Sexual Harassment In Colleges

Going to college is a fun and exciting time in your life, but there are some potential dangers existing on college campuses that students may not be prepared for. One of these dangers is sexual harassment. According to the huffingtonpost.com, “Around 1 in 5 women may experience sexual assault at college”. This particular statistic doesn’t address the fact that men are also in danger of sexual harassment, and while the number of men being subjected to sexual harassment it does indeed occur. There are a variety of ways universities respond to sexual harassment addressing the victim, perpetrator and community.

The Kansas University policy library defines sexual harassment as behavior including physical contact, advances and comments in person,

One way colleges address sexual harassment is by encouraging students to report it. People assume that all victims will come forward and report sexual harassment, but that is not true. The number of students who do come forward is less than 10 percent. (Hill 2) This is a shockingly small amount of students that actually report their sexual harassment experience. Colleges can not help victims that don’t speak out about their sexual harassment. This is why many universities are now encouraging victims to come

One way campuses deal with sexual harassment is university hearings. University hearings involve the accused, accuser and a jury made up of the dean, teachers and students. In the article Two Ways to Fix How Colleges Respond to Sexual Assault by Caroline Kitchener, she states, “In a university hearing, witnesses were allowed to bring in a lot more evidence. That evidence could be damaging. At UNH, sometimes we didn’t want to do a university case because it might compromise the civil case.” University hearings can be a great advantage in many ways, but also a terrible disadvantage. One disadvantage is the accused is able to present character witnesses that are allowed to bring up issues such as a history of drinking or sexual habits. This can also go the other way. The victim could bring in their own witness to condemn the accused. Many may argue the evidence condemns the accused when the evidence should have never made it to the courtroom. The evidence brought to the surface can define if the act was really sexual harassment or consensual. Either way this is one process that the college have adopted to handle the