Sexual Assualt: End the Epidemic Jade does not receive adequate treatment from her counselor when reporting a recent sexual assault. Her integrity is questioned, and the counselor advises her to forget the incident ever happened. The rapist receives no punishment or consequences for his actions. Cases similar to this hypothetical situation occur regularly. Victims of sexual assault often resort to dropping their cases due to the lack of support and services offered by the college. Students continue to fight for the fair treatment of everyone on campus. The problem with reporting sexual assault during college lies in the unfair treatment of the victims and the limited consequences and punishment for the rapist. Colleges have attempted to lower …show more content…
“[The] group had 1.74 times the odds of reporting that they were sexually assaulted during their first year of college” (Rothman & Silverman, 2007, p. 286). The LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) community is especially susceptible to sexual assaults, but “gay, lesbian, and bisexual students exposed to the program were 50% less likely to report being sexually assaulted during their first year of college” (Rothman & Silverman, 2007, p. 286). Educating students on consent and risk factors will not end college sexual assault, but allow the college to have control over the situation and decrease the number of sexual assaults within their …show more content…
Problems arise when colleges do not supply their students with adequate support, and allowing repeat offenders to remain in the college. The college can prevent possible obstacles by creating an environment to encourage reporting and discourage sexual assault. Also, the elimination of repeat offenders will prevent future sexual assault on campus. Interactive workshops and early education provide essential knowledge about sexual assault and general safety to students entering college. A single prevention effort will not end sexual assault, but through collaboration with education and preventative actions could lead to a safer environment for college
Sexual assault is defined by the department of justice as: any type of sexual contact or behavior that occurs without the explicit consent of the recipient. Falling under the definition of sexual assault are sexual activities as forced sexual intercourse, forcible sodomy, child molestation, incest, fondling, and attempted rape. Women aged 18-24, in college, are three times greater at risk than the average woman any age. (RAINN). The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights has 246 ongoing investigations into how 195 colleges and universities handled sexual assault under Title IX. (Huffington Post). Many ask, Why on college campuses? Why have these statistics been rising? For a rapist or an assaulter, college is
The alarming increase in sexual assault among male and female students is a source of concern. Despite improvements in the general statistics on rape cases, the college setting remains to be the hot bed of sexual assault, especially among the female counterparts (Allen, 2007). A victim, regardless being a male or a female, never feel safe in their life as something precious was taken from them once. Statistics show that 17.6% of women are likely to be victims of rape in their entire lifetime while only 0.3% of males are estimated to be the victims of sexual assault. According to the National Violence Against Women Survey (NVAWS), the most critical ages men and females are likely to be engaged in sexual abuse is when they are children or adolescents (Gonzales, Schofield & Schmitt, 2006).
Sexual assault and rape among college campuses has been an ongoing issue across the nation for decades. In the state of Utah, this complex issue will not have a simple solution, but measures can be taken to prevent sexual assault and rape occurring on campuses. Utah Valley University is a campus that is taking considerably impressive measures to combat sexual assault, which will be a basis of this paper. Through university sex education, stricter laws and enforcement, and providing on-campus services to students, cases of sexual assault and rape in the higher level education setting will decrease, and students will be more likely to report these crimes.
Sexual Assault on college campuses is a national epidemic. Most colleges aren’t doing anything about it. Brown University finally stood up and is in the process of doing something. They are setting an example for what other schools should be doing, especially being an ivy league. Education is a powerful tool and it should be used to educate students on what consent is and how to be an appropriate bystander. Sexual assault on college campuses is a problem that will take a long time to solve, but the ending must start
Despite federal laws issued to combat sexual violence, each year 4,000 college women report to school officials that they've been sexually assaulted. What happens after they file those reports has stirred debate on campuses across the country, leaving parents and students fearful that colleges may not be the ivory towers of security and integrity that appear on their recruitment pamphlets.
In today’s world, Sexual Discrimination is a very common issue, especially in college campuses. Unfortunately, Student’s enrolled at The College at Brockport has found themselves to be victims of the issue. Although, sexual discrimination is best defined by discriminating against a person on the grounds of sex, other forms of sexual discrimination include sexual assault, and sexual harassment. The college has also had students that have falsely reported sexual discrimination. Both of which are crucial issues that the college has to resolve because students that are involved in either case will notice a severe change in their behavior, learning abilities, and mental state.
