I, a liberal white male, sometimes have this false pretense that everyone on our campus is welcoming and accepting of all people. Reality is occasionally blinded from me due to my privileges, but some chicken-scratch on the wall of the bathroom was a direct slap-in-the-face to that idea. “I’d rather be a pussy-grabber than a dick grabber.” Didn’t need to read that as I was relieving my bladder. As I analyzed that sentence, I came to the conclusion that the writer believes that sexually assaulting someone is better than being a male engaging in homosexual acts. Like I don’t understand how someone could think that. Being gay is worse than destroying another human’s life? I’ve always known that this campus isn’t full of politically correct liberals, but believing that it is makes life easier for me. But that sentence really forced me to see that the reality of this campus is way different than what I wish this campus was like. Sexism and heterosexism are still thriving here, no matter how “progressive” I want UNC to be. Rape culture and homophobia need to be eradicated from our campus (and also from the world in general), which is why organizations like CAGE are so important.
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On the morning of September 22nd, the Trump Administration, under the recommendation and direction of Betsy DeVos, has rescinded the 2011 Title IX guidance including the Dear Colleague Letter established by the Obama Administration. This guidance outlined campuses’ obligations to support survivors and held university and college administrations accountable for the way they handled sexual assault cases. Before this document was issued, many institutions ignored their obligations under the law, both because colleges and universities failed to understand them, and because schools knew few students understood the law well enough to assert their rights.
Throughout the past few months, DeVos has been laying the groundwork for this action claiming that the current system for processing sexual assault cases is broken and unfair to both survivors and accused students. She has repeatedly discussed these falsely accused students and survivors as equally failed by Title IX policies under the Obama Administration. She has failed to recognize that only two to six percent of sexual assaults are falsely reported (according to the FBI), a rate lower than the false reporting of any other crime--and that one in five women, as well as many gender non-binary, transgender, and male students will experience sexual violence during their time on campus. Her rhetoric is not only false; it is a direct attempt to silence the voices of survivors on campuses. Carolina Advocating for Gender Equity (CAGE) stands with survivors and calls on the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and all of the organizations affiliated or within this institution to publicly commit to upholding prior Department of Education guidance, including the 2011 Dear Colleague Letter, despite its removal. Students deserve to attend a university that believes them and supports them. Sexual assault policies must be centered around serving survivors, not questioning the credibility of each survivor while granting perpetrators more rights. The system is indeed in need of work, but vilifying survivors and enabling perpetrators is the wrong action. Thank you to everyone who came out to our first Feminist Friday of the year! Dr. Rachel Schaevitz from Carolina Public Humanities led us in a great discussion about "Women in Film." Be on the lookout for our next Feminist Friday in October!
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