Know Your Options After an Incident

After an Incident

If you have experienced prohibited conduct such as relationship violence (dating violence or domestic violence), sexual misconduct, sexual exploitation, sexual harassment or stalking, it can be difficult to know what to do or what options are available. The information below can help you understand some of the steps you may choose to take and the resources available to you at SVSU.

Your safety is the first priority. If possible, go to a safe place and contact someone you trust, such as a friend, family member or other supportive person.

If you are in immediate danger, call 911.

Consider contacting an SVSU or community support resource for assistance. Support is available whether or not you choose to make a report.

Preserving Evidence

After experiencing relationship violence, sexual misconduct or stalking, the most important step is to get to a safe place. Your safety comes first.

You may also want to preserve evidence. If you decide now or in the future to report an incident, seek a personal protection or restraining order, or pursue other legal options, preserved evidence may be helpful.

Following a sexual assault, if possible, consider avoiding bathing or showering, changing clothes, douching, using the restroom, smoking, or cleaning the area where the incident occurred.

Even if you have already done any of these things, you are still encouraged to seek medical attention. Evidence may still be available.

Seeking medical attention as soon as possible following a sexual assault can help address health concerns and preserve potential evidence.

Other ways to preserve information may include:

• Taking photographs of physical injuries and recording the date
• Saving text messages, emails, direct messages and voicemails
• Saving photographs, videos, screenshots or social media communications
• Writing down information about what occurred while details are fresh
• Keeping clothing, bedding or other potential evidence rather than washing or discarding it

If you have obtained a personal protection order, restraining order or other external order of protection, contact SVSU University Police so the university can assist with appropriate campus safety measures.

Although preserving evidence is encouraged because it can help keep future options available, you have the right to choose whether to preserve evidence.

What Is Consent?

Consent is:

• Knowing
• Voluntary
• Clear permission, expressed through words or actions, to engage in sexual activity

Each person is responsible for determining that the other person has consented before engaging in sexual activity. Individuals may perceive or experience the same interaction differently, which makes clear communication important.

For consent to be valid, there must be a clear expression through words or actions indicating agreement to the specific sexual activity.

Consent can be withdrawn after it has been given. When withdrawal of consent is reasonably and clearly communicated, sexual activity should stop within a reasonably immediate time.

Silence or the absence of resistance alone should not be interpreted as consent. Resistance is not required to demonstrate a lack of consent.

Consent to one form of sexual activity does not automatically mean consent has been given for another. For example, consent to touching does not mean consent to intercourse. A current or previous intimate relationship is also not sufficient by itself to establish consent.

If someone communicates conditions or limitations on their consent, those conditions and limitations must be respected.

Consent to sexual activity also does not automatically include consent to slapping, hitting, hair pulling, strangulation or other physical roughness. Going beyond the mutually understood boundaries of consent is prohibited.

When determining whether consent existed, SVSU considers the totality of the circumstances, including the context in which the alleged conduct occurred and what a reasonable person in the same or similar circumstances would have understood.

Neither party involved in a complaint bears the burden of proving consent or non-consent. The university is responsible for determining, based on the available information and applicable policy, whether SVSU policy has been violated.