A stressed college student, Margot, is walking back to her dorm late at night when suddenly she feels a tap on her shoulder. When she turns around, she sees a seemingly kind face of a peer. He offers to walk her to her dorm and asks to come inside. The next day she is still in shock from the night before, she never said no when he came onto her, but she never said yes either. She doesn’t want to cry rape in fear of what people might think. This is the harsh reality for college students all across the United States today. Nobody wants to believe that their child or friend could be guilty of such a harsh, but common crime. The truth is, these crimes happen on a daily basis. Sexual assault has been an issue on college campuses since the early
Sexual assault is defined as any vaginal, oral, or anal penetration that is forced upon another, regardless of sex and sexual orientation, using any object or body part. The issue of sexual assault in America is primarily encouraged by rape culture. Women Against Violence Against Women is an organization that defines rape culture as a complex set of beliefs that encourage male sexual aggression and supports violence against women. The acceptance of rape culture, rape myths, and the disregard for sexual consent also allow for the perpetuation of sexual assault against women on college campuses. Recent examples of sexual assault on college campuses show how prominent this issue has become and how hostile campuses have become for female students. Some examples include the University of Southern California’s “Gullet Report,” Miami University of Ohio’s “Top Ten Ways to Get Away with Rape,” and a sexual assault on the campus of Kansas University. Sexual assault is perpetuated by the acceptance of rape myths and rape culture, lack of effective sexual education, and the disregard for consent. The solution to this issue lies with defeating rape culture, increasing awareness and funding for campus sexual assault crisis centers, and enacting more prevention programs on campus.
“Among undergraduate students, 23.1% of females and 5.4% of males experience rape or sexual assault” (RAINN). Rape is a threat virtually anywhere people go, but no place has a higher risk for sexual assault than college campuses. However, many of these occurrences go without penalties against the attacker, and even more are not reported at all. The lack of consequences for the accused indirectly suggests that rape and other forms of sexual assault are allowable and create further problems for the victims of the horrendous actions. Harsher punishments need to be given out for sexual assault on campus, as the current rulings are biased and immoral.
Sexual assault and rape are serious social and public health issues in the United States and throughout the rest of the world. In particular sexual assault on college campus are prevalent at an alarming rate and leaves serious effects on the victims. This essay will focus on statistics and the prevalence and effects amongst college students, through examining a number of reasons why women fail to report sexual assault and rape. This essay will also cover sexual assault prevention and things that can be done to mitigate the risk of becoming a victim to such matter.
The topic of sexual assault has always been a tough subject to discuss because it is a heinous crime that can and has happened to men, women, young and old. It is a topic that is disturbing and heart wrenching, especially when involving children. In the past few years, our media outlets have captured the images and stories on sexual assault, focusing mainly on College Institutions and how sexual assault cases have been handled within those institutions. Sexual assault is a very important topic to discuss, since this can happen to anyone you know, man or woman, adult or child, or yourself. This paper will touch on the different types of sexual assault, stigma of sexual assault, treatment of sexual assault, and understanding the perpetrator. There will be a brief discussion of the current social issue of college campus sexual assault. Sexual assault is such a wide topic with many areas to discuss, but this paper will outline the basic understanding of sexual assault and what can be done to overcome this stigma of sexual assault and how we can help the victims/survivors.
Currently, the majority of students do not receive any sexual assault awareness education until they reach college. While the education programs at that level are generally informative and assistive in lowering the number of sexual assaults on campus, they completely ignore the population of students who experience sexual assault before they are 18. Students younger than 18, in most cases, know about sexual assault, but do not know tools to combat this problem. Thus, they may suffer both before and during college. In addition, adding sexual assault awareness education in K-12 curriculum would allow students to be better prepared and comfortable on
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
Starting better education programs to get new college students aware of how wrong sexual assault is, is pivotal in putting a stop to
College-age adults are known to be high risk for sexual violence and most studies show that one in three women have experiences some type of sexual assault whether it was through physical force or harassment. These statics are known by most women on college campuses to ensure that women know and understand that this could happen to them. The issue is more than ensuring that women are aware of how protect themselves and know how to avoid these situations because it shouldn’t even be happening. When women are taught that they should know how to defend themselves we are saying that this type of behavior is normal and inevitable. We should shift from this dynamic and start teaching both men and women that this behavior is completely unacceptable and that sexually assaulting or harassing someone is NOT normal. This paper will mostly focus on incidents of rape and sexual assault on college campuses and what the outcome and reactions of these incidents were.