THE SEX TALK
THE CONVERSATION THAT IS NOT HAPPENING ABOUT SEXUAL ASSAULT ON COLLEGE CAMPUSES
She was on the floor of a bathroom in the university student center, shoved there by a guy from her calculus class. A guy she barely knew. He sexually assaulted her, then insisted on walking her back to her dorm. ❚ It was Halloween of her freshman year. ❚ On another campus, the year before, a guy went to a party, then to a girl’s dorm room. They were both freshmen. ❚ In the spring of his sophomore year, the school found him responsible for sexually assaulting her in that dorm room, after that party. He was expelled from the college. He says he was falsely accused.
College students will enter school this fall during what experts call the “red zone.” The days from August through November are a particularly dangerous time for the more than 20 million college students on campuses across the nation. More than half of college sexual assaults annually take place during those four months.
We had seen the statistics. One in 4 to 1 in 5 women. One in 14 to 1 in 16 men. That means about 3 million students on campus this fall will be sexually assaulted during their college years. We knew it was more complicated than that. We interviewed 24 people about what sexual assault looks like in college.
In a series of videos at thesextalk.cincinnati.com, you’ll hear from the students who have been assaulted and accused, parents, a university president, police officers, Title IX experts, lawyers and others.
We began to understand it was about more than sexual assault. It was about how the culture
might teach children about what sex is, yet does a poor job of explaining the complex power of sexual dynamics and why consent matters.
“I see it as the No. 1 issue for student safety because in a way, there’s nothing else that comes close to it,” said the Rev. Michael Graham, president of Xavier University in Cincinnati and a Jesuit priest.
We heard how colleges and universities investigate and adjudicate these crimes. And how that doesn’t really work. Joshua Engel, a frequent attorney for those accused, said, “The challenge that universities have is that they are well-meaning, but they are being asked by people in the community and asked by the federal government to do something that they are not set up to do.”
We looked at the factors contributing to the campus sexual assault epidemic – consent, rape culture, alcohol, fear – and found they are confusing, devastating and ever-changing.
We learned what it’s like to be on campus these days and how students feel about sex, hook-up culture and gender dynamics. “I don’t know, like, no one’s ever said ‘no’ to them,” Bonnie Meibers, a Miami University student said about a group of men on campus. “They usually get what they want. They feel entitled to do whatever they want to do, I guess.”
We discovered that the story of sexual assault varies, depending on who is talking about it, who gets hurt – and who investigates it.
We learned what the federal rules were and how they are changing as the Trump administration’s Department of Education works on a new set of guidelines for campuses.
You can join the conversation on thesextalk.cincinnati.com.