The Crisis of Campus Rape and Appropriate Response - Essay Example

Section/# The Crisis of Campus Rape and Appropriate Response According to government statistics, one in five women will face sexual assault while attending college. However, even though some colleges are now requiring mandatory sexual assault awareness training for incoming students, this is not enough. Instead, schools need to take a more definitive stand and more aggressively prosecute and monitor the overall ratio of sexual assault and violence that is taking place within the student body. Even though this is a suggestion that the analysis will put forward, it is likely to take place; due to the fact that colleges and universities around the nation are secretly hiding sexual assault statistics in the hopes that these crimes will not paint a given university in a negative light within the general public.

One of the first things that can be done is to extend sexual assault awareness training not only to incoming freshmen but also to educators that are responsible for these students. Essentially, time can be taken, at some point during the semester, and individual professors and encourage students to maintain a level of vigilance and awareness concerning sexual assault in the impact it can have on their lives and the lives of their fellow students. Another approach that can necessarily be effected is more public reflection of records concerning sexual misconduct and proven sexual assault.

Whereas there are many liabilities in terms of this, the school should keep an open record of how many of these students each and every year are kicked out of the university and whether or not the expulsion was due to prosecution based upon a sex crime committed on campus or against a student of the university. In so doing, the school can reinforce and zero tolerance policy against sexual violence and promote a heightened and increased sense of awareness amongst its stakeholders. Finally, it is also necessary for universities to cease and desist attempting to handle these issues internally.

In many cases, school security and/or police departments are oftentimes disregarding or failing to file sexual assault charges (Goldberg 15). This is often the result of the fact that these universities are encouraging their police departments to engage in such a behavior; understanding the fact that reporting a particularly high level of sexual assaults or a particularly egregious case might discourage further students or parents from spending money and continuing to engage with supporting the university/college in some way, shape, or form.

Of course it is not the case that each and every university is behaving in an immoral or unethical way in terms of reporting sexual assaults and seeking to safeguard its students. However, with the issue of this complexity and this importance, it is absolutely integral for universities and colleges to become more involved and seeking to safeguard the health and safety of their stakeholders to a more effective degree. Beyond merely providing lip service to sexual assault and sexual violence by providing orientation programs for incoming freshmen’s, a much more holistic approach should be engaged that would benefit all individuals at multiple times throughout the year.

Work Cited Goldberg, Michelle. "Campus Rape Crisis. (Cover Story)." Nation 298.26 (2014): 12-16. Academic Search Complete. Web. 6 Nov. 2014.