By: Sam Levy

When I was younger, my dad told me that I was strong. I believed him.

I believed it so completely, that I felt untouchable.

I remember wandering streets with my best friends, a group of five girls I’ve been with for years, and having two of my friends desperately grasping for my hands every time they saw a stranger in the dark. I remember telling them that I would protect them, whatever that means. That I would beat up anyone that tried to hurt them, I never understood why they were so scared.

Like so many other teenagers, I had the “never me” mentality. I thought sexual assault was a rarity that only happened in really awful neighborhoods.

It wasn’t until I saw The Hunting Ground last year that I realized how common it was. Rapists aren’t people in dark clothes lurking around sketchy street corners. Rapists, to many of the women in the movie, were friends, colleges, and people they saw as “good.”

That realization made me feel helpless. If rapists weren’t some identifiable enemy, there was no way I could fight them off.

One in five college women will be sexual assaulted. One in five of my best friends could be sexually assaulted. And there seemed to be nothing I could do. I can’t follow each and everyone of them off to college and be their personal bodyguards, they are going to have to be on their own.

But we can not feel powerless. Instead, we need to feel motivated to change the system.

College administrations need to see their students through eyes of people like me, as someone’s best friend and as living people. It seems like many colleges have ventured more into the business model rather than the education model. Students are what colleges are inevitably here for and if colleges continue to see their students solely through a money and branding lense, they are not doing their job. Their job is to supply a healthy learning environment to enrich future minds. This environment will not be possible if there is a continuation of ignorance around sexual assault on campus. This is not something to be swept under the rug to ensure some fabricated safety statistic.

Something has to be done, culture has to change. We need to be the implementers of a new objective: one in which personal value is not determined by sexual conquest, and one in which human respect is not pushed aside in order to achieve a sense of glory. Value must also be placed upon human beings before the welfare of corporate institutions. How do we do this? Discussion.

Strength is in action. It is in taking the step from bystander to advocate. Speak out about sexual assault. Address concerns. Ask questions. This is not a topic we can stay quiet about any longer.