Gang-rape incident a by-product of Kyoto's lenient academic culture

On the night of Feb 25, some 95 people attended a pre-graduation “sayonara” party for university seniors at a pub in Kyoto City. At some point in the evening, a co-ed, aged 19 at the time, fell into a semiconscious stupor from overindulgence in alcohol, was escorted into an adjacent room and sexually assaulted by six members of Kyoto University of Education’s American football and soccer teams.

On June 1—more than three months after the incident—university president Mitsuyo Terada appeared at a press conference to announce that the institution would slap them with an open-ended suspension for having committed “obscene acts.”

“A university is not an investigating body,” Terada stated somewhat lamely. “The measures we took were intended as corrective in nature.”

A police source informs Nikkan Gendai (June 3) that it was not until March 27 that the woman, described as “unable to hold her liquor,” consulted the police regarding her assault.

“The six men were arrested on June 1,” the source relates. “Four admitted to going all the way; two insisted they only ‘touched’ the victim but did not rape her.

Kyoto University of Education is a public institution with roots going back to 1876, when it was founded as a pedagogical school. Its adjusted standard deviation score (class curve) of 53 would place it in the mid-tier in terms of academic standing. According to its English website http://www.kyokyo-u.ac.jp/ehp/english/index.html, 52 foreign students are enrolled.

“The university is well regarded as an institution that graduates teachers,” remarks Yutaka Doi, a Kyoto-based author. “This city, with a population of 1.47 million, is home to 37 universities, of which seven are public. Kyoto University of Education rates in the top segment. But I think this incident ruins whatever image they had as a ‘clean’ school.”

Four years earlier, Nikkan Gendai recalls, members of the American football club at the elite Kyoto University, a world-famous institution, had been involved in a gang rape.

With 138,509 university and junior college students—approximately one-tenth of the city’s total population—Kyoto is a said have long enjoyed the status as a “student-friendly” town. But for Kyoto University of Education not to expel the six for committing rape is taking indulgence too far.

“The problem is that the perpetrators were students in the Faculty of Education,” opines the abovementioned author Doi. “In Kyoto, these students still engage in chug-a-lug contests at parties. Under the pretext of preserving tradition, they think they’re entitled to special privileges, and that they can get away with anything.

“They’re more overbearing and insolent than students in Tokyo,” Doi adds. “I think it was this kind of smug attitude that led to the rape incident at Kyoto University (in 2005) and this recent one.”

It would seem, the reporter concludes, that the downside of Kyoto’s convivial climate for students is that it fosters a sense of entitlement that all too often leads to their running amok.

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Latest 15 of 49 Total Comments Show All

Fadamor at 04:19 AM JST - 9th June

This was an improvement over the original article reporting the incident. The original one only pointed out that one of the suspects was in the American Football club. At least this time the included the sport that the other 5 were members of (soccer AKA football).

I still say the main problem with this story is why the girl took a month to go see the police? Did she suddenly go, "Dang! I was raped last month!!"? Or did she miss her period and realize that "bad dream" she had when she was drunk wasn't really a dream?

(Back to the thrust of the article) So the girl goes to the police at the end of March, but the university doesn't suspend the students until two months later when the boys were charged. Did the university have a set policy for penalties resulting from sexual transgressions? I'd be interested to see THAT document before saying the university was too lax with these particular students. There may have been legal issues pertaining to that document that prevented the university from acting until the charges were officially filed.
cleo at 10:01 AM JST - 9th June

Anyone familiar with university life in Japan knows it is at best mundane and at worst catatonic.

I don't think either of my kids would agree with you on that. They both had, and Son is still having, a great time - study hard, play hard. It's what you make of it.
jeancolmar at 11:09 PM JST - 10th June

Thanks for the correction B. So you can buy this thing on a daily basis. Yuk.

Anyway, i you know Kyoto it is a largely subdued and not particularly woopie-do city. Also it is not more a college town than nearby Osaka and Kobe. I academic culture in all these places is about the same is it is anywhere in Japan. It is one that hardly lends itself freely to group rape. It article is what happens when you get a pack of ill-educated hacks to write about universities.

