Two women said this month they were sexually assaulted at fraternity homes near the University of Chicago, just the latest revelations following similar allegations of assaults at the University of Arizona and Cornell University , and countless more before those.
On average, nearly 26% of women and almost 7% of men are victims of nonconsensual sexual contact during their college years, according to an Association of American Universities report revised in 2020. That’s shocking and unacceptable.
Colleges and universities can do a lot more to reduce those crimes, but parents can also help prevent campus sexual assault by having serious, direct and prescriptive dialogue with their teenagers.
Stopping men from raping women starts long before they’re adults
Ideally these conversations don’t happen for the first time when they leave for college, said Lindsay Lieberman, a Washington, DC-based attorney who handles cases of sexual assault. From toddlerhood, we should teach kids to respect one another’s boundaries and that they’re in charge of their bodies.
But when it comes specifically to campus sexual assault, a lot of parents simply don’t know what to say. Here’s a script.
Kids of all genders should get to know people before having intimate encounters with them and only pursue romantic relationships with people whom they care for and respect.
“One-time hookups are messy and complicated,” Lieberman said. “There’s lots of room for miscommunication.” If you know a person and how they communicate, you have less of a chance of a misunderstanding.
What’s more, our society teaches girls and women to be nice and worry about how they make other people feel. We need to instead teach young women that, in romantic situations, their own preferences and desires come first. That means they can and should say “no” if they don’t want to be intimate with someone or if they change their minds at any time during an intimate encounter. And they shouldn’t ever feel badly about it.
All students should seek positive consent before being intimate with anyone and avoid romantic encounters if either person is under the influence of drugs or alcohol. The majority of nonconsensual sexual encounters on college campuses involve the use of alcohol.
“If somebody says ‘yes,’ and they’re falling all over themselves, that doesn’t mean they’re consenting,” Lieberman said.
If at any time someone says “no,” or communicates in other ways that they aren’t interested, pushback isn’t acceptable. The other party should respect their wishes.
If someone seems to be avoiding another person or pushing them away, this “should all be interpreted as, ‘She’s not interested,’ not, ‘This is a game, I should try harder,’” Lieberman said.
“Pressuring somebody to say ‘yes’ is not consent, so if she’s turned away from you and she’s saying ‘no’ and she’s saying she’s uncomfortable, but you keep going at it and eventually she complies, that’s not consent,” she said. “You’ve coerced her into doing something that you wanted her to do.”
What you’re not hearing in sex ed about college hookups
We must also teach college students to watch out for others when they go to parties.
Young women should know that members of fraternities commit more acts of sexual violence than non-frat populations. This may be related to pressure to conform to and uphold masculine norms and objectifying women. Some options for college students to consider are partying elsewhere or selecting coed fraternities, which likely have lower risks of sexual violence.
No matter where they party, students should agree on safety plans before leaving their dorms or homes. They should buddy up with a friend and agree to watch out for one another. It can be smart for friends to talk about their intentions before going out, Lieberman said. They might tell one another they are coming home and sleeping in their own beds after the party, then hold one another accountable.
They also should keep their eyes out for situations in which other partygoers are in trouble.
If someone who is clearly too drunk to consent is leaving a party with someone they don’t know, it’s important for bystanders to intervene. Other students can offer to escort the person home.
It’s also a good idea to check in with friends if they seem very drunk or disoriented or are acting differently than usual, Lieberman said. If someone is dancing close to or speaking to someone and a friend gets the sense the other person doesn’t want it, or is under the influence of a substance, they should check in on them, she said.
“You can go over to your friend and just tap them and ask them if they’re OK,” she said.
The connection between having in-person friends and problematic social media use
If someone tells a student they’ve been assaulted, the student should never doubt them. False allegations of sexual assault are incredibly rare . Friends inflict further harm on victims by challenging them.
Instead, they should focus on “empowering the person who’s experienced it to make an informed decision on how she wants to proceed,” Lieberman said. They should lay out the victim’s options, which include reporting to the police or school or talking to a lawyer or parent.
When students go off to college, they need to know more than the material their professors assign. Having these conversations with young people of all genders can help keep them safe and protect the people around them.
Kara Alaimo is a professor of communication at Fairleigh Dickinson University and advises parents, students and teachers on how to manage screen time. She is author of “Over the Influence: Why Social Media Is Toxic for Women and Girls — And How We Can Take It Back” and the forthcoming “The Screen Time Safety Toolkit: A Practical Guide for Protecting Young People Online.”
