One is Too Many

by Nora West

One is too many. When we talk about sexual assault there are a lot of numbers, 1 in 4 women, 1 in 33 men. 90% of assault on college campuses is acquaintance rape. Those numbers are huge and they are scary, but quite frankly I don’t care about those numbers, and you shouldn’t either.

What I see in those numbers is that assault happens on Georgetown campus. It happens here.

We have to stop looking at numbers and start looking at people. This is your classmate, colleague, and friend. Numbers are remote and stagnant. This is not motionless, this is someone you know walking around this campus living and experiencing Georgetown among and with us.

And once we see that it is the people we know and it is not numbers, but our fellow Hoyas, then we need to decide that numbers don’t matter because one is too many. We need to decide to make a change. We need to decide that sexual assault information belongs in NSO. We need to decide that our current code of conduct is not enough. But most of all, we need to decide that we are better than this rut of self-destruction in which we are stuck. We are one Georgetown and we can stand and we can act and we can demand more and we can be better, but that has to start now and it cannot stop. Let us be accountable to one another and make a meaningful needed change on this campus.

If you found this post triggering, know that there are resources and support available.