In September, the Obama administration launched the “It’s On Us” campaign, which aimed at addressing the issue of rape and sexual assault on college campuses.
One reason for President Barack Obama’s decision to launch this campaign was likely the horde of conservative pundits and commentators who have flooded American media with the notion that the problem of sexual assault at American universities really isn’t so bad after all.
Most notoriously, Washington Post’s George Will wrote a column in June accusing those advocating against sexual violence of ignoring “pesky arithmetic and elementary due process.”
Will also lamented the existence of “capacious definitions of sexual assault that can include not only forcible sexual penetration but also nonconsensual touching.” Is there anything creepier than Will complaining about a definition of sexual assault that includes “nonconsensual touching”? Perhaps not.
Last week, conservative radio host Dennis Prager expanded on the notion of sexual violence as an overhyped, exaggerated political ploy.
During a voting rally in Sarasota, Prager called the attempts to bring awareness to the issue “a gargantuan lie to get votes.”
“It’s as big a lie as the culture of rape on your campuses,” he said.
Like Will, Prager also contested the statistic that one in five young women on college campuses are sexually assaulted, a number that has been heavily contested but also has a large body of research supporting it.
Prager then launched into a bizarre diatribe about what does and does not constitute sexual assault: “Do you know what sexual assault means? Did you ever look at what counts? An unwanted kiss is considered sexual assault. I’m stunned it’s only one in five. Four out of five women have not gotten an unwanted kiss? My wife gets unwanted kisses every so often.”
Well, it looks like we’ve found something more disturbing than Will’s complaint about “nonconsensual touching.”
Of course, the reality is that sexual violence is a serious issue at American universities, despite the uninformed, misogynistic ramblings of pundits like Will and Prager.
UF students have been made more aware of the problem of sexual assault as a result of the repeated incidents on campus in August and September. In recent weeks, several more similar incidents have reignited the conversation surrounding issues of sexual violence at UF and on campuses across America.
The Obama administration has taken an important first step in addressing this issue through the “It’s On Us” campaign. Other initiatives, like Emma Watson’s “HeForShe” campaign, have also helped bring light to these serious issues, which are still ignored or not taken seriously by administrators at many American universities.
All college students deserve to feel safe and secure on their campuses. That sense of security cannot be fully realized until everyone acknowledges the seriousness of the problem of sexual violence.
[A version of this story ran on page 6 on 11/6/2014]
