Last week, while riding the Tigerland A bus home, I saw the sign. Not the good kind of sign, like the Ace of Base song, but it did open up my eyes to something I had been writing off pretty frequently in the LSU community.
The sign read, “What I do blacked out is none of my business.”
It was posted outside of Mike’s Daiquiris and Grill in black and white for all of LSU to see. At first, it might not seem like that big of a deal. It’s a sign outside of a bar, what’s the point of criticizing it? But when you consider the headlines from this past month, something starts to add up, and the sum isn’t pretty.
At the beginning of August, reports started to come out from Yale University’s new policy regarding sex offenders. Ivy League schools often receive criticism for their policies, but Yale seems to be leading the way for giving leeway to student offenders. The new policy will allow students who are found guilty of sex crimes to remain enrolled at the university alongside their victims.
A university official worsened this by going on the record saying that the crimes do not prove to be so severe that it would be emotionally or mentally harmful for the offender to remain on the same campus as their victim.
What?
At our school, there is currently a zero tolerance policy that defines rape as sexual acts performed without a person’s consent. While I must tip my hat to the University for not having a typical heteronormative policy, I’ve heard many complaints of its follow-through.
But the sad fact is we live in a society that allows sexual crimes to happen. The problem isn’t the offenders — it’s the society. The attitude in a community to normalize, excuse or condone rape is referred to as a rape culture.
Yale put this into practice Monday, as the school ruled on a fall 2012 case involving two students. The Huffington Post reported that a male student who was found guilty of both sexual harassment and sexual misconduct in the form of intimidation, would be allowed to finish out his semester after a one-day suspension. The university then contacted the victim to let her know the young man would remain a student on campus.
The woman reported that while she was filing a report of the incident, she was asked why she didn’t just run away from a 250-pound attacker.
Once again: What?
In Steubenville, Ohio, a local high school is attempting to reconcile after a scandal involving their high school football team. In March 2013, two football players were found guilty of raping, videotaping and then exploiting a young girl in August 2012.
One would assume that the media’s attention would go to the justice of a young woman, preyed upon while unconscious, but not in a rape culture. Instead the media focused on the heartaching scene in the courthouse, as the two young men became registered sex offenders before either turned 18.
The community’s response to this media uproar is less than desirable. A program created by United States Attorney William Ihlenfeld II is now underway in high schools across the country. “Project Future” aims to educate students on the dangers that their activity on social networking sites can have on their futures. Reading over the guidelines, you get the idea that the goal isn’t to prevent the crimes, but to prevent the spread of evidence of the crimes.
At first, that sign in Tigerland doesn’t seem to be more than a bar owner’s attempt to get on some drunk students’ Instagram accounts. But in a rape culture, it could only be a matter of time before a situation like Steubenville’s emerges in Baton Rouge.
LSU offers a wide range of resources for rape victims and rape prevention, including R.A.D. (Rape Aggression Defense), a class at the University Student Recreational Complex to train women and students in self defense.
There is no word yet on a mandatory “Don’t Rape” class.
Jana King is an 18-year-old women’s and gender studies sophomore from Ponchatoula, La.