Trigger warning: this article contains discussion of sexual assault.
A few weeks ago, I was shocked to have witnessed the outcry from sexual assault survivors at UConn calling on the University to do more to support and protect them. I had, naively, believed that I was safe at UConn, whether at a party or walking around campus in the evening. In comparison to my home university, the University of Warwick (which became notorious in the UK for its poor response to sexual assault), it seemed as though UConn was doing its best to keep us safe.
As an exchange student, I had been looking forward to a year of safety and relaxation after the anger and frustration I’d felt towards Warwick University administration during my time there. A few weeks ago, I stood outside Rowe and watched students share their stories of the sexual assault that they’d endured while at UConn and it returned me to the same anger and frustration.
Last year, I attended a vigil held at Warwick’s campus to mourn the death of Sarah Everard, a young woman raped and murdered by a police officer in London. It was a very emotional evening with moments of silence and students sharing stories of their own experiences of sexual violence and assault. After an hour, campus security called the police to break up the gathering in a demonstration of the University’s lack of support for our event.
This was only one of a series of protests and sit-ins at Warwick last year, as students felt that the University wasn’t doing enough to protect them from sexual assault. These protests were held mostly during the spring semester when students should have been preparing for their summer exams and having picnics with their friends on the campus lawns. Instead, students were camping for weeks on end and standing out in the rain demanding that the University listens to them.
Laila Ahmed, a Warwick student and Head of Welfare at It Happens Here, Warwick’s community of survivors of sexual assault and their allies, was key in starting the movement. She made a change.org petition titled ‘Warwick uni to take action against sexual assault’ which now has over 60,000 signatures. She said that she became “involved with the sexual assault movement because several of my friends had experiences with behaviour at parties.” The protests did generate some progress at Warwick, with Laila saying that the University has taken on ‘a lot’ of her agenda, but that there’s still “a lot to work on.” With UConn having emailed students recently to say that a sexual assault task force is being put together, I hope UConn will also make progress just as Warwick finally did.
So much of what students were asking for in the last few years at Warwick are the same things that students are asking for now at UConn. We all want our university to listen to us, support us and protect us. Students’ personal experiences of sexual assault seem to be similar across universities and countries and each one is heart-wrenching to hear. The bravery of the students to share their stories shows that something must be done; young people shouldn’t have to share their most intimate experiences in hopes that it will be the difference between universities taking action against sexual assault and staying silent. It shouldn’t be up to young people to gather their courage and speak out to make universities realize that they have to look after their students.