Kendall Newton
Selene Mendoza
ENGL 102
6 December 2022
The Raw Truth About College Campuses
On Friday August 19th 2022, 2,700 Freshman students were dropped off at Coastal
Carolina University by their parents. Within this group of Freshman, according to Teen Vogue,
every 1 in 5 Females and every 1 in 16 of these Males on a college campus will be sexually
assaulted by the time they graduate (Ilana, para.7). This is not specific to just Coastal Carolina;
all college students are at risk. This is a very triggering and uncomfortable statement, but that is
reality. These parents are dropping off their kids at college for them to get an education and get a
degree, but at what cost? It should not be dangerous to go to college, you should not have to live
in fear of being assaulted just to get a degree. This strikes the conversation of how to stop sexual
assault on college campuses. While the obvious solution to this issue would be to get rid of all
the assaulters, it is not that simple. Protocols such as holding Greek life on campuses
accountable, dealing with the lack of Sex-education that is taught in schools, and handling the
alcohol problem on college campuses, need to be put in place and talked about. Although there
are many varying viewpoints to these conversations and all different opinions need to be
considered, the end goal is always the same, to put an end to sexual assault on college campuses.
To begin, the main conversation that is always brought to the table when talking about
sexual assault on college campuses, is Greek life. Fraternities and Sororities are accountable for
most of the sexual assaults on campuses. Madeline Gaeta, a woman who is a part of the Students
[Last Name] 2
4 Social Change movement and also a college student herself when she wrote this article stated
that, “Women in sororities are 74% more likely to experience sexual assault on a college campus
than women who are not involved in Greek life. Fraternity men are 3 times more likely to
commit rape than their non-Greek peers” (Gaeta, Para.2). This is why this conversation
surrounding banning Greek life on college campuses is so widespread. Greek life is making up
majority of these sexual assault cases. Columnist Jean Guerrero wrote a column for the Los
Angeles Times also touching on this subject and the toxicity involved in Greek life. Jean
Guerrero has also been seen writing for Vanity Fair, The New York Times, The Washington Post
and “Best American Essays 2019”. Jean Gerrero has experience writing about these topics and is
a very credible author. In this specific column she wrote titled, “Fraternities are incubators of
sexual assault and other violence”, she speaks of her own stories and other’s stories of their
experiences at Fraternities and the privilege that lives inside these fraternity houses. A few
examples that she mentions in her column of the privileges that these men have, includes being
able to choose who attends the parties. Fraternity men stand at the door and choose which girls
they want to allow into the party, Soley based off of their looks. While as these points deem to be
convincing author Blaize Stweart offers an opposing argument to Jean Guerrero’s in his article,
“Fraternities Should Not Be Blamed for the Campus Sexual Assault Problem”. As you can tell
by Stewert's article title, he does not think that fraternities and Greek life should be taking the
blame for sexual assaults on campus. Blaize Stewart was also in a fraternity when he was in
college, and he became worried that people would see his Greek letters and assume bad things
about him. Stewart brings up the counter argument that sexual assault is not just a Greek
problem; it is a campus problem (Stewart, para.5). Stewart brings in an example from the
Guardian that says, “reasons fraternity men are more likely to commit rape, which are not
[Last Name] 3
exclusive to Greek life. Having parties and consuming alcohol are considered to be part of why
fraternity men are at a higher risk to commit sexual assault” (Stewart, para.7). So, whereas Jean
Guerrero was placing the blame on Greek life, Blaize Stewart raises the conversation that alcohol
and partying is the reason these numbers are so high. Stweart goes on to talk about how people
are just making Greek life the scape goat and, “Simply blaming fraternities is a lazy, sad attempt
to address the issue of sexual assault” (Stewart, para.14). However, Guerrero believes that.
“Failing to recognize the deep-rooted, systemic nature of rape culture in the Greek system allows
it to continue hurting people” (Guerrero, para.11). Jean Guerreo makes a solid point that whether
you think Greek life should take all the blame for sexual assault or not, the statistics do not lie,
and ignoring them like Stweart is doing enables them to grow higher. Greek life does not account
for 100% of the sexual assaults on college campuses, but it does account for enough for change
to need to be seen.
Another issue that can possibly take accountability for the sexual assault on college
campuses, is the lack of sex-education that is being taught in schools. Conversations around this
topic have become more popular in the past years, the debate whether there needs to be better sex
education in schools, or whether there shouldn’t be any at all. Kari Paul published an article in
2018 titled, “To prevent sexual assault, start with teaching more about sex” where she talks about
the dire need there is for more sex education in schools involving consent. Her opening line for
this article addresses that, “The U.S. government spends $85 million a year on programs that do
not even address consent” (Paul, para.1). She starts off with that very first bold statement talking
about the lack of consent that is going on in these sex education classes that so much money is
being put into. A lot of schools in the United States do not even have sex education classes and
now most of the ones that do, do not teach how to conduct it safely she is saying. To correlate to
[Last Name] 4
the issue of sexual assault, Kari Paul states, “Undergraduate women who took sexual education
classes before college were half as likely to be sexually assaulted in college, according to a
recent study by Columbia University, compared to undergraduate students who received
abstinence-only education and saw no reduction in rates of assault” (Paul, para.3). This goes to
show that students who are going into college and were never educated about consent are much
more likely to be assaulted. If these sexual education classes were to have been more informing
and talked more about the importance of consent, then Kari Paul thinks that these numbers would
lower. Whereas author Cullen Herout a pro-life pro-family writer in his article titled, “Obviously,
Sex Education Should Not Be Taught In Schools”, does not believe that sex education is
important in schools. Instead, Cullen Herout thinks that if you send your kid to a sex education
class, he or she will be brainwashed with sexual perversion (Herout, para.13). These two authors
are offering completely polarizing opinions on this topic. Herout claims that “my idea of
education includes reading, writing, math, language, spelling, and science. It does not involve
learning about liberal constructs such as gender fluidity and various sexual orientations” (Herout,
para.14). Herout’s article was written in 2016 which was near the start of conversation about
bringing LGBTQ+ sex -education into schools. Herout's writing can be seen using Kairos
because when he wrote it, he was considering what was going on around him, and his opinion is
still relevant today talking about various sexual orientations and gender fluidity. Herout’s article
seems to be a lot more opinion based and less credible because he keeps involving politics
instead of looking at the real issue that this is causing; sexual assault. Herout chooses to ignore
the position that Paul is providing in her article that sex education is more than sex and STD’s, it
is important to learn about consent. Unlike Stweart and Guerrero, Paul and Herout do not seem
to have any sort of common ground on this topic. By using statistics and examples Kari Paul
[Last Name] 5
makes a better point about sex-education and the changes that need to be made. Keri Paul cares
about these college students that are being sexually assaulted and knows that more talk about
consent can fix it.
