College Campus Rape

When it comes to choosing a college, there are many factors in this major life decision: price, location, type of education, and finally, safety. Young women in college campuses across the country, although no campus is immune from these heinous acts, safety is still a main concern. “If you knew your son had a 20% chance of being held up at gunpoint, you’d think twice before dropping your kid off,” says Vice President Joe Biden. “Well, my God, you drop a daughter off, it’s 1 in 5 she could be raped or physically abused? It is just outrageous.” (TIME magazine). Twenty percent of young woman will be sexually assaulted during their college career. Why is sexual assault prevalent on college campuses now more than ever?

Sexual assault on college campuses is an extensive topic that has concerned people for many years. The high rates and the case report cover-ups have brought about many varying opinions. Many people believe in changing the college framework to establish universities that are better equipped to deal with this issue. Others feel that the problem could be addressed by changing society’s outlook on crimes like these. While another group feels that the problem is in how we define rape. Despite these differences in opinions, one thing is clear, everyone agrees that something must be done to reduce sexual assault on campuses.

Free-and-easy sex prides itself on being commitment free, no emotional ties attached. Today, this idea of leaving all emotions at the door is the supposedly, sophisticated choice on campus. It is now well understood that traditional dating in college has mostly gone the way of the landline, replaced by “hooking up”- an ambiguous term that can signify anything from making out to oral sex to intercourse - all complete without the emotional entanglement of a real relationship. As times have changed, students begin to view a relationship as “too time consuming” and something that no longer takes priority amongst their busy, high achieving schedules. However, hooking up threatens the sexual, physical, and psychological health of college-age youth. Today’s youth may want to think twice before engaging in the prevalent hook-up culture. Despite the popularity of positive feelings, hookups can include negative outcomes including emotional and psychological injury, and even more concerning consequences such as unintended rape. In order to protect our generation, and more specifically our women, society must acknowledge the detrimental effects of a hook up culture to create a greater understanding surrounding this risky sexual behavior and ensure a more powerful, positive presence for women in our society. The combination of a society seeped in rape culture and an alcohol infused hookup culture creates a compromising sexual environment where women have limited control, opening the

Way too often are sexual assaults happening on colleges campuses. Because of these sexual assaults, females students have a hard time being safe on campus, or even staying on campuses. Statistics state, “1 in 4 college women will be the victim of sexual assault during her academic career… Every 21 hours there is a rape on an American college campus… College women are most vulnerable to rape during the first few weeks of their freshman and sophomore years”(Sexual Violence on College Campuses). Everyone says that your college days are the best days. Well they are, until a sexual assault or a murder has occurred on your campus. Now students are afraid to walk on their campus and feel safe and secure. They are afraid to enjoy their college experiences, thus not making their college experience the best years of their life. Do you think that Campus Security is doing enough to help prevent these crimes from happening? Do you think that the college crimes are only happening to certain students? Is college really as safe for students as it is made out to be? To understand the dangers of college campuses, it is important to analyze the statistics of college crimes, the people committing these crimes, the data from high profile cases, and the steps to make campuses safer. I feel like if the students on campus know that they have a safe environment then they will enjoy life more, maybe even become more

Rolling Stone is a magazine that was first known for its coverage of music and politics now mainly focuses on pop culture and entertainment. In the November 2014 issue, “A Rape on Campus: A Brutal Assault and Struggle for Justice at UVA” story was published about an alleged rape on the University of Virginia campus. Rolling Stone released information about the alleged rape of a freshman and how the school mishandled the situation. The Rolling Stone wrote and published a story that was only told from the student’s point of view; the magazine never interviewed anyone else related to the case. “A Rape on Campus: A Brutal Assault and Struggle for Justice at UVA” story caused much controversy and many ethical issues came from the release of the

‘Sexual Violence is more than just a crime against individuals. It threatens our families; it threatens our communities. Ultimately, it threatens the entire country’ (qtd. in Burleigh pg. 2). In the article, “Confronting Campus Rape” written by Nina Burleigh; a writer, journalist, and professor at Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, describes what students are doing to force universities to take a stronger stand against campus sexual assault. Moreover Burleigh describes what the government is doing to make a difference on the issue. This includes laws that have created consequences for the assaulter and laws that protect the victim. According to Burleigh, a young woman called Laura Dunn was sexually assaulted on campus. Dunn was a student of UW. On April 4th, 2014, Dunn lost her virginity to two UW athletes. That night, Dunn was attending a party at the university. Dunn was enjoying the party and lost count of her alcohol intake. Dunn remembers being led out by two older teammates, who she knew. Dunn was very intoxicated, enough to stumble on her way back to what she thought would be another campus party, as one of the athletes helped her walk. The athletes led Dunn to one of their apartments where she found herself on a bed with both of them on top of her. Dunn was so intoxicated that she couldn’t help but to drift in and out of conscious leaving her unable to stop the two men. Dunn began to feel sick and was led to the bathroom by one of the athletes, where he penetrated her from behind while she was throwing up. That was a date Dunn would never forget. Dunn like many other women at the UW have been sexually abused by other students. Although Dun’s incident is shocking, it is not uncommon for women to be sexually assaulted on campus. A woman at the  university of Wisconsin is more prone to being sexually assaulted than any other woman in the country because of alcohol intoxication; this is a problem that must be resolved.

