How is your school protecting you from sexual assault?

April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month. Did you know that 1 in 5 female college students will be the victim of sexual assault before they graduate? 

If you are a female college student, that can be one very intimidating statistic, and begs the question, "what is my school doing to protect me against sexual assault?"  It is important to know and to become actively involved in the issue, because many times, schools aren’t doing enough and these are issues that directly affect all college students at every campus.

There are some college campuses that have higher rates of sexual assault but don’t have the resources to deal with it. National Public Radio (NPR) recently did a series on how many of our country’s colleges fail to prevent women from sexual assault and it showed that almost a quarter of all female college students become victims before they graduate.  

NPR found that many schools are not properly equipped to investigate rape cases, and more often than not, schools are not properly punishing sexual assault offenders, usually letting them off with little more than slaps on the wrist. Also the Center for Public Integrity found that students “responsible” for sexual assault on college campuses often face little or no consequences because of the flaws in many college judicial systems.

This is a serious flaw that needs to be identified and solved and one of the best ways to do this is for college students to learn about their own campus's process for dealing with sexual assault.  

It doesn’t matter what school you attend or whether your school has high rates of sexual assault or not, it is always important to be involved with issues that affect you, your peers, and your age group. Show support for student organizations that deal with sexual assault, even if you haven’t been affected by sexual assault yourself.

Sign up for their mailing list, join their Facebook page, go to meetings, or volunteer. Support these organizations to show your school that you care about how they deal with sexual assault and show students that have been affected by sexual assault that they are not alone.  And if your school doesn’t have student organizations, policies or resources for sexual assault, check out some of the resources below to find out what you can do to get involved.

It is important to get involved to show your school that how it treats sexual assault matters to you. Learn more by looking at these resources: