An Honest Message to SLU Men During Purple Week

Every year I wonder if this event is working. I’ve watched five Take Back the Nights now, and I’ve spoken at one. I’ve helped coordinate the event, reached out to speakers, written my own speech, sat in the chapel and tried not to cry, and then cried, hearing my friends and classmates tell some of the most horrible stories I’ve ever heard. 

But still, every year, there are more speakers. This is beautiful because it means people feel comfortable enough to tell their stories and speak out, but terrifying because it reminds me that almost every woman I know has a story. That’s not to say that men and gender non-conforming people aren’t survivors of sexual assault, but that the majority of stories we usually hear at Take Back the Night come from women. Every year hundreds of students attend TBTN and listen to their classmates’ stories (limited this year due to COVID), and still every year more students reach out to us wanting to share their experiences. We have ten speakers this year—the most we’ve ever had in my SLU tenure–who are comfortable enough to stand in front of their classmates and tell their stories, and have done so bravely. But how many more stories are walking around this campus every day? How many people on this campus have sexually assaulted another person and continue to go to Dana, take classes, and party on the weekends as if nothing happened? And if you think there are not perpetrators of assault on this campus, think again. I’ve been through the Title IX process at SLU, and not only was the student who sexually assaulted me allowed to walk at graduation and attend Senior Week, they also faced little to no repercussions in four other cases brought against them. 

I say this not to scare people, especially women and LGBTQIA people on campus, but to remind students that we have a responsibility to hold this school accountable for its disgusting refusal to hold perpetrators of sexual assault responsible. I direct this message especially at the men of St. Lawrence, because as we know, ninety percent of sexual violence against women is done by men. And yet, while many men on this campus are allies of women and LGBTQIA folks, there are always more women than men at Take Back the Night. Men on this campus continue to support friends who they know have sexually assaulted women, who have Title IX cases brought against them, and who are even (in the rarest of cases) expelled from the University. Unfortunately, men, specifically upper- to middle-class white men, are in the dominant position at St. Lawrence. This school has not listened to women through the Title IX process, has not made any significant efforts to counter the horrible updates to the Title IX system imposed by the Trump administration that have only made a bad situation worse, and continue to protect rich white boys who rape girls. This is unacceptable, and I wish the cards fell differently, but the men on this campus need to care about sexual assault as much as the women do. They must. The same type of guy that’s usually protected by the University even after they have stripped a woman of her equitable right to an education without discrimination need to start banging down the doors of the University’s leaders. If you speak, they will listen. We’ve been yelling for decades, and they continue to slam those doors in our faces. 

Don’t do this to protect women. Don’t say that perpetrators of sexual assault should be held accountable because, if your mother or sister were ever raped, you don’t know what you would do (someone shouldn’t have to be your sister or mother to deserve basic human respect). Call your guy friends out for being creepy, go to the administration to demand they take action against the absurd amount of assault that occurs on this campus, and start showing up as an ally because when you are in a position of power, it is the right thing to do to help people who have less power than you.