Prior to beginning my freshman year at Pepperdine, I was well aware of what a dry campus policy entailed. I knew that any underage drinking was not only illegal by our national laws, but utterly unacceptable in the eyes of our administration. The average punishment for a first time infraction is a probationary period lasting anywhere from a couple months to a year, another mandatory alcohol awareness course (in addition to the required course we took as freshman), threats to take away abroad “privileges” (because mature adults need special permission to travel where the legal drinking age isn’t 21), a fee, and intimidating letters from the administration.
I understand that our school is a Church of Christ university that believes in certain moral standards. I understand that this was explicitly advertised and we all knew what we were signing up for when enrolling. The issue I have is our administration’s militant perpetuation of a fairytale culture where none of its students engage in any kind of illicit activity. The branding of the “good-ol, Christ-loving, hipster surfer” image Pepperdine loves to advertise, without acknowledging the more sinister threats lurking unaddressed in our castle on a hill.
As a post-NSO freshman, I was relieved and excited to begin the real college world of intense classes and sleep deprivation. Between the showing of a Lego movie, 6 A.M. camp-like wake-up calls, and an ice cream social, NSO left me questioning if I was in the right place at Pepperdine. This was where I was supposed to be maturing into a career-ready adult, yet I was being fed root beer and instructed to sing and dance in a seemingly mandatory musical. For the most part, I was okay with letting loose and having innocent fun with my classmates. I was not going to complain about free food coming at me from all sides. This illusion shattered, however, at our dorm’s first public safety briefing. The topic: Sexual Assault.
I walked into this meeting expecting to hear the anti-victim-shaming rhetoric I have been rallying behind for years. I was instead shocked at what several well-meaning Pepperdine staff members discussed with us. Our female residents were handed colorful, information filled flyers explaining Pepperdine’s zero-tolerance rules on sexual assault. So far so good. Then the meeting took a turn to discussing “rape prevention.” We were warned that consuming alcohol leads to poor choices. We were warned that, by being inebriated, we can’t properly defend ourselves. We were warned that majority of rapes on a college campus occur when alcohol is involved in the situation. They read us situations along the lines of, “Becky blacked out and wasn’t sure if she was raped, what should she do?” They might as well have simply blasted Jamie Foxx’s “Blame It,” followed by “Blurred Lines” and then left the information session at that.
These sessions weren’t strictly for female students, but the idea that it was our responsiblity as a woman to work to “prevent being raped” astonished me. Pepperdine was using its dry campus policy to shift the attention/guilt off of the rapist and onto alcohol. The first step in their Risk Reduction clearly states “Avoid intoxication or the use of recreational drugs. Being incapacitated, or being around those who are makes you more vulnerable to exploitation.”
I am not saying that alcohol plays no part in rape, because that would be ignorant. In fact, Studies show that “72-81% of cases in which a male rapes a female college student, the female is intoxicated" But for our school to use the complex issue of sexual abuse as their soap box to rail against the wicked, sinful evils of alcohol was discomforting.
As the statistics state, if you are a woman on a college campus you are 25% more at risk. And the most shocking number of all—90% of sexual violence goes unreported. As a campus, it is important to look at this statistic and what it means. How has our college created a culture where victims are too scared to approach administration to report abuse?
I believe the answer to this at Pepperdine is simple: administration pins the guilt onto the alcohol without focusing enough on the perpetrator who chose to rape. So while, sure, administration grants immunity from policy violations under Good Samaritan clause, it is not doing enough to encourage victims to feel safe enough to come forward.
Several instances over the past few years have opened my eyes to our culture of victim-silencing. A friend telling me how she was pressured into hooking up with someone when she was too intoxicated to disagree. Of course she’s not going to report what outsiders could see as “blurred lines.”Another friend awoke from passing out to someone trying to force himself on her.
When a college freshman begins her first week being told she should take steps to prevent being raped on or off campus, where will she find confidence to report an assault? When a female college student reads that an athlete raped an unconscious woman and got off with a slap on the wrist, where can she find confidence to come forward? When a college female student is taught she could’ve prevented the past by not drinking, where is her confidence to come forward? What examples of justice have we really seen that would give us any confidence?
In my international program, an issue of consent arose towards the end of the semester. I believe our visiting faculty handled it flawlessly by having a mandatory meeting with every male in the program to remind them that yes means yes and, even then, the other party has a total right to change his or her mind. He explained that consent should never be ambiguous. Instead of using the issue as yet another reminder of Pepperdine’s zero tolerance on alcohol, he focused on the actual issue at hand: a culture that still can’t seem to understand a woman’s right to her own body.
From what I have witnessed during my two years as a Pepperdine student, the administration’s approach to combat this culture is lacking if not absent. If our numbers are seemingly low it’s not an issue, right? Instead of working to understand why so many rapes go unreported and how to get to the root of the problem, the university uses it as another opportunity to propagandize the evils of alcohol. The administration should be doing more than teaching women to steer clear of punch bowls and use a buddy system. Rather than slap a bandage on the epidemic and discuss prevention, let’s cure it. Create a culture where students don’t fear administration. Create a culture where we know you are on our side.
Note: I wrote this specific article primarily focusing on females as a victim of rape. I fully understand that men, too, are victims of rape. I have read the statistics, personally know victims, and understand that their experience is just as serious as any other victim. I also know that (72%) of bisexual women have reported being sexually abused and I will be writing separate articles on similar issues as well. This one was simply to focus on the 20% of women who have been sexually abused by a man in their lives.
