When women or men are victims of sexual assault, they should arm themselves with a pen to sign a complaint if the assailant is to be punished by the law.

On Oct. 14, a female NIU student reported she was sexually assaulted in Stevenson Towers residence halls, and on Sept. 18, another female NIU student reported she was victim to a sexual assault in Neptune Hall. Neither of the alleged assailants were apprehended by police because neither of the victims signed complaints.

“Until society ceases to blame the sexual assault victims for their attacks, our role can only be to offer people options,” said Barb Zuber, coordinator of the Sexual Assault Response Team department at NIU’s Counseling and Student Development Center.

SART and the Sexual Assault Task Force are the “university’s response” to sexual assaults, Zuber said. SART has four different departments on campus: the counseling center, the University Health Service, the NIU Judicial Office and University Police.

Some reasons victims of sexual assault forego signing complaints are feelings of humiliation, fear, guilt and grief which may accompany the assault, Zuber said.

Use of the response team is an entirely voluntary choice by the victim, which limits the program’s ability to influence victims to sign complaints, said Beverly Beetham, coordinator of the team’s health services branch.

The program can inform victims of the possible routes to take when assaulted. “It is a problem in prosecution because many victims don’t want to prosecute” because they know their assailant, Beetham said.

The judicial office sanctions assailants if the victim wishes, with punishment ranging from banning contact with the victim to a four-year expulsion from school, said Karen Duy, coordinator of the judicial branch of the response team.

The majority of the assailants are suspended from NIU for some period, but this depends partly on the victim’s willingness to participate in a hearing of NIU board members and students, Duy said.