Julia McCarthy: Continued dialogue crucial for progress against college sexual assault

April, the month when high school seniors decide where to go to college in the fall, also happens to be Sexual Assault Awareness Month.

And the two topics, college decisions and sexual assault, are in fact more connected than you may think. Last week, an online campaign called “Don’t Accept Rape,” made the connection quite clear, releasing a set of videos titled “Unacceptable Acceptance Letters.”

The videos show individuals excitedly opening college acceptance letters, reading their acceptances aloud, all of which initially begin with something along the lines of, “We are happy to offer you a spot of admission in the class of 2021.” As the videos progress, the students continue to read their acceptance letters but the tone changes, and the letters start including phrases such as, “Prepare for a challenging year ahead, as you will be raped in your first semester and as a result attempt to end your own life the next.”

The collection of videos are meant to shed light on the very real issue of sexual violence incoming students will likely have to deal with when navigating their new schools in the fall beyond dining halls and dorms.

I ended up stumbling upon the “Unacceptable Acceptance Letters” videos after class one day last week while procrastinating in Young Research Library. Having just come from class in Perloff Hall, where the Clothesline Display was up in the Sunken Gardens, the topic of college sexual assault was already very much on my mind.

The Clothesline Display, part of Bruin Consent Coalition’s programming for Sexual Assault Awareness Month, is a display of different colored shirts representing survivors of sexual- and gender-based violence. When passing the Clothesline Display, I kept thinking about how it has been almost two years exactly since I was sexually assaulted during the spring of my first year at UCLA.

The display, in conjunction with the “Unacceptable Acceptance Letters,” conjured a mix of emotions for me. On the one hand, the display of shirts is an amazing protest, a way to allow survivors to boldly take over a portion of the campus and share their stories.

But at the same time, the videos reminded me of the often-heard “one in five” statistic about sexual assault on college campuses. Last year, the Association of American Universities surveyed more than 150,000 students at almost 30 colleges across the U.S. and found that 23 percent of female undergraduate students have experienced sexual assault while in college. The 2015 survey only confirms a study conducted by the National Institute of Justice from 2007, which reported the exact same statistic: one in five undergraduate women experience assault in college.

I’ve been hearing the one-in-five statistic since I started college, and the fact that the “Don’t Accept Rape” campaign continues to highlight these numbers indicates to me that little has changed since my first year. Many more college men and women continue and will continue to experience sexual assault during their time on college campuses; the numbers simply aren’t changing.

Seeing the Clothesline Display and the “Unacceptable Acceptance Letters” videos, I felt a wave of conflicting emotions – hope, doubt and confusion to name a few. The videos and display also brought to mind a beautifully written piece I’d read in the Daily Pennsylvanian’s 34th Street Magazine about one survivor’s story of sexual assault for Sexual Assault Awareness Month.

The anonymous author writes, “What scares you the most is that the boy who assaulted you knew the statistics, took the pledges. You both had heard the same horror stories. He had promised to be an ally. April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month. But what do you do when the boy who assaulted you is aware of the epidemic?”

These questions have been swirling around my mind for the past week and continue to as I write this column. Do campaigns like the videos and the Clothesline Display have an effect on diminishing sexual violence? Or do the classmates who walk through the Sunken Gardens with me and see the T-shirts still commit acts of assault, acutely aware of the harm they are causing?

Despite how easy it is to feel hopeless in the battle against sexual assault, I cannot let myself believe that the efforts to educate and bring awareness to the topic of sexual violence on college campuses are useless. The powerful, brave individuals willing to share their experiences through the Clothesline Display continue to not only inspire me, but likely inspire others, both survivors and allies. To me, this means that though the statistics may remain the same, there are more ways to measure progress than simply through numbers.

This fall, as high school seniors make the transition to becoming college freshmen, a huge leap of progress will be made in in the fight against sexual assault: California will become the first state to require sexual consent education in its high schools. Promoting consent-oriented education early on, before students come to college, is a clear form of progress. This tangible piece of legislative action gives me reason to side with optimism, not doubt.

Continuing discussions about sexual assault is necessary in order to create concrete progress, progress that can come in the form of not only legislation, but eventually changing statistics. While you don’t need to be the leader of marches against sexual violence to play a part in the progress, you do need to be willing to take a stance and speak up against sexual assault.

Though the piece from 34th Street Magazine filled me with an undeniable feeling of doubt about the impact my efforts and the efforts of others have on decreasing rates of sexual assault, this doubt was counteracted by how empowered and proud I felt seeing the Clothesline Display strung across our campus.

While I’m still left with questions – still left wondering why current and future students will face the same horrific experience I dealt with so many months ago, an experience I cannot say I will ever fully get over – I am nonetheless confident that dialogue can promote progress, and though some days may be tougher than others, it is possible to move forward.