Many parents have sent their children to college just before fall, and soon some may be heading back home for alumni and homecoming events and Thanksgiving. There will be plenty to talk about—at dinner tables, or when you see a friend at the supermarket with kids also coming home for the holidays—and some topics may be harder than others.
Sexual assault on college campuses has been in the news for years, with the spotlight growing brighter due to social media and more victims—including young women—reporting incidents and sharing their experiences.
One in five women and one in 16 men are victims of sexual assault on college campuses nationwide. Also, male victims are less likely to report their assaults, mostly due to embarrassment. Fifty-five percent of witnesses do nothing to help.
About eight years ago, Mamaroneck residents Amy Siskind and Karen Gerringer were two of 30 women nationwide who came together to form The New Agenda, a nonprofit organization that seeks to bring about systemic change to improve the lives of girls and women nationwide. Siskind and Gerringer are the nonprofit’s president and vice president, respectively.
“When Hillary [Clinton] dropped out of the race [in 2008], there was a group of women at the time who were really upset at the way she was depicted in the media and the double standard; that was the genesis of why we started the group,” Siskind said.
The New Agenda has four main goals: safety, opportunity, unity and leadership. The nonprofit also has a foundation, which focuses on teen dating violence and campus sexual assault. The New Agenda focuses on the opportunity and leadership aspects for women by doing events, especially for millennial women in college and beyond.
The New Agenda is hosting the second annual SToPP 5K to end sexual assaults on college campuses at Iona College in New Rochelle on Saturday, Oct. 22 at 10 a.m. to bring attention, start a conversation, SToPP—Stop. Think. Protect Peers—and encourage bystander intervention. Proceeds from the SToPP 5K will go toward making more educational videos for The New Agenda. In fact, last year’s video, “Gray Matters,” was made by a young woman who graduated from Mamaroneck High School, MHS, and is part of the nonprofit’s leadership council. The video has been used at freshman orientations, and even MHS seniors are now shown such videos before graduation as part of the curriculum.
“Iona is just a great location for the tri-state area, and they also seemed really excited about hosting,” Siskind said, adding that she recently spoke to 100 Iona students and their openness and awareness of sexual assault confirmed her choice in holding the 5K there. “College students today are very aware that it’s an issue.”
Brock Turner’s name was brought up, the latest case that has received much media attention. Turner, who was a student-athlete at Stanford University, was convicted of three counts of felony sexual assault when he raped an intoxicated and unconscious woman. He was caught by two students who intervened when they realized the state the victim was in. Turner only spent three months in jail.
“It seems like it’s an issue that is starting to get attention, but so many people are afraid to talk about it,” said Siskind, who has a daughter in college and a son in high school. “But every year when my friends sent their kids off to school, I say to them, ‘You’ll see me at the gym and tell me your daughter’s best friend from high school was raped in college,’ or ‘My daughter knows someone who was drugged and raped.’”
“Fifty percent of high school boys graduating don’t know that sex with an incapacitated woman is rape,” Siskind said, adding that one big part of the problem is parents not talking to their sons to not take advantage of someone sexually, therefore the media is doing the educating, and poorly. “The laws are changing, so if you’re not [talking to your son] for the right reasons, do it so that your son doesn’t get expelled and become the next Brock Turner.”
Last year, Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, signed legislation to fight sexual assault on college campuses statewide, which includes a uniform definition of affirmative consent, to help remove any ambiguity.
The U.S. Department of Education is currently investigating 195 postsecondary institutions nationwide for sexual violence, as of June of this year. New York state has 27 colleges and universities on the list, including a SUNY Purchase College case from early 2015.
“It’s such an important cause; if you have kids, you’re going to be sending them to college at some point,” Siskind said. “We have to change the culture.”
To learn more about The New Agenda and to sign up for the SToPP 5K at Iona, visit thenewagenda.net and stopp5k.org.
