About Last Night: How HBCU Students are Addressing Sexual Assault on Campus

hi this is Monica Lopez before we get to our podcast I want to let you know that making contact is supported mostly by our listeners we're nonprofit Shop with a small yet Mighty team in other words a little goes a long way for us and a little more goes a lot longer so if you can please go to our website radio.org and make a tax deductible donation thanks and here's the show if every little thing that you did made a difference would you do things a little different this is making contact a program that informs inspires and moves people to take action now is the time to pass this bill would you believe me if I told you you're the reason we are here would it be meaning to your breathing if your exhale made the air college students around the country are entering a new school year what awaits them are new classes new students and hopefully new approaches to Old problems some students at several prominent historically black colleges and universities or HBCU as we call them have asked School administrators to address sexual assault differently last year student protests at morouse College Spelman College Hampton University and Howard University aimed to highlight inadequacies in the way sexual assault and rape cases are handled we're focusing on HBCU because out of the nearly 5,000 colleges that exist in the US just over a hundred are categorized as historically black students at these schools whom are predominantly black tend to under report sexual violence and are often not included in National conversations about it we're interested in amplifying their voices and their particular take on the issue with us today are a few current and former HBCU students who have a few things to say about the way sexual assault plays out at HBCU and how to make campus safer for everyone let's do some quick introductions I'm Amos Jackson II I'm a senior at Howard University I'm the SGA president there and I'm a member of alpha F Alpha fraternity incorporate I'm Kyla Wright I'm a singer as well journalism major at Hampton University and I'm originally from Detroit Michigan uh I'm Evette I'm from New York I'm on a book writing sabatical in Denver right now and I went to Bennett College in North Carolina Welcome guys I'm your host Erin Matthew and I'm an Alum of Howard University you're listening to making contact in collaboration with [ __ ] media and dishonor Ral so before we get into the nitty-gritty I'd like to hear from each of our guests about why you decided to attend a historic back college and for anyone who's not familiar these are institutions that were established before 1964 with the purpose of educating black Americans when other institutions would not students of all Races are welcome but black culture is often celebrated to a high degree at these places so Amos let's start with you why did you choose Howard um funny enough I had no intention of going to an HBCU uh my whole family went to HBCU and I was like no I want to be different I want to go to a top tier institution I don't want to go to an HBCU um and then funny enough I didn't get to ACT score for those institutions that were recruiting me and so I committed to this small division 3 school and ironically one Sunday at church I met this guy so he invited me to this um this Sigma pii Boule chapter meeting he set me up by bringing all of these prominent Howard Alum that lived in Florida and and I was like okay I called my dad that day and I was like I'm going to Howard so I dealt with racism at a very young age so I went on a black college tour with my church and fell in love with all the HBCU from Tennessee state to Hampton and Spellman every everywhere so I Knew by about the ninth or 10th grade that I wanted to go to HBCU so I got scholarship money fortunately to go to Hampton Hampton gave me the highest scholarship it was a beautiful campus they had a top tier journalism program and everything in between I knew I wanted to be surrounded by people who look like me who acted like me and who had the same morals and values as me and I didn't want to succumb to racism for any longer it was literally the best decision I've made my children will be attending HBCU they don't have a choice and that yeah that is it that's funny you bet what about you I knew very early on that I wanted to attend historically by college or university and so I encountered some struggles when I got to high school and ended up dropping out when I was 16 and HBCU were the only institutions who were willing to accept someone who took the SAT but did not have a traditional high school diploma and so I applied to three HBCU uh the one I decided initially to attend was the University of Maryland Eastern Shore and I attended there for a year and then in Ed some money troubles and so I was actually sitting at home I had taken a semester off watching CNN and I saw uh Bennett College's former president Dr Julian Malvo just talking about this school I'd never heard of before and she was just singing all of its Praises like if you're a black girl who wants to turn into a black woman and be educated and celebrated like this is the school that you should go to and I'll agree with both of the people who went before me that it's the best decision I've ever made well I'm glad every everybody enjoyed their experiences because we all know some people who did not enjoy