Saturday, November 22, 2014

Sexual Violence on College Campuses

Over the last several years, there have been investigations into the treatment of sexual assault allegations at universities around the country,including Yale.   Last weekend, Yale Law Professor Jed Rubenfeld penned a thought provoking op-ed, entitled Mishandling Rape, about what appears to be a widespread issue with sexual assaults on college campuses around the country, and different responses to these assaults.  (Click here to read that piece.)   Now, there are terribly disturbing accounts in a recent Rolling Stone piece (see the article by clicking here) of sexual assault at the University of Virginia. 
In the last several months, I look at college differently, as a parent of a student and as the parent of three other children who will go to college some day.  How should colleges provide safe environments where young adults can study, socialize and form meaningful adult relationships, with all that entails?  Where can our children go to school free from worry that they will be assaulted?
These articles also make me wonder -- were there things during our college years we should have discussed more?  Are there aspects of our experience that were not positive for some of our classmates that we should discuss now?

What do you think?  It would be interesting to hear our classmates' perspectives on this.

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