I can well understand why the girl waited so long to come forward about this. Being gang raped is not easy to talk about. She has my complete sympathies.
Beelzebub at 08:10 AM JST - 11th June

So you can buy this thing on a daily basis. Yuk.

That is what the "Nikkan" in its name means. If you include the sports tabloids there are about six morning and three evening publications in Tokyo alone, any one of which would be likely to carry similar contents. They are every bit as sleazy as the Daily Star and other tabloids in the UK.
jeancolmar at 08:49 AM JST - 11th June

Right--Nikkan Gendai. Daily. I see what I am missing by avoiding the tabloids, the afternoon TV shows, pop culture, pachino parlors and the like.
BTADT at 05:52 PM JST - 12th June

''Lenient academic culture?'' So, like a faculty instituted intellect derelict Kyoto University 24-7 schedule of rigors for discipline will prevent such incidences from happening in the future? What? Ever study Frat Pack Party Psy 1001? Sad story none the less....
pathat at 12:26 PM JST - 13th June

Gang-rape incident a by-product of Japan's still-lenient attitudes toward the crime.
MagnusGarstin at 10:46 AM JST - 16th June

"Gang-rape incident a by-product of Kyoto's *lenient academic culture"?* Utter rot - it's nothing whatsoever to do with a lenient academic culture - it's their society as a whole. Go into the adult section of any DVD rental store or look at the openly accessable shelves of any BookOff and you'll see countless examples of the seemingly national obsession with gang-rape, train molestation and incest. In a culture where most expressions of extreme emotion are taboo, they seem to find some sick release in deviant fantasies and behavior. No wonder these jocks thought gang-rape was OK - it's as natural to them as "Playboy" was to my culture and generation.
Disillusioned at 10:20 AM JST - 18th June

Gang-rape incident a by-product of Kyoto's lenient academic culture

Why single out Kyoto. This is a national problem.
Beerplease at 09:23 PM JST - 18th June

MagnusGarstin, exactly.

"Why single out Kyoto. This is a national problem."

Because the hack tabloid writer is probably from Kanto.
Sarge at 09:40 PM JST - 18th June

"four admitted to going all the way ( raping her )"

"the institution would slap them with an open-ended suspension for having committed "obscene acts"

So now rape gets just a suspension from school? That's what I call lenient punishment.
jacquii at 08:42 AM JST - 20th June

Fadamor, what does it matter how long it took for the woman to go tho the authorities - rape is rape, regardless of how much time has elapsed.
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Misa2k2 at 01:17 AM JST - 21st June

Jeancolmar, jacquii, Sarge, MagnusGarstin.....You all make very good points. I echo all of you. The punishment was too lenient...those that don't understand the complexities of being a rape victim will of course question why the victim took so long to report it, the actual crime is not a result of a lenient school system, and yes...the current state of Japanese pop culture illustrates the glorifying of gang rape, train molestation...etc. The last time I was in Japan, June of 2008, I was absolutely terrified by the stories my mother told me about what was going on over there. All of the other times I've gone to Japan to visit my family, I never feared for my safety. Japan really has to do something substantial to promote a social shit away from it's current decline in morality, biases against women and the family structure. Don't get me wrong though, my husband and I live in Florida with a teenaged son are also aware of the violence and twisted morality of youth here. We do our part, however, to intervene and raise him to be the proper man he should be.
sfjp330 at 03:08 AM JST - 24th June

Japan in general has a very twisted way of looking at sex. Most men there cannot relate to women in a respectable way and look at them as objects. For sex crimes, their judical system does not enforce consistant rules and the conviction depends on where they stand in society. Most likely this women is destroyed for rest of her life. This young lady probably thinks she's the cause this trouble and eventually lose confidence in life. She needs a good Psychologist. These young thugs that gang raped her, if convicted, should be put away for long time. This is not a acceptable behavior in any society. Maybe this is is reason almost half of the women between 30-40 has never been married.
elzey02 at 09:05 AM JST - 26th June

Again, someone is raped while they are in school and they only get a slap on the wrist. Were is the justice for the women that was raped not only by 1 man but 6. Who cries for her?