1/29/15

Earlier this week, and last week I decided to look further into the Cultural Studies of rape/sexual assault of college campuses. This has been a very interesting topic because I am a college student, and face the same academic and social pressures as any other college student does. However, I feel it is very troubling to see the statistics and high numbers of those who have fallen victim to sexual assaults on college campuses.

I have found many articles explaining certain recent, and even older cases of rape and sexual assault. However, one was very interesting to me more so than any others. The article was about over 40 sexual abuse cases which went unnoticed and ultimately downplayed at a Christian University.

In class on Thursday, we were asked to break off into groups and discuss something we would like to go into more detail about as a class. This is the topic I chose to talk more about. I wanted to discuss the differences of values that separate private universities from public universities. It is clear that the values held at private universities are usually more faith oriented, and therefore should take the act of sexual abuse much more seriously. The fact that these schools are so much smaller than large public universities makes it appalling to me that over 40 cases of sexual abuse at this one school were undermined.

The article was one from the President of the university, openly apologizing to these 40 victims for not creating a loving environment in which they hold standard under their own values system. When we talked about this further in class, we came to the conclusion that it was very bold of the University to come forth and say these kinds of things to the press and media. It was very brave to not "hush-up" this situation. It was also an admission of guilt [which would stand up in their defense in the court of law]. At any other large institution, people of a higher power are told not to apologize. However, that is why this case is so much different. It is important for other universities to also take an admission of guilt, and to empathize victims of acts such as rape and sexual assault.

In class, we also talked about what we would ban in order to put a halter in sexual assault. We could not come up with anything, because we felt that banning anything is only going to have a backfire effect. You cannot regulate things such as alcohol consumption, etc. People will always find their way around it. Instead, we came up with certain positive steps in which would potentially help with sexual assault awareness.
Here is what we came up with:
1) required campus apps
2) gender-oriented sexual assault awareness classes
3) social media safety programs
4) more qualified people dealing with rape victims
5) ABC=Always Be Cautious.