower status and/or power.