their experiences at HBCU um but before we dive into the way sexual assault impacts your campuses I just wanted to talk about the bigger context we find ourselves in right now like I just feel like we're in this me tooo moment and I'm wondering how this has affected your conversations on campus like I feel like there's a lot of progressive art and music coming out at the same time is some pretty misogynistic stuff I still can't get over R Kelly Single I admit um but then I wonder if it's countered by songs like nice For What from Drake so I'm just curious how has all this affected your conversations about sex and sexual assault what I found since especially because we're approaching the oneyear anniversary of me too is that there are far more people who are willing to have these conversations and to have them publicly and I think social media has played a big part in that in terms of being able to respond immediately to say R Kelly's terrible 19 minute song I admit or being able to foster a conversation publicly in a way that they may not be able to do in their own families especially if they're encountering push back and so I don't know if me tooo is really the Catalyst for that I think it's been happening prior to that um particularly among um feminists online but I think that we are shifting National Consciousness about what sexual violence looks like what sexual assault looks like and the way that institutions work to protect people who are already powerful and how they turn out the powerless and I agree like um I think um it's just it's so sad that me too was started by a black woman but it didn't really Garner support until a white woman knew and no one knew until a white woman say something about me too so that's even something that even goes into a deeper aspect of like HBCU similar to the uh political engagement Civic engagement black people that stem from Donald Trump and people like him being elected into office in that whole Roy Moore situation um there was a silver lining in it because it also made people more aware that like if the if a guy got elected president of the United States it has to be happening at least down the street from you I think it's still I think we're going to see um response of that too following me too and all of these prominent people that um you used to look up to and now you're like wow how can I not condemn and really change the conversation yeah and I would just add that change the conversation is something we're trying to do right here like let's talk about the dating scene first since according to the Center for Disease Control just over 50% of female victims of rape reported being assaulted by an intimate partner and just over 40% by an acquaintance and I feel like at HBCU in particular this conversation gets tied up into morality um because I feel like a lot of the schools are kind of like unofficially connected to or you know very openly celebrate various forms of Christianity EV bet what do you um when you in undergrad and if we I guess and I should say I I don't want to speak for but I was in undergrad uh a little bit over about 13 years ago uh what about you yeah I finished undergrad six years ago so it has been a while but I attended a same-sex College and so the dating was a little difficult unless you wanted to venture to another campus so a lot of the dating was happening across campuses or mostly Bennett girls were going to North Carolina aent because our College didn't allow men on campus and when they did come on campus they were being harassed by security they were not allowed to go into our dormatory rooms if you lived on campus they had to stay in the par and so if you had a male visitor who wanted to come by he would like become a spect and so so much of what they consider dirt needs to be done off campus or out of the eye of the administrations and so a lot of the relationships that that I had when I was in college were very private but I think on the flip side of that I'm very fortunate that I never encountered sexual violence when I was in college but had I I don't know if I would have been comfortable saying hey I've been assaulted given that I was was BAS basically lambasted for having fun as a college student Amos you said that things had changed at Howard how is sex talked about among students and administrators now I've seen it change big time from my freshman year now going into my senior year um we have a lot of more panels um we have organizations that are strictly based on um safe sex like safe spaces hu her campus does a lot of sexual assault stuff and a lot of the fraternities and sororities on campus are definitely tackling that and even from A administrative standpoint we're actually launching this new um campus safety program regarding sexual assault Dating Violence and interpersonal violence it's like on every syllabus now and so it's um we're actually moving in a good direction towards making Howard University safe for all students um the student government is playing a big part in that as far as um promoting new policies um we're actually doing a program with everi where students will have to take mandatory social assault um prevention training ttle n training diversity and inclusion training um before every semester online if you're just tuning in this is making contact radio.org and the dishonor Ral reporting project you were just hearing the voice of Amos Jackson a