Lastly but defiantly not least important, another possible solution to fix sexual assault on
college campuses is to control the alcohol problem. This conversation is talked about so often
because according to The American Addiction Centers, “At least 50 percent of sexual assaults
involve alcohol” (Editorial Staff, para. 13). This is an alarmingly high number of sexual assaults
that are involving alcohol, that is why this conversation is so debated upon. Looking at what else
the Editorial Staff of American Addiction Centers has to say about this, they also note that when
students go off to college it is their time to experiment with alcohol and sex, and that sometimes
those two do not mix. They start off by stating that, “One common place where sexual assault
frequently occurs is at college and university campuses, and alcohol plays a major role in this
type of sexual assault” (Editorial Staff, para.1). They are acknowledging the correlation between
sexual assault and alcohol and how dangerous they can be. A topic the Editorial Staff also brings
up is the issue with date rape drugs, which tend to be slipped into women's drinks when drinking
alcohol. They go on to say that even though women need to watch and cover their drinks from
date rape drugs, they also need to be aware that the alcohol in their hand can put them at risk too
(Editorial Staff, para.20). The other side of this conversation also upholds a very good argument
that alcohol is not the issue, rapists are. Lauren Taylor and Jessican Raven speak about this in
their article titled, “Alcohol isn't the cause of campus sexual assault. Men are.”. That is a very
intense title to name their article and it claims a lot, however they are able to back this all up in
their texts. Taylor and Raven say that men who are likely to commit sexual assault will do it
either way, if they are drunk or sober (Taylor,Raven,para.4). They further go on to express that
[Last Name] 6
men who commit sexual assault sober and men who commit sexual assault drunk tend to have a
lot of characteristics and traits that are similar. Taylor and Raven can come to an agreement with
the Editorial Staff of American Addiction Center that alcohol does serve a problem in sexual
assault, however Taylor and Raven say that the issue is that alcohol just makes it easier to
overpower drunk targets (Taylor, Raven,para.6). So, although these two authors can come to an
agreement on the issue of alcohol, there is a difference in who these people are putting the blame
on. Taylor and Raven make a very good argument for their position, whether alcohol is involved
or not, these assaults are still happening, and these men are just using alcohol to their advantage.
The Editroial Staff carries a very good argument too, because at the end of the day women must
look out for themselves, it would be easier to just ban the assaulters but that is not the case. The
Editorial Staff does a good job at explaining that, if alcohol were to be more controlled on
college campuses these high numbers could possibly decrease and men would not be able to use
the excuse of being, “drunk”. Another viewpoint that should be consiered is from Katherine
Lorenz who wrote Volume 31 of the book??. “Aggression and and violent behavior”, in this
section of the book she speaks about findings and research related to sexual assault and alcohol.
The countering viewpoint that Lorenz follows goes along with both sources that were discussed
above, but takes a different approach. Lorenz found in her research that alcohol is indeed a major
factor in sexual assauts, and especially college women. However, she looks at the viewpoint of
the women. Instead of focusing on the faults of these men being assaulters like Taylor and Raven
were doing, Lorenz focuses more on how the women are at stake. Katherine Lorenz states in her
work that, “Alcohol use may place women at increased vulnerability for assault due to the
combination of physcologial effects of alcohol and risky situations that involve motivated
perpetrators” ( Lorenz, para.6). So she is looking more at the fact that women are more
[Last Name] 7
vulnerable when they drink, whereas Taylor and Raven were raising a point that men are more
dangerous when they drink. Lorenz is more so saying that when women are intoxicated they are
also putting themselves in harms way. In hindsight these viewpints can both go together and
agree that alcohol is a big leading factor in this whole situation.
In light of all of this information, and the many different viewpoints discussed, for the
most part the end goal is the same. Sexual assault on college campuses is an issue and has been
an issue and needs to be brought to light. By offering and allowing to look at all different
solutions and opinions it gets the conversation moving on to what steps to take next. In
conclusion, if Greek life were to take accountability for their faults, sex-education were to be
taken more seriously and alcohol were to be more controlled on college campuses, then these
colleges might start to see a change. These solutions might all be hypothetical, but there is
evidence to back them up and these discussions get the conversation flowing. Although
everybody might not agree or know how to stop this issue, some conversation is better than none.
It is about time people start talking about the raw truth on college campuses.
[Last Name] 8
[Last Name] 9
