Monday, Feb. 20, 2017 | Indiana Daily Student | idsnews.com
IDS IU student arrested on rape charge Police reported the rape occured last week in the student’s apartment. From IDS reports
GRAPHIC ILLUSTRATION BY LANIE MARESH | IDS
An IU student was arrested Friday after he allegedly brought a friend to his apartment and raped her. James McGovern, 21, is charged with rape and criminal confinement. The 21-year-old victim initially reported the rape Wednesday to Bloomington police and decided to press charges the next day, Bloomington Police Department Sgt. Pam Gladish said. Early Wednesday morning, the victim was at a bar downtown where she met McGovern, a friend, she told police. Eventually, he asked her to go back to his apartment on the 600 block of North College Avenue. At the apartment, he led her into the bedroom and began to aggressively kiss her, which made her uncomfortable, she said. Then he pushed her with both hands onto the bed and forced her to have sex. During the rape, she repeatedly told him to stop, Gladish said. The victim said McGovern responded by saying, “It’ll be alright” and “I won’t tell anyone.” When McGovern finished raping her, he took her to the front door and pushed her outside, she told police. She contacted a friend, who took her to Bloomington Hospital, where a rape kit was done. McGovern agreed to meet Friday with a detective at his apartment, Gladish said. He was then taken to BPD headquarters, where he declined to speak and was arrested. He was taken to the Monroe County Correctional Center, where he’s held without bond. Jack Evans
5 tickets kick off 2017 IUSA election The deadline for ticket filings was extended until 5 p.m. today. By Jesse Naranjo jlnaranj@indiana.edu | @jesselnaranjoT
Following an unprecedented number of party filings and over a hundred individual applications for IUSA members, the 2017 IU Student Association election commission extended its filing deadline until 5 p.m. today. Five separate party tickets, Empower IU, Engage with IUSA, Focus for IUSA, Refund Supreme and IGNITE all filed at or before the 6 p.m. deadline last Thursday, election commission marketing co-chair Hannah Eaton said. Last year only three parties ran, and even fewer ran in the past, Eaton said. “I think it’s going to make for a really interesting election year, and I think we might see an increase in complaints with the sheer number of tickets,” she said. SEE IUSA, PAGE 5
Bathrooms for everyone? Transgender, non-binary students discuss bathroom concerns By Hannah Boufford hbouffor@umail.iu.edu | @hannahboufford
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s a non-binary student, freshman Spencer Biery identifies outside of traditional gender norms, which are based on the idea that there are only two genders: male and female. Even months after former President Obama issued a letter to public schools directing them to allow students to use preferred bathrooms based on their gender identity, restrooms are still a prevalent issue in Biery’s life. “They say you can use whichever one you’re comfortable with,” Biery said. “And I’m not comfortable going into a restroom with a bunch of guys, but I also know that if I went into a female restroom -- which I also don’t really identify with -- people would cause even more of a ruckus.” Biery prefers they/them/their pronouns and lives in Collins Living Learning Center. They tend to use the men’s bathroom on their dorm floor because that is where they feel they blend in best. Non-binary people often feel uncomfortable and unsure when using a bathroom labeled strictly male or female. According to the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey conducted by the National Center for Transgender Equality, 59 percent of respondents said they had
avoided using public restrooms in the past year out of fear of confrontations and other problems. Barry Magee, the associate director for selection, diversity and inclusion at RPS, is working to fix this issue. Over 10 years ago, Magee started meeting with students who identify outside of the gender binary to ask their priorities in housing to feel more comfortable on campus. “The number one thing that they talked about was bathrooms,” he said. Since this initial meeting, Magee has helped to renovate residence halls and create all-gender bathrooms, also known as gender neutral bathrooms, wherever possible. He said it is an expensive task to renovate the residence halls due to the original plumbing in the buildings. However, the decision was made years ago to spend several million dollars renovating all of the bathrooms in Teter and McNutt quads. Other dorms on campus have been incorporated into a long-range plan for different bathroom styles. In the meantime, Magee said the signs on already-existing, public, single stalls have been changed to all-gender. “It was easy for us to do, and it was the right thing,” he said. Magee said the existence of all-gender bathrooms benefits everyone, from nonbinary students to fathers visiting their
