You know when you have something dirty on your hands, and you kind of wipe them together to get rid of the grime?
Recently, Western released a new sexual assault policy.
Some parts of the new policy had me nodding in agreement, and other parts had me cringing and saying “yikes.”
Here are the highlights:
“The University recognizes that sexual violence can have serious and lasting impacts on the physical, mental, and emotional welfare of individuals who are affected by Sexual Violence. The University and its community members will treat Victim/Survivors with dignity and respect.”
Yes, good! Everyone should be treated with dignity and respect.
“The University will provide ongoing education and awareness initiatives about sexual violence, including issues of consent, drug and alcohol use, sexual harassment and cyber harassment and will ensure that these initiatives are broadly communicated to all members of the University community.”
Oh. I hope we aren’t considering the fifteen minutes we talk about sexual assault during O-Week as ‘ongoing education.’ I’m in fourth year, and I’ve never heard anyone official talk about consent, drugs, cyber and sexual harassment since O-Week.
“Anyone who commits an act of sexual violence will be held accountable in a manner that best recognizes the dignity and needs of the Victim/Survivor, the health and safety of members of the University community and the educational mission of the University.”
Yikes. This effectively wipes the University’s hands clean if they decide not to expel or remove an attacker from the school. Basically, you can rape someone, and still get your BA if it ‘recognizes the dignity and needs of the Victim.’ The victim might need to never see their attacker again, but get out that hand sanitizer, cause that’s not in this policy.
“The University recognizes consent as the voluntary agreement of an individual to engage in a sexual act. Consent is direct, active and ongoing, and can be revoked at any time. Consenting to one kind of sexual act does not mean that consent is given for another sexual act or kind of activity. Consent is NOT obtained where a person is incapable of consenting – for example by intoxication, or where a person is induced to engage in the activity by someone abusing a position of trust, power or authority.”
Louder, for those in the back: CONSENT IS ACTIVE, CONSENT CAN BE REVOKED AT ANY TIME, DRUNK PEOPLE CANNOT CONSENT, BOTH PARTIES MUST CONSENT. This should be taught on the first day of school, there should be posters up, people who write ‘No means yes and yes means anal’ should actually be punished, especially if we’re actively educating them like we decided in a past point.
“The University recognizes that it may be difficult for a Victim/Survivor to retell what happened, or portions of what happened, multiple times.”
Yes, please, thank you! Western is offering online reporting so that victims don’t have to tell their story multiple times to multiple people. This is good.
“The University will take appropriate steps to protect a person reporting an incident of sexual violence from retaliation….Threats of or acts of retaliation will be treated as incidents of sexual violence.”
As they should be! If you assault me, and then I report it, and then you threaten me for reporting it, then you are digging yourself a deeper hole. Victims who report should feel like they are able to report, they should not be shamed after they report, and they should not feel like they are in trouble for reporting.
Sexual assault is prevalent on all university campuses, whether we acknowledge it or not. Western has made a positive step by creating and distributing this policy, and by creating resources for sexual assault survivors on campus. Of course, there are steps that they could take to hold themselves accountable, but overall, this policy is a step in the right direction.