senior at Howard University in Washington DC before him was IET Dion of [ __ ] media and an Alum of Ben at College in North Carolina next up is Kyler Wright who's a senior at Hampton University in Virginia so Kyla what's going on at Hampton so Hampton is definitely going through it right now when it comes to the sexual assault realm so as far as a is talked about at Howard and having sexual assault seminars every semester and having it on your syllabus we're definitely not there yet and that's hopefully a direction that we're headed to but we're not anywhere close as of right now and even I've heard a lot of young women on campus talk about going to the Health Center about having a sore throat or having a chronic headache or something and they end up turning it around and asking them like oh are you sexually active you need to take a STD test and it has nothing to do with the fact that I have a headache or the fact that my throat hurts so why are you asking me about my sexual activity and then that turns into judgment and and it's very uncomfortable and even when you answer the questions the reactions you can see the reaction in the nurse's face if it's like oh I'm not sexually active they're like oh good keep it that way yeah I'm sexually active oh well why like it's just it's very weird it's very uncomfortable the only resource that we really have the students are semi comfortable with and just now becoming more comfortable with is the student Counseling Center which has a program called the peer Advocates which I'll actually be the president of this upcoming school year and it's a organization or it's a program program that specifically is geared towards sexual assault Dating Violence stalking domestic violence Etc and it's that organization that everyone kind of wants to be a part of or wants to talk to but at the same time wants to shy away from because it's all the taboo topics that everyone wants to keep quiet about as well so we're trying to make it more of a open dialogue because it shouldn't be something that's kept quiet on campus especially because it happen so often often and in my research I've come to find out that in the average fouryear tenure one in five women are sexually assaulted on a college campus wow I'm glad to hear that you're going to lead the peer Advocates um I wondering if you could actually share a little bit more about your experience and how you got to know all these services so well so um my freshman year at Hampton unfortunately I was a part of that statistic so I was assaulted on campus by someone who I thought was my friend someone who was a prominent figure on campus someone who I was very comfortable with so at that time I was extremely like I shut down from the world like I shut down from everyone everything I was not talking about it I was not even admitting the fact that it happened like I was just like I don't really know what it is but it's not that I'm just I don't know I'm just not going to talk about it and then after I finally started talking to my parents and started talking to really close friends and family members I started figuring out that or and doing research I started figuring out that obviously I wasn't alone and it wasn't just me so I had to try to figure out in some way shape or form how to be that voice and how to come out about this situation because it was happening to other people and obviously they weren't speaking out about it either and this is when I began to well I didn't report it until about 4 months after it happened and then even after I did so I started to learn the process and how it worked on campus as far as reporting it and if you got a case or if you didn't get a case and how Hampton solved the situation or if they didn't solve the situation and all that and my sophomore year I created a platform called operation sash sash is an acronym for sexual assault stops here and I competed in the Miss Black and Gold scholarship pageant and that was my platform throughout the entire yes Amos so that was my platform during the entire pageant and I placed second so I stood by that platform and even though I hadn't actually won the Pion I still use that platform to help other women on campus wow thank you so much for sharing your story with us I'm curious and I'm I'm going to open this up to everybody else but were were you believed like when you first came forward uh do you feel like people believed you or did you feel like you had like prove something to the people asking you questions and like that you what the experience you had was real yeah no like no one believ believe me even after I finally came to terms with it I was in a group of about eight friends that were like my main friends we all stay Stayed on the same hul and it was like when I came out to my friends and told them what happened it was like did it really uh okay okay we'll help you okay and then after it started to get real like it seemed like the more comfortable I got with it the more uncomfortable they got with it and so I ended up losing all my friends Fresh years they're like no I don't really think this is how this is supposed to go um I don't really know if this did happen to you if you're trying to get attention or like what do you mean this isn't the way to go like I reported it to the university I'm trying to get him kicked off campus like whatever and everything I was trying to do to keep my support