Two weeks ago, one of Kutztown University’s biggest events of the year occurred: Kutz Patty’s Day. In short, it is a day of drinking for students who wish to participate. While some students enjoy the day and act like civilized people, others act reckless, careless, and are very disrespectful.
I personally did not partake in the Kutz Patty’s Day festivities, as I am not into day drinking and being around obnoxious individuals (again, not everyone that participates falls in this category, but it is the ones that do that bring a lot of negativity to the celebration). I had no issues with those who stayed on their properties and acted with respect to the community. I had no issues with those who acted respectfully to the community. I did, however, have issues with an email sent to us by our school administration.
Being this celebration can get out of hand, the university sent an email warning students to be safe and act responsibly. They warned students that they would take action against individuals in violation of the law.
And they also warned students to “Please be aware that research shows that the abuse of alcohol is a contributing factor in many sexual assaults incidents.”
The university just warned students about binge drinking with the threat of sexual assualt. Alcohol is also a contributing factor in nonsexual assaults. Alcohol can also lead to poor decisions such as drinking and driving. Why was this not a warning?
Although I did not participate in Kutz Patty’s Day, this statement outraged me. Threatening that sexual assault could occur as a result of binge drinking is not okay.
At around three o’clock in the morning on Kutz Patty’s Day, my roommates and I were awakened to someone drunkenly pounding on our door. My thought is, what if we had not locked our door and this drunken individual came into our apartment? Could we possibly have been subjected to a potential sexual assualt, even though we hadn’t even been drinking?
This person turned out to have the wrong apartment, but I came up with this scenario as a counter-argument to the threat posed by the university. Maybe the university should be educating its students that NO means NO regardless if either party is drunk? Maybe they should be educating its students’ different dangers of binge-drinking? Oh, and it would be nice if they could maybe say that regardless of how much alcohol a victim has consumed, if a sexual assault took place, that it is NOT the victim’s fault for drinking too much.
I appreciate the university’s efforts in ensuring its students had a safe and responsible day of drinking, but using the threat of sexual assault as a warning was not a proper way to do so.