It’s the first day of the 2015 spring semester and every IU Bloomington student receives a Crime Alert regarding a sexual assault.
The concerns of this particular letter are not directly related to the specific incident that prompted the Crime Alert, they are in response to the alert itself.
The alert provided “safety tips” for keeping ourselves and others safe. These tips focused on multiple ways that I can “protect” myself from rape, such as running and screaming for ?protection or keeping an eye on my drink.
Nowhere did this alert mention that one should ask for consent before engaging in sexual activities or, you know, not rape someone.
The problem with this type of education is that it places the weight of the problem on the victims.
It perpetuates the idea I won’t be raped as long as I follow these tips, and if I am raped, it’s because I didn’t do enough to prevent or stop it.
This is dangerous. It redirects the responsibility away from the individual who commits the crime.
With this email coming from the police, isn’t the point to focus on the crime?
That’s what was said by the official IU Bloomington Twitter (@IUBloomington) in response to individuals who brought up similar questions.
@IUBloomington stated the focus is on responding to the crime, but let’s remember the crime wasn’t that someone was raped.
It was that someone raped another person.
So, why not focus on those actions?
The alert included in the email (http://stopsexualviolence.iu.edu) leads you to the website by the Student Welfare Initiative.
This initiative is an attempt to have a coordinated response to the issue of sexual assault across the entire IU ?system.
The issue is that this website provides the same “safety tips” included in the crime alert.
There is some information about consent, but it is in an area separate from the “safety tips.”
While I admire what IU is doing to attempt to end this issue on campus, it is clear that there is more work to be done in how we educate students on these ?issues.
Sarah Fernandez
ssfernan@indiana.edu
