Sexual Assault Awareness week ended six days ago, and it is important to make sure that campus awareness can be directed to positive ends. The Dartmouth applauds those individuals who worked to spread messages of healing and prevention throughout the community, and now it wishes to encourage a continuation of the dialogue. On the Dartmouth campus, sexual assault rates high on the dual scales of severity and prevalence, relative to other crimes.
While sexual assault programming is necessary and beneficial, alone it is not enough. Fighting sexual assault is a project of staggering ambition, and it necessitates that each individual remain vigilant about living a culture of prevention. The immensity of this undertaking means that we need to build on the progress that has already been made and work quickly, but it also means realizing that our ultimate goal may lie in the distant future. And between now and then, we need to develop strategies to provide immediate protection.
This leaves us with a difficult question: What can we do to augment our current efforts to prevent sexual assault? As an academic institution, Dartmouth can play a leading role in fighting sexual assault. It should be proactive, and its measures should be able to produce tangible, short-term results.
We believe the College should engage in a discussion to consider making completion of Rape Aggression Defense, or a similar self-defense course, mandatory for graduation. According to a study in The American Journal of Epidemiology, defensive behavior on the part of assaulted women decreases the likelihood of injury. While a school-wide mandate seems a drastic measure, it has precedent. Recall that only under extraordinary circumstances may a student graduate without passing a swim test. The RAD course, for example, costs an average of $25 and takes as little as nine hours. It can be administrated through the current Physical Education credit requirement structure, and funding that would otherwise be directed toward funding a PE class could be redirected toward a rape prevention class. Safety and Security already coordinates the program on campus, and it is available to Dartmouth students.
Two important objections to such an initiative come to mind. The first is that RAD is offered exclusively to women. Therefore, we would need to find a suitable class for male students that could produce similarly tangible results. The requirement for male students should aim to achieve the same sort of immediate result that defense classes offer. The College should work to select a program that achieves these ends, and the entire campus should play a role in its selection and development.
The second problem is a more fundamental one. Does mandating RAD, or a similar course, shift the blame to women and unfairly burden the victim? This is a difficult question, especially with respect to sexual assault. It is imperative for society to recognize that sexual assault has no excuse, that the aggressor is always wrong and that the victim bears no responsibility. Keeping this in mind, mandating a preventive class for the entire student body ought not be viewed as a "punishment." Locking doors, walking in groups at night and other preventative steps are already suggested by College officials and the police, and all involve potential victims adopting tactics to avoid being victimized. This is not because some behavior is "inviting" sexual assault, but that alternate behavior can help prevent it in the first place. Women should not have to singularly bear the burden, but since sexual assault frequently occurs in private, self-defense should be one layer of prevention. Perhaps, even, a defense class can be developed in which both men and women can participate.
We hope that our suggestion starts a community-wide discussion and that ideas are suggested and critiqued. Mobilizing the campus will help in the search for strategies. Sexual assault is an important campus problem, but it can be fought. We should continually, and relentlessly, search for new ways to do so.
