If I told you that every single San Jose State University female student has experienced some form of sexual harassment on or near campus, would you even be surprised?
Earlier this month. I sent a survey to over 1,000 SJSU women, which asked 11 questions specifically regarding being sexually harassed on or near the SJSU campus. 100% of them reported experiencing sexual harassment either on or near campus. 60% of them reported that the incident happened on campus, and 40% have reported experiencing sexual harassment both on campus and in the downtown San Jose area, with the majority of these women experiencing sexual harassment for the first time in just their second year of college.
For a school that supposedly takes Title IX seriously, this sure seems to put a hole in the wall of their claim.
Title IX is a federal law that prohibits any type of discrimination on the basis of sex at any educational institution. The law protects those who have experienced sexual assault, sexual discrimination, domestic violence, and stalking.
San Jose State provides protective services and other resources for those who have survived any kind of sexual discrimination, including counseling, Title IX investigators, and medical services at the student health center.
The following is a true story about the reality of being sexually harassed on and near campus. For anonymity and privacy reasons, the name Olivia will be given as an alias.
Olivia is a current senior at San Jose State University. Every Wednesday morning, she walks from her bus stop located by San Jose City Hall to go to her class in Dwight Bentel Hall.
The thing about Olivia is that she loved to express herself through fashion choices, but little did she know that an incident back in early October would change the way she would choose to display a part of her personality.
On that early October morning, Olivia had already been sexually harassed twice, both on and near campus.
Olivia was catcalled by a man on a bike while she was crossing San Fernando St. The man uttered “Damn, that skirt on you is so fucking hot. You know what you’re doing.” The man stuck his tongue out, proceeded to give a thumbs up and continued to look at Olivia for a few more moments until he couldn’t see her anymore.
She was shaken. She was anxious. Most importantly, Olivia felt like she was stripped of her identity and left with nothing but the words from a random man that turned her into a mere object.
As if things couldn’t get any worse for her that morning, an old man that Olivia could have sworn was a professor, slyly whistled at her as she passed him near Tower Hall. She tried to ignore it but couldn’t help but look back at the man who whistled. His eyes were glued on her as he walked along, knowing that he will probably never face any consequences.
In a place that prides itself on being transformative and having an environment filled with hidden treasures of academia, you’d think that the people on the campus would know better than to completely objectify other human beings.
Later that day, Olivia tells her friend about her unpleasant encounters.
“Oh, that happened to you?” said Olivia’s friend. “That’s like an everyday thing at this point,” she continued.
Olivia was never the same after that. She stopped wearing skirts and would eventually make a habit of buddying up with random girls on the street in order to feel safer. She arranges a walking buddy every now and then. She stopped listening to music while walking. Instead, Olivia is paranoid every time she leaves the house and will look over her shoulder every other minute with a self-defense tool clenched in her fist in her pocket.
If SJSU were so adamant about taking Title IX seriously, then why don’t many of the SJSU women know that sexual harassment is actually a form of sexual discrimination that is completely prohibited under Title IX?
“I felt that [SJSU] wouldn’t take [my report] seriously since I wasn’t physically harmed and I just didn’t want to deal with the questioning of my experience,” said an SJSU student who was followed and catcalled in just her first year of being at SJSU.
The fact that current San Jose State President Mary Papazian tried covering up reports of sexual abuse from a past sports medicine director for over 10 years does not help at all.
Sports medicine director Scott Shaw was first accused of inappropriately touching his female students in 2009, but the incidents had dated all the way back to 2006. Although President Papazian didn’t become the SJSU president until 2016, she still chose to not respond to the reports of sexual assault.
This is the reality for the women that attend San Jose State University. They wear jackets in 80-degree weather, they hesitate to take classes at night, and they arrange to walk with people to avoid being sexually harassed or even sexually assaulted.
Welcome to SJSU, a school that doesn’t seem to mind the sexual harassment that their college women face.
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