By Nona Stewart
Sports Editor
Whether we hear about it on the news or hear about it from a friend, sexual assault and harassment happens around us all the time. It is simply what we can do to help prevent it from happening more and what we can do to support the people it has affected.
According to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, 81% of women and 43% of men reported experiencing some form of sexual violence at some point in their life. That percentage is about 1 in 5 women and 1 in 14 men. Imagine you are standing in a room with 5 girls, chances are at least one of them is a victim of sexual violence.
When you think of sexual assault, most people think about a stranger assaulting the victim however that is only true about 40% of the time. The majority of the time sexual violence happens is when it is someone the victim knows. It can be a boyfriend/girlfriend, a friend, or someone the victim has been talking to on the phone, anyone can be an abuser.
There has been a big rise in media coverage around sexual violence due to a case from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Where, according to CBS News, a fraternity known as FIJI which has a long past of sexual violence, has been suspended due to the suspected rape of a 17-year-old high school student by a member the first night before classes began.
Students from universities around that area have started to speak up about their experiences with sexual violence on their own college campuses. They have started to protest fraternities and sororities that have gotten away with Inappropriate conduct for too long. They are demanding that the administration do something to stop these places from getting away with these actions any longer.
There’s another story a bit closer to home, a University of Missouri student went to an off-campus party with her friends where she believes she was drugged. The next morning, she woke and remembered nothing about the night before. She started to receive text messages from a man who admitted that he initiated sex while she was unconscious.
When she went to the Columbia police, they said that there was not enough evidence to do anything and dropped all charges. She decided to contact the university and get them to do something under the Title IX procedures. They worked on an investigation and were set to go to the student judicial court in November of 2021.
The students around campus started to speak up and demand support from the school to start to do something about all their experiences.
Many colleges are starting to bring awareness to sexual assault and it is a big thing that need to be brought up. Crowder has started to bring awareness to this issue by hosting events through the month of April which is sexual assault awareness month.
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