In most recent years there has been an epidemic of sexual assaults across the nation. In the United States alone, a rape occurs every 6.2 minutes resulting in 1 out of every 5 women as well as 1 out of every 71 men being sexually assaulted or raped in their lifetime. This problem has been something that has been hushed for many years affecting the lives of the victims for a lifetime. We the nation need to take a stand to teach our young men and women that it is inappropriate to violate a person’s personal space without consent. This problematic phenomenon has not only affected the lives of the people throughout today’s society, but has become a tremendous outbreak within college campuses.

Something that colleges can do to significantly reduce the amount of sexual assaults on campuses is to ban alcohol and drugs. Think about it, they can make people more aggressive and make them more likely to do something they wouldn't otherwise do, and women become more vulnerable when they consume drugs and/or alcohol. Also, using alcohol and drugs can impair one’s judgement, decision making, and dull their senses. Not being under the influence in social situations makes people more aware of their surroundings and are more likely to make better decisions than if they were under the influence. So, all colleges should implement a Zero Tolerance policy when it comes to drugs and alcohol. If a student is caught with either, they should be expelled

Being on a college campus in today’s day in age can be a very dangerous or safe place for a college student. After reading the New York Times article by Stephanie Saul, written on April 20, 2016, titled Raped at Office-Campus Frat Houses, Students Say, and Ignored by College, I believe that this has become a large problem on college campuses. Making it more and more difficult to feel safe and secure as a student when attending a university.

“Focusing women and drinking ignores a serious reality: The student perpetrator who is a sex offender” (Kingston). According to the author Anne Kingston of the article “The Real Danger for Women on Campus.” Most females that report their rapes when they were under the influence of alcohol or dressed a certain way were seen as consenting sexual partners not as rape victims. For example, in Toronto a police officer made a remake saying women would protect themselves from rape if they didn’t dress like sluts. People tend to focus on the victims’ clothing, reputations or what they were doing that night and not focusing on the real issue of their sexual

For years, women have been sexualized publicly on television and other forms of media. With twisted TV shows such as Law and Order and CSI glorifying the stone-cold reality of sexual assaults and rapes that occur daily on college campuses. Television gives away a blissful ending with every sexual assault or rape, but it is far from the truth. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, 80% of rape and sexual assaults of female students goes unreported to the police. (Langston) This does not mean it was never documented, the reports were made to the campus police, then should be passed on to the Special Victims Unit, but almost always the report is put aside, forgotten about, then eventually lost. Two solutions of trying to help this overwhelming statistic are to constantly educate female students about the harsh reality of sexual

Sexual assault on college campuses has become a huge issue. Students each and every day make bad decisions, whether they be alcohol induced or not, physical or verbal sexual abuse crosses the minds of some kids. Sexual assault is defined as “any type of sexual contact or behavior that occurs without the explicit consent of the recipient” (justice.gov 2016, pg. 1). Recent altercations have released many different opinions on the topic. Overall the injustice is violating ones personal freedom and decision making. It violates many rights but the two main ones are: degrading or cruel treatment (article 4), all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights (article 1, www.un.org, N.d). Universities across the world need to take further action and educate their students on the effects of this injustice.

The issue of sexual assaults on college campus leads to the creation of programs and new policies within institutions, but It also encourages innovators to create new approaches to prevent or alleviate the issue. A program that aimed to train first-year female college students to “avoid rape substantially lowered their risk of being sexually assaulted” (Hoffman). Other programs like Bringing in the Bystander try to approach the issue by increasing bystander awareness of the problem expecting a safer environment (National Institute of Justice). For Instance, “in one study, rates of sexual harassment and stalking victimization and perpetration were lower at a college with a bystander-training program than at two colleges without such a program”

The 2015 documentary The Hunting Ground debuted to film festivals revealing to audiences the issues ingrained in our university system in how they treat rape taking place on their campuses (Dick). Testimonials of rape victims from across the nation spoke out about their experiences with how their schools treated their cases-- from accusations simply being ignored to suspected rapists being “disciplined” with expulsions effective only after graduation. Some schools even find fault within the victims themselves, falling privy to trends of victim blaming and “slut” shaming. Schools will have a hundred sexual assault charges on their campus, even more resulting in no action: no suspensions and no expulsions. So the lenience toward assailants, it has to

Sexual assault has been a huge issue for many years on college campuses and universities nation wide. As society has evolved, thoughts on sexual assault have also evolved, becoming more focused on the details of victim treatment than ever before. The topic of sexual assault is debatable and sparks many opinions on weather sexual assault on college campuses is becoming more frequent, or if there is just heightened awareness. Sexual assault can happen to anybody no matter the gender, race, religion, or age. Recently there have been many studies conducted on sexual violence on college campuses and universities producing ample amounts of statistics. One may argue that sexual assault rates are the same, but there are simply more studies and attention on sexual assault in the past 20 years. Gender roles have played a huge part in sexual assault on college campuses. Women and men have different expectations when it comes to roles in the relationship, men are often expected to make the first move. One may ask what causes a perpetrator to sexually harass somebody and think it is acceptable. There are various reasons as to why perpetrators do what they do, and may vary from person to person. Although sexual violence is a large problem for many colleges and universities, there is a surprising shortage of federal laws/rules and regulations regarding sexual assault. Colleges are able to develop their own personal policies and procedures for how they will prevent and deal with sexual