daughters on an all-girl floor. All-gender bathrooms make the transition from a home to a college dorm. Though students still have to walk down the hallway to a bathroom, Magee said this was the case even in his home. “But at least when I got there, I could lock the door,” he said. “My sixty friends didn’t walk in on me.” The all-gender bathroom at the LGBTQ+ Culture Center acts as a safe place for people to bind themselves, director Doug Bauder said. Binding is when a person born female wraps their chest to make it appear that they no longer have breasts. “There aren’t lots and lots of people that are transgender, but there are people that are, and providing for their needs is important,” he said. Jingbo Li, a transgender female from China, said she didn’t even realize there were allgender bathrooms on campus. “I didn’t have any clear signal or direction to the gender neutral bathrooms, so I think maybe it’s a little bit hard to find,” she said. “I didn’t even hear of that.” Li, a freshman studying psychology, said she had her first experience in an all-gender bathroom over winter break and felt more SEE BATHROOMS, PAGE 5
WOMEN’S SWIMMING AND DIVING
IU finishes second at Big Ten Championships By Ben Portnoy bmportno@iu.edu | @bportnoy15
If someone needed a boost, the team picked them up. If someone needed a kick in the butt, they got it. If someone needed a hug, they got a hug. The team was just on point, IU swimming coach Ray Looze said. The IU women’s swim and dive team ended the 2017 Big Ten Championships in second place with 1,125 points, and picked up eight gold medals and one silver medal throughout the week. “Well the bus ride home this time was a lot better than it was last year,” sophomore Lilly King said. “We were definitely a lot more excited with our finish just because the meet was so close this time around and I think we were really able to come together as a team.” The Hoosiers concluded the five-day competition Saturday with four titles on the day. It marked the end of a highly successful week that included six athletes being named First-Team All-Big Ten. King was the swimmer of the week after winning three individual titles, a gold medal in the 400-yard medley relay and a silver in the 200yard medley relay. King was named Swimmer of the Championships for her performance throughout the meet. “I think my races were much harder this year than they were last just due to the competition that I
had that wasn’t there last year,” King said. “So I was just really glad to be able to go best times and pull out the three wins.” The highlight of King’s week came Friday night in the 100-yard breaststroke, an event she has dominated all season. King broke her American and NCAA record with a 56.30. The meet also marked the second time King has swept the 100- and 200-yard breaststroke events at Big Tens. Other swimmers of note were senior Gia Dalesandro and junior Kennedy Goss. Dalesandro won the 100- and 200-yard butterfly, the latter for the fourth year in a row. Dalesandro was the first Hoosier to win an individual event four times and only 15th person in conference history to do so. “That was awesome.” Dalesandro said. “That was one of my goals of the season, so to get that kind of out of the way, it was a big relief but super exciting at the same time, and I’m really happy with it.” Dalesandro also faced Ohio State’s Zhesi Li, who finished second in the 100-yard butterfly. Li was previously suspended for two years after testing positive for EPO, the same substance Lance Armstrong used during his infamous cycling career. Looze compared the matchup to that of King’s high profile battle with Russian swimmer Yulia Efimova at the Rio Olympics. “She’s big and strong and for
IDS FILE PHOTO
Senior Gia Dalesandro swims in the 200 Butterfly at the Big Ten Women’s Swimming and Diving Championships Saturday Feb. 21, 2015, in Columbus, Ohio.
Gia, all of 5’5” Gia, to take her out and the way she did it just shooting out front, I mean that was a spectacular swim that just electrified the team,” Looze said. Goss claimed her third career Big Ten Championship with a Big Ten meet record of 1:50.95 in the 200-yard backstroke. Both swimmers were named First-Team AllBig Ten. However, the Hoosiers’ success was not limited to the pool. Junior Jessica Parratto took home the 10-meter platform title with a score of 378.60. Parratto won the same title in 2015 but could not defend her crown last year because she elected to take an Olympic redshirt. The Hoosiers will now play the waiting game to see which
Top 5 teams of the 2017 Big Ten Championships 1. Michigan: 1,287 points 2. Indiana: 1,125 points 3. Wisconsin: 1,105.5 points 4. Minnesota: 1,086 points 5. Ohio State: 837 points swimmers will be headed to the NCAA Championships in Indianapolis. Swimmers will be chosen based on qualifying times after the final conference championship meets conclude.
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