Campus-wide Accountability for Prevention by Bradley University blogger Ashley

My university is known for being very apathetic- we pick and choose what we care about, but we mainly care about ourselves. People barely show support for our sports teams, no one really wants to attend philanthropic events that cost money (aka fundraisers) unless they’re being put on by one of their buddies in a Greek organization, an organization is lucky if even twenty people show up to their event (especially if it’s not music-related or counts towards extra credit in a class). On my campus, the Greek population makes up close to 40% of our student body (if not more), so they have a lot of power when it comes to reaching out to the student body as a whole. When it comes to sexual assault prevention, Greek life could be the main proponents in raising awareness about this critical issue. Most students listen to the Greeks, almost surprisingly.

Photo from Bradley University

A month or two ago, one of the fraternities on campus had a table stationed in our student center with a huge sheet of paper with many signatures. People who stopped by the table and wanted to stand against domestic abuse signed the sheet and received a white ribbon. I’m not sure if this is something that the fraternity always does, but I was happy to see them actually showing their support in ending domestic violence and helping victims and survivors. This was a step in the right direction for sure, but I’d love to see more fraternities and sororities alike taking a stand.

I’m not going to put all of the responsibility on Greek life to provide sexual assault prevention and awareness because that wouldn’t be fair. It is our duty as a campus community to look after one another and take a stand to injustice. No matter how “apathetic” we may seem as a whole, it still doesn’t make it an excuse to be stagnant or inactive, to turn a blind eye to instances of assault. The minute we say “was he or she drinking when it happened? What were they wearing? Were they being a tease?”, we are taking away that person’s voice.  We are already holding unfair judgments and placing blame on the victim.

Honestly, one of the first steps that should be taken is for administration to create a mandatory sexual assault prevention class. We make students sit through fire safety presentations and an alcohol safety presentation, but we only tie sexual assault to alcohol, as if it only occurs when both parties have had “too much to drink” and have cloudy judgment. There are still many ignorant and naïve students when they arrive on campus, and they hold many stereotypes as truth, which can hurt them greatly in the end, whether as a victim who doesn’t know their rights or that it’s not their fault or a perpetrator who thought the person wanted it even though they were drunk. Sexual assault prevention needs to become mandatory and less taboo. This issue is as important as teaching us how to control our intake of substances. Sexual assault is a life or death situation, just like drinking too much or ingesting too much of a drug- the effects can be very damaging, whether obvious or not. So stand up, protect one another, and hold each other accountable for our actions (or inactions).