Dartmouth is supposedly a pretty safe campus. I have a friend who feels comfortable leaving her backpack (with her laptop, textbooks and other expensive items) in Baker Berry Library or even Collis for hours on end. I myself feel fine walking home from the library late at night despite the unreliable streetlights that often turn off while I walk past them. I hear many people talk about how lucky we are to be at such a safe school. But is Dartmouth really so much safer than other schools? While I acknowledge that extreme paranoia isn’t positive and feeling safe should be a top priority, it’s a good idea to evaluate why we feel safer here compared to students at other college campuses.
The idea that we live on a safe campus implies that we worry less about college crimes that other students may feel concerned about — theft, sexual assault, etc. One of my high school friends, for example, goes to a large public university in a supposedly “unsafe” city. She talks about the homeless people on the streets and not wanting to be out late. Perhaps the perception that Dartmouth is a safe campus has something to do with its location. After all, most people have a stereotypical idea of what a criminal may look like or where they are more likely to be found — a stereotype that tends to be gendered and racially or socioeconomically problematic. Groups concerned with sexual assault outline very similar myths and dispel them with the facts. These myths include the idea that rape is only committed by hidden strangers in alleyways not top students at an elite institution in a well-to-do town. The presumption is that people here know how to behave.
Then, there is the case of Owen Labrie — an Ivy-League-bound New Hampshire boarding school student who was convicted of sexually assaulting a 16 year-old-girl during his “senior salute,” a tradition where older students pursue younger students for romantic encounters. “The case has already raised uncomfortable questions about the connection between privilege and sexual assault, and between sexual assault in American colleges and in high schools,” Jess Bidgood and Motoko Rich wrote in their August article in the New York Times. In fact, his defense lawyer called his client “an intelligent student” who was deeply respected on campus with plans to study divinity, implying that Labrie is either incapable or excused of his alleged misconduct because of his intelligence, respect and devoutness. We assume that the “elite,” whether economically or in academia, are less likely to commit crimes, neglecting to take into account the culture of privilege and entitlement (including to sex) that often pervades campuses like ours.
Society teaches girls not to stride down dark alleyways in “urban” areas because they presume that assaulters are always strangers lurking in impoverished neighborhoods. The police stop African-Americans and Latinos more often than Caucasians, which hints at some unsettling implications about our perception of crime. The problem with these generalizations is that they teach that the potential victim is solely responsible for ensuring that they don’t get assaulted, rather than focusing the blame where it truly lies, on the assailant. They perpetuate the idea that the victim is to blame, not the assaulter, because victims are “asking for it.” Secondly, we are led to believe stereotypes about perpetrators. This includes racial and economic profiling. Not only are perpetrator generalizations harmful to victims, but they also lead to prejudiced ideas about the face of a criminal which may lead to prejudiced sentences due to profiling. Finally, it lulls us into a false sense of security, or at least a very misconstrued sense of safety. Again, feeling safe is generally good, but I feel that these ideas of safety are built up for the wrong reasons. We should enjoy a sense of security because we form healthy relationships and engage in meaningful conversations. We should enjoy a sense of security because we respect each other. We should not feel safe simply because of the reasons Labrie’s defense attorney listed. Well-bred academics and respected students do not automatically have a better moral compass because of their intellect or where they come from.
