“Well, more assaults are reported,” at least President Sally Mason sees the glass half full, “a key point we need to keep in mind is that more people are coming forward and telling us about it now. It’s not that they weren’t occurring previously.” And that is a step in the right direction, but obviously not enough to surpass the frustration students feel about the recent emails with the subject line “Timely Warning.”
Optimism is the theme of Mason’s Feb. 18 interview with the Daily Iowan, an interview that addresses topics ranging from sexual assault to college athletics. While we recognize it may be a difficult topic to discuss when confronted with eight reported assaults this academic year, Mason is infuriatingly cheery, using phrases like, “really good tips,” and being “pleased” by the higher number of victims reporting assaults. This is not the rhetoric to use when addressing sexual assaults on campus.
After reading so many of these emails, we realize there is a trend: the university concisely describes the incidents; some of the most current being the assault investigation involving taxis, and the horrific assault of a female student carried out by three college-aged men.
Statistics are then distributed: “It is estimated that nationwide 20 percent of women and six percent of college men experience sexual assault or attempted sexual assault during their college years. Data reveal[s] nearly 50 percent of transgender people experience sexual violence.” This is followed by a warning, a reminder to be aware of our surroundings, to not talk to strangers soliciting our attention, to avoid being in darkly lit places alone at night, and to always keep an eye on our drink. And finally, the pièce de résistance, the university labels these warnings as risk factors that can be associated with sexual assault, but being in a risky situation in no way shifts the blame away from the attackers.
By repeatedly reminding students of these risk factors, the university is secondarily victimizing assault survivors who may have been assaulted in one of these environments or situations.
I hate having to rely on Nite Ride (the bus that transports female students after hours) to travel merely a mile home after my night classes three days a week. I hate that President Mason can normalize and reduce assault to a product of “human nature,” and that as such it can never truly go away. She suggests that even though students had mandatory courses on “acceptable and unacceptable behavior” before their first year, they need refresher courses as juniors and seniors as “it’s easy to forget about.” In this way Mason coddles the attackers, she gives them wiggle room to pretend like they didn’t know their actions were unwanted. College students across the nation have actively voiced their frustration with the administration’s procedure for investigating and educating students about sexual assault. And while I take my frustration out on Mason, her methodology for addressing the situation is not unique.
Our blame, as students here in Iowa City, immediately goes to the institution, but what can the university and the city truly do to actively eradicate sexual assaults on campus? They can start off by not reducing it to a habit, a temporary line that can be smudged if the issue has not been revisited enough.
Can they slap a big, red “A” for Assaulter on the attackers’ chests—no, the university operates within a larger network of societal institutions that continue to address and provide relief for assaults after they have happened: pinning an ‘A’ on the Assaulted.
Mason finally points out the helpfulness of Bystander Training, in which participants learn how to aid potential victims in times of endangerment. I went through bystander training my first year here, and I honestly didn’t find it that beneficial; but then again, maybe I’m the kind of person that doesn’t need training to know how to intervene when an assault is occurring—how to recognize when someone is in danger, or needs help.
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