system strong it backfired on me honestly so it was them and then after I got so when you report the incident to the title n office or to hupd they have an investigation with you and the person you say was the A salent and they decide whether or not you get a case so I had to go in front of a board of Administrators and talk about what happened he was there he was in the room I ended up finding out that wasn't supposed to happen that way he was in the room supposed to be in the same room as me yes it was very it was really weird it was the most awkward thing ever yeah so that happened and it was like the administration were like grilling me they're just like what did you have on well why are you at his house well why were you this why were you that and I'm like what wait hold on pause stop what it was a very alone time in my life so I'm glad obviously I'm not there anymore because during that time I literally couldn't talk about it without busting out in tears without crying and having anxiety attacks so clearly I've grown which is I think the greatest thing that has happened out of this situation that I've grown and that I can help other people it sounds like what I what I learned from Kyla is that she had to kind of prove herself to her friends and to the administration and I'm wondering for IET and Amos like at your campuses did you find that the student body is supportive when they hear about sexual assault cases and then you know I'm wondering if your friends are people you know who have have um experienced sexual assault if they have felt comfortable um in the you know the administration space and also the social space at campus um I can say at Howard um a lot of women aren't as inclined to report because they have friends or they know people that have reported and haven't seen an output like my mty like one of the closest women to me on campus that happened to her I was the first person she called I took her to the interpersonal violence office and cuz she was afraid to report and I was like no like as a student as a student employee of the University like as soon as you tell me now I'm required to report it myself and so like now I have to I know that I may break our menty Mentor relationship trust here but I have to and I think it'll serve you well with me doing so and I hate the fact that it had to take somebody happening to me close for me to really really really put my hands to the plow and make it a priority for my Administration and for other student leaders um but again I think that we're moving in the right direction with that like looking to hire more titon not investigators because I think one of the things that really hurts HBCU especially when it comes to issues like these is that the resources we have are very slim so instead of trying to find creative ways we overcompensate and aren't honest about the issues that we have going on in our campuses um because there's creative ways to um assist survivors and to discipline as salant what about you Evette well my college is a little complicated because we haven't reported a sexual assault nearly 5 years which based on National statistics is inaccurate and there it's it's impossible that there is no sexual assault that has happened on Ben at College's campus in 5 years but what that indicates to me is that we either don't have the proper protocols in place for victims of sexual violence to come forward and feel as if they'll be believed and that Justice will be served or these cases are being swept under the rug and there's no evidence either way but I can recall um especially in when I was at the beginning of my undergraduate career there were always Whispers and rumors about students who had been sexually violated but it was always happening among student groups or among groups of friends it was never happening on an administrative level like we were never having Town Hall meetings about sexual violence I can recall one specific student in particular who said that she had been raped and the next semester she didn't come back and we never saw her again and so so much of the conversation around sexual assault and rape and how colleges handle it does as amamos said has to do with resources so Bennett is a school with 500 students they rely mostly on student tuition to to fund the institution 90% of the time we are either facing Financial probation or we're on financial probation and so when it comes to the Strategic way that they allocate resources it's as if they don't see curbing sexual assault and making sure that those who have been assaulted have the proper resources as a institutional priority wow we've kind of discuss that like sexual assault goes under reported do you think that has anything to do with the fact that a you know black people are already over represented in the prison system in the jail and you don't you're not trying to add to that and be there's kind of like this family quote unquote culture at HBCU and so it feels bad to kind of like tell on your brother your sister do you think that's part of what goes on uh yes absolutely I think reputation for HBCU is everything primarily because they are underfunded and so the things that administrations choose to prioritize and focus on are designed to increase enrollment and so one of my um professors always says that most HBCU run like a black church and that is very much the case of benett and so they approach it as we