Living at a college is a unique environment which many experience and only for a brief portion of their lives. For me, its the first time that my “community” has been so clearly and deliberately defined. This manifests in many ways, but one in particular are college’s communal codes of conducts. One rarely considers the code of conduct before entering a college community, but its something that is defined for you and you must agree to when you enroll. These codes of conduct are often hard to change from the inside, as we have seen at Carleton with the long process of trying to alter the Sexual Misconduct policies. These codes of conduct do not always make a campus environment more safe, and often are less strict on violations of the law.

I’ve found that living in such a deliberate community often makes me feel more safe: I will leave my laptop for hours in the library, feel pretty comfortable walking around late at night, and generally feel like I can rely on fellow Carls more than the wider population. However, when this community is made to feel unsafe, the small size and level of control is even more imposing. Victims of crimes or harassment know that the perpetrator is walking around their small campus, even if they do not know who it was. On a campus, public spaces are also living spaces; there is rarely a place where one is perfectly alon e and in complete control of their environment. Further, small social environments can allow individual reputations to flourish. One’s perceived character is often taken into account just as much as one’s actions. I have seen this work negatively when a person with a good reputation is accused of violence, and the survivor was less likely to be believed.

My level of comfort on my own campus has varied over the past few years. I now live in cooperative housing, which means I have a smaller deliberate community over which I have greater control, but feeling of safety in the wider community still varies. Recently, there have been multiple stories of occasions where feelings of safety have been violated. I really think these stories highlight the need for internal efforts to define our own communities for ourselves, and articulate expectations of behavior.

First, there is the “racial crisis” at UCSD. Larger issues of racism at the school were called attention to when an off-campus house attempted to host a “Compton Cookout.” The party was advertised as follows:

Kegs of Natty, dat Purple Drank — which consists of sugar, water, and the color purple, chicken, coolade, and of course Watermelon.”

Male partygoers were urged in the invitation to wear white T-shirts, with “XXXL smallest size acceptable.” Female attendees were given this guidance: “Ghetto chicks have a very limited vocabulary, and attempt to make up for it, by forming new words, such as ‘constipulated’, or simply cursing persistently, or using other types of vulgarities, and making noises, such as ‘hmmg!’, or smacking their lips, and making other angry noises, grunts, and faces.”

Tensions stemming from this event have resulted in peaceful protests across the UC system encouraging the university to take swifter action in punishing the individuals involvec. As counter protests, a noose was found hanging in the library.

Second, on UC Davis’s campus there were two recent acts of hate-based vandalism. A swastika was carved in a Jewish student’s door and their LGBT center was vandalized with statements like “Gay go 2 hell.”

Finally, “All Things Considered” featured a woman who was sexually assaulted on her college’s campus, but felt that the administration did not take proper action. (via) *Trigger Warning* for this podcast. This story does a good job highlighting how college community codes of conduct can fail at making victims of sexual violence feel more safe on campus and promoting restorative justice.

All of these stories make me value the actions of Dartmouth students even more in their attempts to hold their peers accountable to racist and sexist behavior. How do you think we can make our own campuses safer for all students? How do we define our expectations and hold each other accountable? What steps can really make a college campus a safe and supportive community?

Original (including a great comment) here.