URI Students Discuss Alleged Rapes

Students at a forum on sexual harassment at the University of Rhode Island (URI) last night questioned the adequacy of the university's reponse to the recent indictment of five male students on charges of raping two female students, a URI administrator said yesterday.

Sylvia D. Feldman, URI affirmative action officer, said the more than 100 students at the Memorial Union forum in Kingston, R.I. also described personal incidents of harassment, despite the "inhibiting" presence of univited television reporters.

The meeting could signal a change in student reaction to the indictments two weeks ago, Nancy Carlson, director of the URI counseling center. Said yesterday.

Carlson, who is organizing a rape crisis center, added. "Some people are saying, "Why is the University so worried about its public relations? It should be educating people about the problem.'"

"It's been a public relations nightmare," John E. Shay Jr. URI vice-president for student affairs, said yesterday.

URI president Frank Newman wrote to all parents of students last week to counter a "distorted" Providence Journal, article on the September incidents, Shay said.

Adverse publicity was also the students' first concern, Cynthia L. Simoneau, associate editor of the URI Cigar, said yesterday. She said residents of Coddington Hall, the victims' dormitory, organized a press conference to say the Journal had misquoted them on the extent of sexual harassment at the university.

After the Journal reported the press conference, general student interest shifted from the harassment issue to Newman's proposal that police patrol the dormitories, Simoneau said.

The newly formed Student Coalition Against Sexual Harassment, a co-sponsor of last night's meeting, is trying to maintain student awareness of the harassment issue and is working with the administration to define university policy on sexual harassment, she added.

Four of the male students allegedly assaulted one of women repeatedly over a five-day period last month, Edward J. Caron, executive assistant to the Rhode Island attorney general, said yesterday. He said that the woman did not file a complaint until after another woman reported a second incident involving two of the male students.

Refusing to comment on URI's andling of the incidents, Shay said the four students charged with assault were "not enrolled" for one day, until the state supreme court ordered their enrollment continued.

Shay said the university did not require the fifth student to leave URI because he was not charged with the first, "more serious" offense.