Students haven’t been at Georgetown for a week before receiving the first e-mail alerting them about a recent sexual assault. The details of the incident are eerily similar to the twelve previous assaults on Georgetown students in the past twenty months: a man climbs into bed with the victim in the early hours of the morning. She awakens, and the suspect exits. Two days later, a second e-mail arrived in students’ inboxes bearing more bad news: a student in Village A awoke at 4:20 a.m. on Tuesday to find a man digitally penetrating her. She screamed and he fled. Another female student was pushed to the ground and pinned by a man at 5:15 a.m. the same morning, near the intersection of 34th St. NW and Volta Place.
To call this string of sexual assaults alarming understates the troubling nature of the crimes. The Metropolitan Police Department believes the incidents that have occurred within the student residences to be related, but with little description of each attacker beyond vague physical characteristics, there are few leads that might lead to apprehension of the attacker or attackers.
So what can be done? Georgetown students should take normal precautions—locking their doors and windows, traveling in groups at night, using SafeRides—and, come mid-October, female students should enroll in the Rape Aggression Defense (RAD) program, a self-defense course that will be offered for the first time at Georgetown this fall.
The Department of Public Safety, in conjunction with the Women’s Center, the University’s Human Resources Department, and several other on-campus groups, has finally succeeded in securing funding for the program, first announced by DPS last fall and scheduled to begin the middle of next month.
RAD, the country’s preeminent self-defense program, teaches women physical defensive methods and instructs them about risk reduction, awareness, avoidance, and recognition, and should be especially advantageous for Georgetown students in light of the recent assaults. As an added benefit, counselors from the Sexual Assault Coordinator’s Office and Women’s Center will kick off each class.
DPS has secured funding for four certified instructors to lead the classes. Hopefully after this fall, the University will commit to making it a permanent offering on campus.
DPS has yet to announce the dates of the classes and details pertaining to how many students and employees will be able to take the course. Students interested in signing up (as there will be a limited number of spots available) can email join-rad@georgetown.edu or look for a more detailed announcement in the coming weeks.
