In urging our University to improve campus safety we as students need to start emphasizing the constant victimization that occurs on campus and not just the recent rise in street crime. Stranger sexual assaults have been in the headlines lately creating strong calls to action, but why did it take strangers with knives to make us pay attention? Isn't it enough when it is merely a sexual violation perpetrated by anyone, stranger, acquaintance, or partner?
In 1996 a graduate student named Laurel Crown conducted her graduate thesis on UW students' sexual victimization while attending college. Her results were startling because they reveled that 27% of UW students experienced sexual assault within one year (1994-95) with over a third affecting freshman and sophomore females. The University of Wisconsin conducted its own survey on the issue in 2002 and found that again 20% of respondents had experienced nonconsensual sexual activity while a student at the university. That is essentially one out of four people that are sexually violated while attending the University of Wisconsin.
The epidemic of sexual assault during college is not unique to Madison nor restricted to incidences of stranger assaults, rather it is a national problem largely occurring between acquaintances. Our University needs to address all sexual assaults and related issues
with proactive campaigns and prevention efforts to raise awareness and reduce these statistics. It should be unbearable for such a progressive and nationally renowned university to tolerate this pervasive problem of interpersonal sexual violence, in the streets and within campus dwellings.
All sexual victimization is traumatizing, irreparably changes lives, and also impedes one's educational opportunities at the UW. Our university and student body needs to create a continuous dialogue on the scope of sexual assault and to demand change through aggressive reduction efforts. When demanding improved campus safety we need to be comprehensive by going beyond the crime on our streets to include all of campus and those victimized here.
Laura Dunn
UW Senior – Legal Studies & Psychology, cert. Criminal Justice
Promoting Awareness, Victim Empowerment
PAVE Media Advocate
