Last Tuesday night, a group of John Carroll students and staff met to discuss John Carroll’s current policies regarding rape and sexual assault. The event was headed by junior Blue Streak Madison Chickos and Senior SUPB President Cole Hassay.
The object of the night was clear: John Carrolls definition of consent needs some serious updating. The current version has many loopholes and ambiguous language that could make it hard for anyone trying to report an instance of sexual assault incredibly difficult.
Rape is a serious issue on college campuses, and it’s only gotten worse in recent years. Currently, 1 in 4 women and 1 in 20 will be a victim of rape or sexual assault during their 4 years at university. Rape is also extremely underreported.
Samantha Ross, who graduated from JCU last year, shared her story in a video that played during the panel. She talked about the steps she had to take when reporting, and the effects the experience had on her senior year of college.
After Madison’s presentation, the room broke up into several small group to look at John Carroll’s current definition of consent and discussed how it could be improved or changed.
Take a look at it for yourself:
University Consent Standard
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Consent is freely given using mutually understandable words or actions that indicate a willingness to participate in mutually agreed upon sexual activity. Consent is mutually understandable when a reasonable person would consider the words and/or actions of the parties to have reached an agreement to engage in the particular sexual activity. In the absence of mutually understandable affirmative words or actions, it becomes the responsibility of the initiator (the person who wants to engage in a specific sexual activity) to obtain affirmative consent from the other partner.
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Consent once given, may be withdrawn. If one partner initially offers words or actions that indicate consent, that partner may withdraw consent by indicating with words or actions that consent has been discontinued.
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Consent for one sexual activity does not indicate consent for other forms of sexual activity. Similarly, past sexual consent does not imply future consent.
You can read more about John Carrolls policies regarding all types of interpersonal violence at: http://sites.jcu.edu/deanofstudents/pages/community-standards/interpersonal-violence-policy/
What do you think of the current definition?