SHANNON BAKER Contributing Writer
Colleges and universities are places of education. But when it comes to rape, they would rather avoid educating their students and are focused on blaming alcohol and the “party culture” for rape attacks of female students.
Stanford University has recently sided with a rapist that the reasoning for his actions were the result of alcohol and partying. Stanford believes that the best way to stop this type of behavior is to ban all hard alcohol from on-campus parties. Stanford said this is to limit high-risk behavior that comes from hard alcohol. Students are still allowed to consume beer, wine and anything that is under 20 percent alcohol by volume. Clearly, students are still able to become under the influence on their campus.
Brock Turner, a former Stanford swimmer, sexually assaulted a 22-year-old woman on January 18, 2015. The woman was found unconscious, in a fetal position behind a dumpster, with her dress pulled up and her underwear on the ground. Bystanders restrained him until he was taken by the police and arrested on charges of rape.
In 2016, Turner was convicted of three charges of felony sexual assault. This means Turner should have served 14 years in prison, but he has recently been released after only serving six months. Stanford is only cushioning the seriousness about this subject. Putting the blame on something other than the person themselves is exactly what a felon would want. There are several other ways colleges and universities can go about lowering the number of rape assaults each year. Students are not educated enough on the consequences, nor how to take precautions. Females are told to always travel in groups, keep an eye on their drinks and not to be in unfamiliar areas. This is common sense to most women today, but this isn’t the issue.
Girls should feel safe on their campus, they shouldn’t have to travel in groups and keep an eye on their drinks, but they are taught to because men are not being taught how to control their desires. It is so easy to put the blame on the victim in these situations. There are hundreds of ways to go about educating students more on the importance of this topic. The more Brock Turners we set free the, more of them there will be. The more we put the blame on something or someone else, the less aware everyone will be of the problem.
