If you read about recent rape incident at Stanford, public reaction is very much focused on that guy. Why aren’t we questioning culture and environment at college campuses.
Why society doesn’t learn any lessons from dangerously high rate of our young kids getting sucked into culture where binge drinking, taking drugs, irresponsible sexual behavior and even sexual assaults are just a regular thing?
It is important that he faces consequences and victim receives full support but it’s crucial to prevent more incidents and change this culture.
It’s easy to say “we should do something about it.” What specific things do you suggest colleges do? Send monitors to parties? Immediate expulsion if found with alcohol? Would love to hear your specific suggestions.
There are schools where campus police look the other way when it comes to drinking, and only get involved if someone is seriously incapacitated and need to go to the hospital. Maybe stricter punishments, such as the threat of expulsion, would curb drinking, which would hopefully lead to fewer sexual assaults.
^Agreed. They need to have consequences for underage drinking and illegal drug use. I would like to see some kind of monetary fine for first offenders. Maybe another fine for a second offense, but a pretty hefty one, like one that requires a call home to Mom and Dad. Students will learn quickly that campus is not the place for underage drinking, that they have to work a little harder to find a spot to do so or be significantly more discreet. And, really, most students are 21 their junior year so we’re only talking about the first two years for most. As for sexual assaults, I say no second chances, immediate expulsion as soon as evidence dictates.
Setting such a penalty is not the problem here. The problem (as discussed in many long threads) is that it can be difficult for third parties like university administrations, police, or courts to figure out what really happened in a “he said, she said” case without other witnesses, in order to determine whether the penalty should be applied.
Yes, this came up on many long threads. Some may feel a campus may not be the place, but many administrations disagree with common regulations or set their own.
Often I wonder if these lessons in self-respect and respecting others don’t really begin well before college.
Personally, I hope this doesn’t become like those other threads where all H breaks loose and people line up on sides, start criticizing colleges and the feds. Please.
The reason the drinking issue isn’t addressed is that that angle requires some accountability from the drunk-to-the-point-of-unconsciousness victim in addition to the intoxicated perpetrator. Many people are loathe to suggest a female victim is ever in any way responsible, and those few who do hint at it are quickly labeled with very nasty names and shamed into silence.
My D just finished her freshman year at a top LAC. Her freshman orientation program focused heavily on responsible sexual behavior, including great emphasis on the requirement for explicit, effective consent. Also health issues, STD’s, birth control, including where/how to get birth control, etc. And they were definitely educated about drug/alcohol policies on campus and the dangers of drug/alcohol abuse.
But the most important part was the education on “bystander intervention” when you see situations developing, often exacerbated by drugs/alcohol, that look like someone is about to be victimized or is vulnerable, or someone is starting to make bad decisions. (Often these are versions of the Green Dot program. https://www.livethegreendot.com/) Brock Turner, for example, apparently never had anyone tell him his behavior was unacceptable or that he was headed for trouble. When bystander intervention is successful, you’d have someone calling out Brock Turner earlier in the night for being too drunk and aggressive, and someone looking out for the victim, saying: you look like you are in bad shape, can I call someone to help you safely get home? (I’m sure Stanford had a version of this for freshman orientation as well. And the Swedish bikers clearly felt obliged to intervene.)
Colleges struggle with underage drinking, obviously. If they just prohibit and try to police it, they drive it underground. So I think most try to lessen it and keep it as safe as possible. One approach is never to punish when students call for medical help (an “alcohol transport” to the hospital).
Also, note that in the Brock Turner case both Brock and the victim were “pre-gaming” and arrived at the frat party already intoxicated. Pre-gaming is very very common. My D said that at her school, the RA’s patrol the halls twice a night and are supposed to break up drinking in rooms by underage students. Breaking up basically consists of dispersing the group and potentially “writing up” the offenders. D also made a sort of interesting argument that females often view pre-gaming with trusted friends as safer because they know exactly what they’re drinking and know it hasn’t been contaminated with date rape drugs.
@Pizzagirl you and I posted sort of simultaneously. I just want to make the point that I think students are more receptive to a message of bystander intervention to protect fellow students from assault, rather than a message to stop drinking because it is illegal and bad for you.
Agreed TheGFG- but as the mother of 5- four of whom are young ladies we have many many talks about keeping themselves safe. To me that is not blaming the victim that is having common freaking sense. You cannot control others but you can control yourself – a constant message to my daughter to take some control over their OWN safety.
As an example, here’s a link to the Pomona College Alcohol Policy. I assume most schools have a similar version of this. http://catalog.pomona.edu/content.php?catoid=12&navoid=1753#Alcohol_Policy. If you read it, you can see it’s quite detailed and obviously the product of a lot of experience by the college administration end. And ultimately the administration recognizes that it’s not going to successfully eradicate drinking on campus, so it tries to limit it and make it as safe as possible.
What college/university doesn’t address drinking, sexual assault, consent, bystander training, etc. these days? In addition to the positive reasons to do so, their lawyers are certainly requiring it. Regardless, risky and impaired behavior still happens. However, let’s focus on the real issue here and STOP the “boys will be boys” mentality in society. Plenty of decent men drink, get drunk/impaired, and still don’t overstep their boundaries let alone assaulting women. They certainly don’t engage in sexual intercourse with someone who is blacked out.
The issue with enforcing extremely strict punishments for drinking is that, rather than cutting down on students’ self-destructive behaviors, they tend to cut down on reporting of them; students are less likely to alert police in the event of emergencies, more likely to drive inebriated, and so forth when consequences of an authority figure finding them intoxicated are so high.
If anything, I’d recommend that more parents have open discussions with their kids in high school, or provide the opportunity for their children to have some familiarity and experience with alcohol prior to college. The kids that make the most dangerous choices around alcohol their freshman year of college aren’t the ones who were occasionally attending parties throughout high school; they’re the ones who’ve never had experience with alcohol before.
If a kid thinks there’s even the slightest possibility they’ll be drinking in college, it pays for him/her to know his/her limits beforehand.
Harsh penalties and the raise in the drinking age to 21 leads to more binge drinking and closeted pregaming. I don’t see how it is helpful at all as mentioned in the post above.
A friend who is a professor at a local LAC believes they should lower the drinking age to 18 - that way it’s out in the open and the colleges can keep better tabs on what is going on. The binging and “pre gaming” would diminish, too.
Maybe because it was his choice to get drunk and to rape her that created the situation. Plenty of guys were drunk at that party, as far as we know none of them raped anyone.
@Bestfriendsgirl Agree. The drinking age should be 18 or 19. Then they could drink in the bars where normal enforcement is happening. The drinking age of 21 ENCOURAGES binge/underground drinking. Its ridiculous. Other countries with normal adult drinking ages do not have the problem we have in this country.
^^^^^ absolutely agree. We as the only western industrialized country with a drinking age of 21 and we have terrible youth drinking problems as a result of it.