put on a United front even if we have inner turmoil and so you are never supposed to be speak badly of the school you don't speak badly of other students at benett we call each other sisters if sexual assault is happening and based on National statistics it probably is why they are not reporting it yeah I think that also plays into Regional placement of Institutions as well because I know like a lot of the students that we attract to go to how are coming from large cities and a lot of progressive cities and so we've actually seen um an increase in reporting over the last couple of years which is double- AED sword because you're like we're glad people are reporting we're also sad that people have to report something right and so it's one of those things to where even at Howard um you still have that aspect of um keeping it in house and what happens at home stays at home and we don't want to um affect uh this black man's future this black woman's future but they affected yours and so um you have to understand that like no really need to have these tough conversations I really think um even before you even reach the institution because a lot of times or a lot of students that we've like we've surveyed on campus it's like the first time they've openly talked about sex with an adult or older than them an elder person was in college so for my last question I just wanted to hear from each of you one thing just one that you are really hopeful that this will help change things bring about more change on campus like if it's a policy if it's a conversation whatever it is I would just like benett to have one town hall every school have one town hall every HBCU have one town hall that allow students to voice how they feel particularly around issues that are vital and that must stop and I don't until that happens until students voices are heard or valued or respected I think these issues will continue to happen with either the administration not knowing or not caring or not being invested in making sure that the students are safe I would definitely say the dialogue because when the times the town hall meeting happened everyone was outraged and everyone was upset and everyone had something to say as far as students and now it's kind of died down and no one's talking about it anymore and that's that so I don't want it to be just a temporary upset a temporary conversation like this needs to be ongoing until something actually happens I would love to see men on our campus just listen um men on our campus listen understand and seek information on how they can be an ally to women on our campus like I would love to see that yeah I would add that generally listening sitting and acting upon comfortable and uncomfortable truths are a key part of making campuses safer um unfortunately that's all the time we have and I just want to thank all of you so much Kyler Wright Senior from Hampton University in Hampton Virginia um Amos Jackson also a senior at Howard University in Washington DC where I'm also an Alum and IET Dion editor and chief of [ __ ] media and alumna of Bennett college and the co-producer of this panel before we close out the show I want to mention that we reached out to Howard Hampton and Bennett to get their responses to the comments made by Aus Kyla andet listeners can see the full statements on our website but I'll summarize them here Hampton University outlined its policies and initiatives around sexual assault and ended with quote once a complaint is made Hampton University does not allow an alleged victim and perpetrator to be questioned together except during a sexual misconduct and discrimination hearing unless otherwise requested they added that quote by federal law Hampton University cannot discuss the specifics of any complaint or case but it is important to note that Hampton University is concerned about the Dignity of individuals and has had a sexual assault policy in place long before the federal mandate the statement from Howard University highlighted various resources available to students and programs that is implemented to prevent sexual assault promote student awareness of Title 9 and support survivors of sexual assault lastly Bennett College shared a statement about the programs there emphasizing that the school's resources to promote Sexual Assault Awareness and support increased in 2013 in response to whether the school Under reported incidents of sexual assault the statement said quote allegations that Bennett college has not reported any sexual assaults in the past 5 years are inaccurate reports on students who seek assistance through Counseling Services will not be reflected in public reports issued by the clar [Music] ACT to hear the entire unedited discussion go to radio.org thanks for tuning in to making contact and our special Roundtable episode in the dishonor role reporting collaborative thanks especially to [ __ ] media's IET Dion and Andy zeisler for their editorial input thanks to Joel and Kaiser and the media Consortium for a mini grant for our dishonorable participation special thanks for recording facilities at the studios of wpfw in DC WD in Denver ESPN in New York kgnu in Denver Andra Cordis bana Tinsley Sam bouan Dave Ashton Tim Rous Robin Smith and Katia stit thanks to climbing poetry for the opening poem and for the music by jazar and scang Globe I'm Ain Matthew in New York for making contact www. radio.org [Music]