Illustration: Patricia Lin
Throughout the summer, and especially since the Georgetown University Student Association and Georgetown’s administration reached a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on the topic last week, there’s been a lot of talk about Georgetown’s sexual assault policy and what it does—and doesn’t—do right. These are important discussions to have. Yet, in these conversations, few have mentioned the first exposure most first-years have to Georgetown’s sexual assault policy.
That exposure is Hoya RealTalk, the hour-and-a-half-long program within New Student Orientation (NSO) that discusses a myriad of issues at Georgetown. This program isn’t something you’d see on a tour or during GAAP weekend. Hoya RealTalk covers everyday problems many Hoyas will face—from partying-‘til-you-drop to locking yourself in Lau all night during midterms. It also covers the issue of sexual assault.
While, in theory, Hoya RealTalk is a productive way to introduce new Hoyas to resources and tactics to help them deal with and prevent sexual assault, the way it is executed undercuts the program’s potential to do good.
For me, NSO was long, emotional, and exhausting. Sunday, my second day on campus, was particularly taxing. We first-year students stood outside McDonough Arena in our Sunday-best for forty-five minutes before New Student Convocation. Then, we were promptly sent off to a farewell lunch with our families—the last time that many of us would see our loved ones until Thanksgiving or Winter Break. From those few hurried moments, we were immediately directed off to meetings with deans. And with that, in the span of a morning, we became fully-fledged college students, completely on our own, with schedules and convocation robes in our hands.
After all that, I needed a nap, some non-packaged food, and some time alone to recover. Instead, it was time for Hoya RealTalk, perhaps the most sensitive, important, and potentially difficult part of NSO—tacked onto the end of what was already a jam-packed day.
Bleary-eyed and a little shell-shocked, the other first-years and I rotated through Leo’s and Gaston Hall for dinner and the show. Hoya RealTalk was followed by a discussion, in which students were meant to openly discuss the sensitive issue of sexual assault with their orientation group, ten people they’d met yesterday and about a dozen others (another orientation group). Of course, little is actually said, because few people are comfortable discussing sexual assault with close friends, let alone strangers. To top it off, everybody is expected to do all this in a neat two-hour chunk of time, after which they’re off on their merry way to play ice-breaking games on the multi-sport field.
I don’t think that Hoya RealTalk is necessarily a bad thing. It’s not. Dialogues on tough issues must be kept open—an oft-repeated sentiment, but a true one nonetheless—and, of course, they have to be started somehow. The big problem with Hoya RealTalk and other efforts to broach weighty topics in condensed time spans like it is that they trick people—and universities—into thinking they’re all that’s needed. They are not.
A university can give its students a quick ten-minute lesson on consent, complete with several entertaining examples, but it cannot expect that to conclusively solve the problem of sexual assault. Hoya RealTalk is a good first step to approaching the topic on campus, but that’s all it is: a first step. It is all too easy for students to box it off as “some talk I had to sit through before I could hang out with my friends that night” or for a university to include a solitary lecture and pat itself on the back.
[pullquote]“A university can give its students a quick ten-minute lesson on consent, complete with several entertaining examples, but it cannot expect that to conclusively solve the problem of sexual assault.” [/pullquote]
So, then, what is the answer? A mandatory first-year seminar on rape culture? An educational online workshop that must be re-completed every semester? Maybe. But even if these work, they’re not the complete answer. The real answer is that Hoyas have to keep having these discussions about serious issues. These have to be the ever-present dialogues we have, because someone might not remember that someone told them during NSO that someone can’t consent when drunk. They’re much more likely to remember if they and a friend were just discussing it earlier that day.
Statistics on sexual assault are difficult to accurately collect, as it is a heavily underreported crime; according to the US Department of Justice, only around 20% of on-campus sexual assaults are reported. Still, the National Sexual Violence Research Center states that one in five women and one in sixteen men will be sexually assaulted during her or his time as an undergraduate. Really, though, this exact number isn’t important. Regardless of whether it is one in five or one in five-hundred, one is too many. If these survivors aren’t you or me, they’re our friends, our classmates, the people we stand behind in line at the salad bar. If we truly want to be Hoyas for others, we all need to actively work to change our campus and its attitude towards sexual assault and its survivors. We need to keep talking so survivors know they can get help, and where and how to find it. We need to keep talking so Georgetown hears us.
With the MOU, it seems Georgetown is taking steps further than Hoya RealTalk, and that’s a good thing. However, the MOU poses the same risk as Hoya RealTalk for the university. While it does set deadlines for policy implementation and coordinator-hiring, it doesn’t really change anything. Sure, it shows that the university is at least somewhat committed to solving the rampant problem of sexual assault, but that’s not enough. Just like Hoya RealTalk, the MOU can cause Georgetown to become complacent with respect to sexual assault.
What Georgetown needs is real change, and the MOU—just like Hoya RealTalk—is only one step toward that. We can’t let Georgetown continue to move slowly toward reform; we have to push for faster, greater change for those of us who will survive sexual assault during our four years on the Hilltop.
If there’s one thing that should never be NSO-ver, it’s the sexual assault dialogue and our role in changing our campus’s attitude toward it. So, Hoyas, let’s keep talking.
Rachel Coleman is a freshman in the College.
Rachel, darling, rape culture doesn’t exist except in the minds of crazy feminists. Georgetown is incredibly safe.