You check your email to find a message from SMU Aware. A sexual assault has been reported – it’s the third alleged sexual assault in a one-week period. You may feel angry, sickened or sad, but then it’s time for class. You aren’t involved, your friends aren’t involved and the report is put out of your mind. It shouldn’t be. We are all responsible for creating an environment that allows a sexual assault, even alleged, to occur.
All three alleged sexual assaults were reported by women. After the enactment of 41 recommendations by President R. Gerald Turner’s Sexual Assault Task Force, it is expected that a more supportive system will result in more women feeling comfortable to report assaults. The SMU administration has done its part to support students – but we need to take responsibility for our own actions.
Women: be smart. One of the alleged assaults took place in a fraternity house, another in a first-year dormitory. If you do not feel safe in a certain building on campus because of a certain person, do not go there. If you see your friend going somewhere you know she should not be or is not safe, do not allow her to go in there. Watch out for yourself and watch out for your friends.
Men were named as the alleged attackers in all three cases. Men: you too need to be smart. As shown by the trial of a student indicted for sexual assault last spring who was then found not guilty in May, you have a lot to lose, even if you’re innocent. If a woman is in your room and has had too much to drink or seems mentally unstable – don’t touch her. And again, watch out for your friends.
I am proud to say I am part of this university, as I think all students are. No one is proud to say that so many alleged assaults have been reported in such a short span of time on our campus. I don’t know the details of the cases, but I would like to think that two of them could have been avoided, for the sake of the alleged victim and alleged attacker.
We are not a bunch of damsels in distress and dumb frat boys, let’s stop acting like it.
Roden is a senior majoring in journalism and Spanish.
