How Ithaca College is addressing sexual assault – July 10th, 2015

On July 10th, Emma Rizzo and Faith Meckley sat down for a live, in-studio interview with Andrew Kosinuk, the college's crime prevention and community events liaison. Kosinuk is coordinator of the Rape Aggression Defense Program being offered at Ithaca College to teach self-defense to those who identify as female.

You can listen to the full interview here:

Background

Preventing rape and other forms of sexual assault at colleges has become a hot topic, especially since the Obama administration launched the "It's On Us" campaign in September of 2014, which the White House describes as "an awareness campaign to help put an end to sexual assault on college campuses."

In December of 2014, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced that all SUNY schools adopted a uniform sexual assault policy for all campuses. The policy defined consent as an affirmative, voluntary agreement between all participants.

"Consent is active, not passive," the policy says. "Silence or lack of resistance cannot be interpreted as consent."

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According to the Cleveland Rape Crisis Center, one in four college-age women will be the victim of sexual assault during her academic career. The United States Department of Justice estimates that almost 25 percent of college women have been victims of rape or attempted rape since the age of 14.

According to the White House Council on Women and Girls, only 13 percent of students who are sexually assaulted report the crime to authorities. Also, according to Justice Department statistics, only 32 percent of rapes are reported to the police.

Ithaca College and RAD

The New York State campus crime database shows that Ithaca College had ten reported forcible sex offenses between 2009 and 2013.

The national Rape Aggression Defense program, or RAD, was designed to combat sexual assault statistics. According to the RAD website, RAD, quote, “balances the needs of women to acquire self defense education in a relatively short period of time, with the life long commitment required for physical mastery.” The RAD program has trained more than 900-thousand women since the program began in 1989.

Now, the program is returning to Ithaca College after a hiatus, following the launch of the college’s Sexual Harassment and Assault Response and Education program, or SHARE in Fall 2014. This summer’s incoming students will be the first to receive a required orientation session on sexual harassment and assault prevention since the launch of SHARE.

According to the Ithaca College website, the training includes interactive discussion around sexual violence; consent; crime reporting and disclosure; confidential, private and third party reporting; victim’s rights, bystander intervention; and multiple prevention strategies.

Addressing Student Concerns

At the initial announcement of the program, criticism was received from the student population, particularly in regards to the women-only program putting the responsibility of preventing rape on the victim rather than the aggressor and the community at large. In the interview, Rizzo and Meckley specifically reference on student's concerns about the program. The comments from Kyle James, incoming vice president of academic affairs for the Student Government Association, are as follows:

Ithaca College responded to the feedback from students six days later in a follow up post.  The post reminded students that the R.A.D. program was not the only thing the college was doing to educate about and prevent sexual assault, referencing the new SHARE program. Kosinuck also addressed this in the interview with Rizzo and Meckley.

"Well, we actually really valued seeing that feedback," Kosinuk said. "The questions that were raised were completely valued. I think what's important to understand is that if any college or university were to offer something like RAD or any other self defense program as their sole response to issues of sexual violence on a campus, that would be hugely inappropriate and totally inadequate ... So that's why I think something like R.A.D. or a self defense education program, it has to be one complementary piece of a broader more comprehensive program."

The Class of 2019 will be the first class to receive mandatory consensual sex and sexual assault education and training at their summer orientations under the college's SHARE program.

Another concern brought up by James and other students was sexual violence in the LGBTQ community, particularly transgender people. The National Center for Lesbian Rights reports high rates of sexual violence in the LGBTQ community:

According to the NCLR website, approximately 1 in 8 lesbian women and nearly half of bisexual women experience rape in their lifetime, and nearly half of bisexual men and four in ten gay men have experienced sexual violence other than rape in their lifetime. A staggering 64% of transgender people have experienced sexual assault in their lifetime.

RAD has specific branding guidelines, including targeting the self defense program specifically at those who identify as women, Kosinuk said. Programs at Ithaca College, however, could develop to accommodate a more diverse audience, including transgender individuals. Such programs are currently being discussed, he said.

"I think the answer is that we can take components of self-defense education, including some of what RAD teaches and bring that to other audiences in other kinds of self defense instruction," Kosinuk said.