Rape culture at the university level

Photo: Shelby Knox; reproductive rights activist. Photo by Women’s eNews, via flickr 

Lauren Bana/Staff Writer

As college students, we have a lot to worry about, and whether or not we are going to be properly defended by our university’s authority figures should not be one of them.

After reading an article by the Huffington Post on students who were recently sexually assaulted within their own campuses, a place in which they should feel safe, I realized how worried we should really be about school officials’ ignorance of rape culture.

Shelby Knox; reproductive rights activist.
Photo by Women’s eNews, via flickr

In one of the incidents described in the article, a University of California student reached out to school officials after being sexually assaulted by another student.

She explained that the officials were ignorant and indifferent to the situation, and that a “USC official told her the goal was not to ‘punish’ her assailant, but rather to offer an ‘educative’ process.”

Upon reading that, I felt very worried for the safety and justice of the student body at FIU. What if this is the way that our school officials would react to a student being sexually assaulted on our campus?

Senior Candace Sierra said, “I would be so ashamed of my school officials if they reacted similarly to that situation in USC.” Sierra was distraught by the actions of the USC school officials, and said that she’s “worried that FIU’s school officials might react the same way”.

I feel like maybe our school officials should be educated on the ideas of rape culture, and how it can negatively affect a university’s community.

Maybe if they are taught how to understand the negative influence that rape culture is having on our society, then they will be able to apply a more educated understanding of how to treat cases of sexual assault among their university’s student body.

lauren.bana@fiusm.com

Source:

1. “Sexual Assaults Mishandled At Dartmouth, Swarthmore, USC, Complaints Say,”via The Huffington Post