Combating Sexual Assault on Campus

Colleges advertise and brand all the programs that they can offer; sexual assault is not one of them. As prospective University transfer residents, Pierce students have a right to know how to fight against campus rape and how to receive advocacy.

Statistics provided by the National Sexual Violence Resource Center report over 1 out of 5 women get sexually assaulted and approximately 1 out of 16 men are sexually assaulted on campus; 90% of these victims do not report. Often the victim is pressured to stay silent, whether it be from administrative pressure, shame or fear stemmed from the violent experience, or because of lack of support.

In 2014, many universities were under fire for not giving full disclosure on sexual assault cases. After many students were protesting the treatment of sexual assault victims on campus, the Title IX amendment was established in every school campus, including Pierce college.

Pierce’s Title IX coordination team includes Holly Gorski, Tami Jacobs, Duncan Stevenson, and many others are in charge of handling gender discrimination cases and sexual assault procedures.

Athletic director Duncan Stevenson is one of these coordinators. “Like many colleges and universities around the country, sexual assault aspect of Title IX and has come towards the forefront the last three or four years,” said Stevenson. “In the prior forty years the major emphasis, or what got the most awareness has been the in athletics, but that is because of incidents that happened on campus.”

Stevenson also said that Pierce college is constantly striving to improve their knowledge base and awareness. “We are putting systems in place to help students and for employees to become more aware of what the processes are for reporting.”

One of the systems that have recently been published to the student community is the online Title IX crash course, a required training exercise to teach students in identifying sexual harassment/assault. Many of the modules include understanding your rights as a student and Pierce college’s code of conduct when it comes to gender discrimination and/or sexual assault.

Duncan Stevenson and the rest of the Title IX coordination team hope to constantly update how they confront sexual assault and how to inform their students and the processes that come with it.

“Investigative committees are assigned to look into those allegations, speak to all parties involved. Not just from the complainant and the respondent, but also witnesses,” said Stevenson.

Bystanders play a vital part in the events of an assault. A bystander has the choice of either halting the situation or decide it is not an emergency and not intervene. Pierce college counselor Megan Irby explains how awareness takes play.

“There is not enough information out there, especially with bystander intervention. I think the more information on sexual assault, the better,” said Irby.

Yet awareness is only the first step, what comes next is removing the stigma of reporting. Many are afraid that they will not be taken seriously, accused of lying, or are too hurt to recount the events. The amount of people who report a sexual assault falsely are approximately 5-7%, according to the National Sexual Violence Research center and even that is inflated because of delayed processing factors and/or insufficient evident.

One way to curb the stigma and to give more respect and dignity to the victims is to take them seriously, educate yourself on what sexual assault and gender discrimination looks like, and to take action when you see something occur.

Taking action could include seeking advocacy, which could be at Pierce college or at the Rebuilding Hope, the Sexual Assault Center of Pierce County. Another way is to help yourself or someone you know report an incident that happened. Do not keep quiet because it could save someone else’s life.