Intro:
American students in their final year of high school are in the process of finding out which colleges have accepted their applications, and deciding which one they'll attend. But a new study shows the number of forcible sex crimes reported on U.S. college and university campuses more than doubled to 5,000 between 2001 and 2013. Now groups wanting to raise awareness of the issue are using the occasion to hold colleges accountable. Our correspondent Lorna Shaddick reports.
IN: [Delighted screams - UPSOT of Unacceptable Acceptance letter video]
OUT: SOC
DUR: 2.30
http://www.fsnradionews.com/feeds/0506assault-ls-air.mp3
http://www.fsnradionews.com/feeds/0506assault-ls-arn.mp3
http://www.fsnradionews.com/feeds/0506assault-ls-generic.mp3
http://www.fsnradionews.com/feeds/0506assault-ls-icrt.mp3
http://www.fsnradionews.com/feeds/0506assault-ls-von.mp3
http://www.fsnradionews.com/feeds/0506assault-ls-rnz.mp3
http://www.fsnradionews.com/feeds/0506assault-ls-vat.mp3
http://www.fsnradionews.com/feeds/0506assault-ls-ziz.mp3
http://www.fsnradionews.com/feeds/0506assault-ls-938.mp3
Script:
UPSOT- The Unacceptable Acceptance Letters, don'tacceptrape.com
I got in! (Screams of delight) Dear Ms… congratulations, you have been accepted to the class of 2021!... Prepare for a challenging year ahead… Which includes losing your virginity to a rapist……
Unacceptable Acceptance Letters - this video, made by an LA ad agency and a women's rights group, aims to hold colleges accountable for their treatment of rape on campus.
Brandee Blocker studies at Columbia University, an Ivy League school in New York, and says treatment of assault survivors can leave a lot to be desired.
SOT - Brandee Blocker, Columbia Student
Last semester I was sexually assaulted by one of my classmates. I spoke to a staff advocate from the sexual violence response centre. Rather than helping me to navigate the counselling and psychological services, she steered me towards the chaplain's office and she really emphasised I should go there instead, out of racial solidarity.
Brandee's not the first to express distaste at Columbia's reaction to student assaults. For her senior art thesis in 2015, Emma Sulkowitz carried a dorm mattress across campus for months, when the university didn't expel her alleged rapist.
Standup at NYU
Some estimates show that as many as one in five women are assaulted during their college years. Here at NYU, another top New York school, students say it's clear the university is trying to improve its approach to the issue.
VOXES
Alex Abarca
I would say recently NYU has been pretty diligent about sending us emails and trying to have an open conversation about things of this sort.
Carly Tennes
When you come to NYU, you have to take a course, that basically you go through and you learn about what consent is, what consent is not.
UPSOT Biden and celebrities: "It's on us, all of us, to stop sexual assault..."
There's such concern about the issue that the Vice President's taken up the cause, using a new video campaign and a multi-campus tour to encourage students to intervene when they know consent hasn't been given. Activists say that's one good way of helping but more needs to be done - here's Mahroh Jahangiri from the student sexual assault awareness group Know Your IX:
SOT -Mahroh Jahangiri, Know Your IX (Student Sexual Assault Activist Group)
Three of the policies that we're really fighting for is transparency, encouraging survivors to come forward and report and also providing resources to stay in school. // New York state for example passed an amnesty policy which means survivors can come forward and report rape without being kicked out of school for, like, an alcohol violation.
A new study says reports of campus sex crimes went up by nearly a thousand from 2012 to 2013 - partly thanks to better reporting of offences. That, experts say, implies the culture of silence is finally starting to break. Lorna Shaddick, New York.