Sexual Assaults At College Campus

Assault in all forms is dangerous to both men and women. Sexual assault on college campuses is fairly common today, and occurs in a number of ways. Young women are most often the main victims of assault on college campuses. This is becoming a serious issue in American society today because either some of these cases go unreported or these young women are too scared to report them or are too embarrassed to report it because the men causing these might be their friends or someone they know. Many young women face this kind of problem, especially when in college. It is mostly at college parties where girls are at risk of having drinks that have been “roofied.” Roofied drinks are drinks that have been spiked with drugs and are most often used by men against women to make them sleepy or cause them to black out. These men are able to take advantage of these vulnerable women. It is difficult to tell if a drink is roofied as the color, taste and odor of the drink remains the same. These actions also put out a bad image of the “good” men and the men that actually care about a women’s safety and wellbeing. As a result, women will naturally form opinions based on experiences they have and will tend to be more cautious.

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?

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

“One in five women are sexually assaulted while in college” (Not Alone, 2014). In our class of twenty women that means that possibly five women have been sexually assaulted. Out of the five women that I stated could have been sexually assaulted they may have known the perpetrator and often will not report what has happened. According to the spring count of students completed by West Chester University, 9,211 of those students were females (“Headcount Enrollment”, 2014). If I go by the statistic mentioned earlier that one in five women is assaulted that would mean that 1,842 women have been sexually assaulted while enrolled at West Chester University of Pennsylvania. Out of 1,842 possible assaults only four were reported last year. Two of which the victims knew prior to the assault. Rankin and Associates consulting conducted a Climate Assessment on West Chester University in September of 2010, a section of the results focused on sexual assault on students. According to the report seven people who reported a sexual assault to the university described their reactions to the universities response. Two students shared the way they felt the response was inappropriate or poor. One described that they felt the suspension for one semester was not an appropriate response to an admitted rape, that public safety lost the victims statement, judicial affairs painted the victim offender as innocent, and that the registrar protected the offender putting the victim in harm’s way and everyone

Arditi, Lynn. "R.I. Schools Report 18% Increase In Sex Assaults." LexisNexis Academic [LexisNexis]. Providence Journal, 8 Oct. 2014. Web. 15 Nov. 2015.ytgfd

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.

A potential topic for project 2 is sexual assaults on college campuses. I would want to know whether or not the victims are afraid to report sexual assault to authorities on college campuses and how often the victims drop out or transfer colleges. Additionally, I would also want to know if student athletes commit the most sexual assaults and the reason they go unreported. Also, it would be interesting to find out how different universities tries to pay off the victims. Sexual assaults probably happens on all college campuses but some are ignored because if a star athlete commits it then the university would probably loose money.

Did you know that a woman in college have the same chances of getting sexually assaulted as getting the flu? Did you know that one out of every six women has been assaulted or is the victim of an attempted assault? Sexual assault is a very real problem in todays society. I chose this subject because I have been personally affected by it.

College is a place for trying out, experiencing and learning new things and being sexually assaulted should not be one of them. Sexual assault in college campuses over the past decade has increased by over 50% as stated by Laura Stampler in her article “Report Sees Surge in Sex Crimes on College Campuses”: “The number of sex crimes reported on U.S. college campuses soared by 50% over the course of a decade, according to a new government report Tuesday, even as total campus crime decreased” (Laura Stampler). A national survey made by and released in April of 2014 by the White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault states that at least one in five college students, including men and women, experience some form of sexual assault during their time in college. In another article published on bestcolleges.com, the author states that over 95% of college campus rapes go unreported, which implies that there might be more than one in five students that gets sexually assaulted by the end of their college career. Not only that but the article on bestcolleges.com also states that women are most likely to be sexually

When females tend to go to parties/social gatherings they usually get nervous or fearful because there's no one around to support them. Respectable company, such as friends are always good to have when going out. Reasons why so many females get sexually assaulted on campus is because there drinking consumption while attending those events. Men and women can work together to prevent sexual assaults from happening to them. The consuming amount of alcohol needs to change and be higher, and liquor stores need to be more aware. “According to the nationally representative Monitoring the Future Study, in 2012, 42 percent of high school seniors reported having had alcohol (more than just a few sips) within 30 days prior to the survey, and 24 percent

Since I have come to King’s College, I have seen many presentations or speeches about sexual assault on campus. These events are set up to help prevent sexual assault to female college students. I haven’t heard much about sexual assault actually occurring here, I thought maybe because the school does a good job of preventing this from occurring. On Thursday, September 24 I went to the Burke Auditorium to view the screening of The Hunting Ground. The movie made by CNN was a documentary about sexual assaults at college, and some of the facts that they informed us were actually very frightening not just to the women, but for everyone who was at the event.

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

The excitement and nervousness of starting a new journey by attending a community college or university is always overwhelming, but it is always overlooked the various dangers of relocating to a new environment and one that is always neglected is the awareness of sexual assault. According to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center one in five women and one and 16 men are sexually assaulted while in college. Within that statistic 90% of the victims do not report the attacks. Colleges across the globe today are required to address the warning signals and procedures to follow in the event of a sexual encounters. Upon new academic school years activist and administrators work to benefit schools on approaching sexual violence encounters.

The biggest challenge facing college students today is sexual assault. Many students, especially females, are faced with the risks of being sexually assaulted on campus, during day to day interactions. Unfortunately, many of these sexual assaults go unreported because of the fear of the victim, due to the fact that the assault happened within a relationship, or the perpetrator has threatened the victim. Also, many of the victims go without reporting the incident due to their lack of knowledge on which party is to blame. In addition to this, many victims may feel as if their case will not be important to the campus, due to the lack of care from some colleges towards their students, depicted on the news, or on social media. Because of this, victims

When we think about college, we imagine challenging classes, a diverse community, and clubs or organizations. What we don’t realize is how unsafe a campus environment can be. When campus security is limited or non-existent, predators identify it as an opportunity to pounce on their prey. Sexual assault can happen at any place, any time, and to anyone. With no authorities around to protect us from harm, we must constantly be aware and quickly get to our destination. Unless campus security is enforced, we will continue to walk around our university with an unsettling feeling inside of us.