Sexual Assault Petition Necessary

Sexual assault is an alarming, under-reported reality among many universities and colleges. Recently, Hopkins student groups have advocated for our administration to take additional steps to combat these tragic incidents. On April 23, the College Democrats released a petition in conjunction with the Sexual Assault Resource Unit (SARU) and several other organizations requesting that the University take five actions: provide a website that specifies students’ legal rights, revise the freshman orientation program on rape and sexual assault prevention and make it mandatory, print SARU’s hotline number on all new J-Cards, provide honest email updates detailing the frequency and location of sexual assault incidents and introduce a compulsory anti-sexual assault component to all fraternity and sorority new-member programs.

The Editorial Board commends these groups for taking action to reduce the incidence of sexual assault on campus, and we agree with most of the conditions of the petition. We unanimously agree on the first three points of action: A website that compiled all of a student’s legal rights in the case of sexual assault would provide an inexpensive and invaluable resource for making sense of many different forms of legislation. We are also in accord that a revised version of the Orientation program should be mandatory for all new students — this information should be transmitted as early as possible. Finally, even if only one additional student reaches out to SARU because they noticed the number on their J-Card, we agree that the measure would be worthwhile.

While the Editorial Board supports releasing incident reports to raise awareness about sexual assaults, we believe these reports should be issued with caution, as this could potentially make victims uncomfortable. We believe that the benefits of these reports outweigh the potential dangers only if the University obtains consent to publicize the incident from the victim and provides a clear disclaimer about the content of the message in the subject line.

However, the Editorial Board is torn over the final point of targeting the Greek community for compulsory sexual assault education. While some view it as an inherently discriminatory and defamatory action, others argue that since these assaults predominantly occur at Greek events, the members should be trained to minizmize these risks. Regardless of this point of contention, the Board agrees that this petition is a necessary call to action against sexual assault.