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UPDATE: This post was updated at 4:12 p.m. on September 2, 2024.

Editor’s note: This article includes topics of sexual assault and misconduct.

Students should feel safe on a college campus. They should be able to focus on their classes, spend time with their friends and generally gain the “college experience.” Unfortunately, the college years carry a much-increased risk of sexual assault.

My time here at Syracuse has been predominantly stellar – I’ve found a supportive friend group, excelled academically and even started a few bands that play local gigs. This, however, is accompanied by the grim reality that on my third day of freshman year, I was in the wrong place at the wrong time and something terrible happened to me. Now, every time I go out, the PTSD and the fear that it could happen again is harrowing. I shouldn’t have to worry about something like this, and neither should any student, especially at SU. We need to find better solutions. And we need to do it now.

This is not an issue that can be cast aside and dealt with later. One in five women and one in 16 men on a college campus deal with some manifestation of sexual assault. Every time I read that statistic, I wonder why people believe it is okay to violate someone in that way, and why this continues to be a prevalent issue, despite the obvious moral obligation we all have to put an end to it.

To understand one of the key reasons why sexual assault, specifically toward women, remains rampant on academic campuses, it’s important to recognize the risk markers for college-age males, which statistically indicate sexual assault perpetration. These include engrained values of hegemonic masculinity (the idea that stereotypically male traits are the cultural ideal), peer approval of sexual assault, hostility toward women and college party culture. When male students enter college with a pre-existing lack of respect for women coupled with approval from their peers, it is all the more likely that they commit some form of sexual misconduct during their time at college.

Another significant contributor to the persistence of sexual assault on college campuses is the “mandatory report” policy present at many institutions, including SU. This means that, other than a few confidential outlets, any faculty or administration that you tell about your experience is required to report it to the college’s Title IX Office. This may seem beneficial, but if we look a little deeper, we can see that this often deters survivors from coming forward. Worrying about whether or not the person someone shared their story with is mandated to report it can act counterintuitively and make them less inclined to speak up.

There is a way to combat this. Requiring college campuses to have mandated support rather than mandated reporting would allow survivors to confide in individuals of their choosing, assured of receiving support rather than an email from the Title IX Office. In my experience going through the Title IX process, I felt that although I was receiving closure, my trauma was being questioned, which was extremely taxing on my mental health. Although Title IX’s purpose is to equitably moderate sexual misconduct claims, I feel there are not many protocols in place to comfort survivors who are battling complex emotions. This is something that SU and other educational institutions must improve on if they truly want to make their campuses a safer place for all.

Hailey Hoang | Design Editor

Reporting someone who has sexually assaulted you is an unbelievably courageous act, but it is the survivor’s choice and their choice only. Support for these individuals is vital. Having mandated support, instead of the mandated report rule, tells survivors that their choice of whether to report will not be impeded by the academic institution.

At SU, the mandatory report rule still stands, leading to fewer survivors feeling comfortable enough to divulge their experiences without fear of backlash and questioning. Female college students ages 18-24 are even more likely to be sexually assaulted than their female peers who are not in college, according to the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network. A distressing statistic from Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network shows that in a non-college environment, there are five robberies for every four sexual assaults of women; however, on a college campus, there are two sexual assaults for every one robbery.

This should not be the norm, but if we keep supporting the misogynistic treatment of women on and off college campuses, this statistic won’t change. If we keep standing idly by while perpetrators take home non-consenting people, this statistic won’t change. If we keep teaching women methods of protection against sexual assault instead of holding abusers accountable for their actions, this statistic won’t change.

I’d also like to draw attention to the fact that I have not used the word “victim” throughout this piece. That’s because we are survivors, and as terrible as it is that this happened to us, I believe we should take our experience and use it to help prevent more women from enduring the same trauma.

At SU, we hear about sexual misconduct at the beginning of freshman year at the Speak About It presentation, but a one-time seminar is not enough – this is a topic that should be at the forefront of each of our minds every time we go out. Remember the one-in-five statistic I mentioned earlier? That still stands until we take action and put an end to sexual assault on college campuses and beyond. I am the one in five. Perhaps you or someone you know is represented in this statistic too. But we can change that. We can transform college campuses into safe environments for students so that they can walk home at night or go to parties without fear of sexual assault.

It is not until we address the problem at the source that we can make a real change, and everybody needs to pitch in to help. Parents, teachers and peers should call their friends out when they hear them say something that aligns with rape culture. Everyone must look out for one another and make sure incapacitated people at parties aren’t being pursued and taken advantage of. Universities should adopt the mandatory support rule. Every single college student should learn what actual consent is, because it happens far too often that people take a drunken, slurred “yes” as a consensual answer. Every student deserves to feel safe on their college campus, and there are ways that we – students, administration and institutions alike – can secure that future.

Kiera Walsh is a second year Political Science and Law, Society, and Policy major. She can be reached at kwalsh17@syr.edu

Published on September 1, 2024 at 10:14 pm