This isn’t the entry I thought I would be writing. I thought I would be returning to my 25th reunion at Stanford and my first experience in cooperative living at a campus cooperative on “the row,” Kairos. When my best friend and roomie walked by during our reunion campus tour, students had bannered the facade. Along with a call to the complicated Landback movement, was an additional banner that read, “expel rapists.” We later saw similar signs on other student co-ops and housing. When we encountered some students and got a quick explanation, it seems they mean “expel rapists” quite literally.
The students gave us their take on the process Stanford has in place for reporting sexual assault on campus. It is not only frustrating and humiliating for victims but has left many perpetrators matriculating on campus. On the heels of two recent incidents of “stranger” rape, the students were trying to bring attention to assaults on student bodies by student bodies.
The case of student-on-student sexual assault includes the well-known case of Brock Turner*, but there are many, many lesser-known incidents. According to mandated reporting, people reported 44 sex offenses to university officials in 2021. This is compared with 32 in 2020 and 63 in 2019. Thirty of the 2021 reported offenses were rape, and 13 of the rapes occurred at student residences (the same report lists 31 burglaries in 2021, which makes for an odd comparison). Following the Brock Turner case, the university put out a statement claiming, “Stanford University, its students, its police, and its staff members did everything they could.” Just looking at the phrase logically, this is false. There is no way to objectively verify such a sweeping statement. As an organization whose reputation largely depends on its faculty meeting the standards of peer review publication, it is an embarrassment. No such statement would survive the review process. And what about the 30 other rapes, 13 of which occurred in dorms, did students and the university community do everything they could for those cases? Students may reasonably ask if that’s the case, why has not a single rapist been expelled? Stanford did manage to oust one person: a lawyer who voiced frustration with the process.
For me, this brought three issues to the fore. 1) lack of progress not just at Stanford but generally toward eliminating or even reducing incidents of sexual assault. 2) the special role of selective institutions in tolerating abuse of some members by other members and 3) the possibility that Stanford has done a worse job at 1 & 2 compared to other schools.
And since this is a blog about housing, I’ll return to that. There’s lots of research on how housing settings in particular and communities in general can be sites for political activism. The Stanford co-ops coordinated campaign may illustrate that. If the residents intended to build awareness during the reunion, they may well have been effective. But in addition to the political activity of that signage is the humanity. Given the prevalence of sexual assault, these residents may be signaling outrage about the perpetrators and their desperation as victims. Maybe co-op residents can save Stanford from rape culture, but maybe they are just trying to save themselves.
*Brock turner assaulted a sister of a student
