They point to an increase in reported sexual assaults in some cases and, in others, concerns about a lack of adequate response by police and university officials. “Both the freshman and sophomore classes are coming in for the first time and really haven’t been exposed to this new way of learning and formulating new friendship groups and trying to just figure out their way, especially in terms of living on campus for the first time on their own, away from their parents or guardians.”Īlthough comprehensive statistics aren’t available for this year and sexual assaults in college communities are notoriously undercounted, administrators, students and activists at many major universities - including University of Colorado Boulder, the University of Southern California and Penn State - have been raising alarms about sexual assault since campus life returned closer to pre-pandemic levels this fall. “Now that we have both of those classes coming in together, there’s this exacerbation of the red zone,” said Kenyora Parham, EROC’s executive director. WATCH: What the Trump administration’s Title IX changes mean for survivors and the accused The group End Rape on Campus (EROC) called this a “double red zone.” ![]() New students unfamiliar with campus life are especially at risk of assault, and because the pandemic disrupted last school year, two classes of students found themselves on campus for the first time this fall at many universities. And at Indiana University, school police have been investigating more than two dozen sexual assault cases on the flagship Bloomington campus this semester - more than the total number of sexual assaults reported each of the past three years.Įven before students returned to campus, advocacy groups were expressing heightened concern about the “ red zone,” the period from August to late November when roughly 50 percent of sexual assaults occur at colleges during any given year. At the University of North Carolina, one individual was linked to three sexual assaults in as many months this fall. 2, 2021.Īt Virginia Tech, four sexual assaults were reported in one November week. It’s between 2 and 10 percent, which is the same as false reporting for other crimes.This article was originally published by The 19th on Dec.
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