Support campus rape prevention

When registering for spring classes in the coming weeks, please consider checking the IUSA Rape Crisis Fund checkbox to help support sexual assault prevention programming and crisis services for students. Supporting this fund allows Middle Way House and the IU Health Center’s Sexual Assault Crisis Services to continue to provide 24-hour rape crisis services to students. The money also funds sexual assault prevention educational programming for incoming freshmen during orientation. Just a $3 donation from students allows these programs to continue to offer care and support for students and provide overall campus safety.\nBut the fund has been rapidly dwindling for the last five years. In 2002, the fund raised $27,500 to provide crisis services through the Middle Way House Rape Crisis Center. Fund contributions fell to $11,072 in 2005. In the spring of 2007, IUSA reviewed the Rape Crisis account, ultimately deciding to split the already diminishing fund between campus and community crisis initiatives for students in an effort to make up for the University administration’s refusal to provide adequate funding for assault prevention and crisis services on campus, placing even more of a strain on money that was already stretched too thin.\nThe IU Police Department’s last published Clery Report – a record of crimes committed on University or on student organization-owned properties which were reported to campus police – counts 27 on-campus incidents of sexual assault, including 17 rapes, and 10 non-campus assaults, including six rapes, between 2004 and 2006. These numbers do not include incidents of sexual assault which are not reported to police. Take a stand against these crimes by registering against rape this semester and supporting campus and community efforts to end sexual assault.