One of the first pieces of advice I got from an upperclassman at Dickinson College was not to go to the lacrosse parties. At the risk of getting another half-a**ed email from President Ensign, I don’t say that to attack a certain group, but because it’s a very specific memory of my first week at Dickinson. My advice giver was addressing a group of first year women and clarified that “bad things happen to girls at those.” He proceeded to give us a list of safe parties that weren’t notorious for being a pool of easily accessible assault victims for the hosts. I remember laughing at the time, uncomfortable at the topic and the conversation because I didn’t really know what else to do but crack a joke and move forward. Other women I talked to on campus (in a very unscientific attempt at gathering outside opinions) said that they had been warned against baseball or football and some fraternities. 

At the same time I’ve heard of people having some decent conversations/experiences with individuals from said groups. The two are not mutually exclusive (aka- nice guys can be complicit too). Now that I’m a senior, I don’t remember the last time I was able to sit down with my friends for a girl’s night without the inevitable topic of who was assaulted and who assaults, coming up. A name is dropped, a profile looked up on Instagram or Facebook and usually an “oh my god, him?” is exclaimed as one of us have inevitably sat next to the alleged perpetrator in a class or two. More often than not when I meet alumni from Dickinson they will ask if so-and-so fraternity is still on campus and when they learn that no, it’s probably not, they express their disappointment at the path the school has chosen- usually ignoring the reasons for why the organization was kicked off in the first place. These reasons include (but are not limited to) sexual assault, hazing, and death related to hazing. 

While there are certainly individuals who need to take responsibility for their own actions and the actions of their teammates and friends, what bothers me more is the lack of action by the institution. Yes, Dickinson legally covers their proverbial asses with green dot programs and sometimes we even have a Title IX coordinator that we know the name of, but more often than not the responsibility is put on the student and victim rather than the perpetrator and system. We are asked to join the conversation, and told that these systems don’t work unless we work with them. I am told that it is my fault for not being more “involved in the conversation” when I feel unsafe, taking the blame off of the administration whose salaries are funded by my tuition and instead putting it on me and my classmates. Meanwhile I see the rapists, and stalkers, and harassers of my friends and classmates who have been reported walking to class beside me, because even when they are reported and maybe even expelled, they can always reapply next year. 

Although individuals can be a part of and complicit in an oppressive system, my point is not to make individuals feel bad about themselves (although some self-reflection wouldn’t hurt). According to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, 20-25% of college women will be raped within their time at school and two thirds of students experience sexual harassment. These numbers go up when you focus specifically on women of color on college campuses. My family and I pay for me to go to a school where I was taught starting in my freshman year to fear certain spaces and people. 

As a white woman, I am able to feel good in many spaces where others are not and I don’t take that for granted. That being said, I have never felt more in danger than on a campus that I pay for. In the years to come when I am asked to donate, I’m not sure I will based on that fact alone.