WASHINGTON — Police departments must be involved in investigating sexual assaults on campuses to ensure colleges don't minimize the crime to protect their image, a US senator said at a hearing Tuesday.
''I am concerned that law enforcement is being marginalized when it comes to the crime of campus sexual assault,'' said Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, the Rhode Island Democrat who leads a Judiciary subcommittee.
A lack of law enforcement response ''sends the message that what happened to the victim didn't matter,'' he said. ''This message fits too neatly with the pressure school administrators may feel to downplay campus sexual violence.''
Lawmakers at the federal and state level are seeking more prosecutions of sexual assaults and tougher penalties for educational institutions that fail to pursue cases.
The hearing took place weeks after the University of Virginia was tossed into turmoil by a now-discredited Rolling Stone magazine article alleging a gang rape of a woman at a fraternity that wasn't reported to police.
The publication has since backtracked from the Nov. 19 article, saying last week there were discrepancies in the supposed victim's account.
At the hearing, Senator Claire McCaskill said she is ''saddened and angry'' about the ''bad journalism'' in the Rolling Stone article.
The article was a ''setback for survivors in this country,'' said McCaskill, a Missouri Democrat. ''This is not a crime where you have rampant false reporting and embellishment.''
The subcommittee had been organizing the hearing for several months, Seth Larson, a Whitehouse spokesman, said in an e-mail.
''The hearing does not stem from the Rolling Stone story,'' he said.
A bipartisan group of senators this year introduced the Campus Accountability and Safety Act, which would require colleges to have a memorandum of understanding with local law enforcement to divide responsibilities and share information when certain crimes occur.