Two students from different PWR courses who are deeply invested in raising awareness around sexual assault on college campuses, recently developed powerful and timely research projects that focused on the issue, tapping into current national and local conversations.
Chandler Mores, who took Selby Schwartz’s “Are We There Yet?: The Rhetoric of Mobility,” chose to focus on campus sexual assault victims’ mobility. Her work built upon her participation in Stanford’s Sophomore College Class “One in Five: The Law, Policy, and Politics of Campus Sexual Assault,” which first sparked her interest in the subject. “My PWR 2 class focused on the topic of mobility, so I became interested in researching the epidemic of campus sexual assault and how it affects the mobility of its victims.” She found that while victims of campus sexual assault are given a variety of accommodation and interim measures like advocacy services, mental health services, legal assistance, class schedule changes, and residence changes, 1 in 3 victims drop out or transfer schools, and some may take a leave of absence. Mental and physical effects like depression, PTSD, anxiety, trouble focusing on academics, dropping classes, and needing extra time to finish school are all central factors that affect the victim’s mobility. Her findings concluded that universities must change their sexual assault definitions to a more clear and encompassing definition, continue to use campus climate surveys to gauge student perceptions, and build a stronger network within the university, police, health care providers, and community service providers to help with victim services, investigations, and adjudications.
Chandler’s work was able to build upon her previous involvement with Stanford’s Fearless Conference, a student-run event focusing on conversations surrounding sexual and partner violence. She also notes that some of her closest friends have worked tirelessly on the issue of campus sexual assault. “My sorority has partnered with the Joyful Heart Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to healing, empowering, and advocating for survivors of sexual violence. Likewise, publicity regarding Stanford’s sexual assault policies and sexual assault issues occurring at Stanford also heightened my interest in choosing the topic.”
This publicity, particularly around the Brock Turner case, was a big motivating force for Taylor Taweel’s research project. Taylor was a student in Kevin DiPirro’s PWR2 “Rhetoric of Remix.” She researched and wrote about college-campus sexual assault, with a central focus on storytelling.
“My project was essentially trying to unveil any truth in light of the question - What do the stories told in Brock Turner’s case reveal about the ways people engage with, disagree over, repeat gendered patterns in, and ultimately, discuss, human sexuality – particularly the concept of consent?” she said. “I am very passionate about the prevention of sexual assault and issues around understanding consent. I thought using the Brock Turner case would connect more to my peers as it was so recent and real to the Stanford campus. The case was a particularly relevant one as it made its way into mass media and really rocked the nation. I thought examining this case would be extremely important as the stories of each individual involved had been projected on a mass scale.”
Taylor said that she has long been frustrated around the fact that there still is confusion around what consent means. “I decided to channel that frustration into a tool for education, and I took this opportunity to really explore the depths of why this confusion still persisted in society,” she said.
Both students faced their own unique challenges in pursuing the research.
“The main challenge I faced while developing my project was determining what information to include in my project and what information to discard,” said Chandler. “Because there are a vast amount of statistics, laws, briefs, and new articles about campus sexual assault, I spent much time deciding what was the most important information to include in my final project.”
Taylor said she knew from the start that she wanted to write about something she was passionate about. “However, I kept tweaking and changing my mashup because there was so much more depth to explore than a 20 page research paper could really encompass,” she said. “Additionally, because the case was so recent, there were no scholarly articles citing it or writing about it in depth. I had to use what court documents and media had given me and then I heavily relied on my own analysis and analysis of past similar cases and authors who have dedicated their time to this work.”
Both students acknowledged the complexity of the issue and the challenges and rewards that come from pursuing a topic like campus sexual assault, along with the opportunity to educate others about it.
“This issue is so intricate, so complicated, that it is very hard to comprehend all of its nuances and complexities,” said Chandler. Taylor echoed similar sentiments. “It was amazing to try to disentangled parts of this extremely convoluted cycle of how people end up, unfortunately, using sexual assault as the way to discuss human sexuality and notions of consent,” she said. “Human sexuality is so complex and I had yet to see a front row view of that until this project. It is inspiring to see how much work there still is to do.”
Taylor said for her the most rewarding part of the research project was getting to be an educator for her peers. “It felt like the material and the resources I was providing could actually inform student’s and hopefully compel them to change certain small behaviors that may end up changing the culture of this campus,” she said. “In my presentation, I decided to provide actual resources and non-profits that my peers could research and support. But I also was very adamant that making the smallest changes in how we talk about sexuality - for instance, just talking about it in general and breaking the uncomfortable silence that seems to exist around sexuality - can really start to help break down this unfortunate pattern we have using sexual assault as a sieve for talking about sexuality.”
Since her PWR2 course, Taylor’s been following her own research and advice to try and break down the taboos of sexuality in her own life. “For me, it is all about having informed conversations with people and trying to open people’s eyes to this epidemic of college-campus assault that is often swept under the rug.”
She plans to keep actively working on this issue. “I think as a society, we are starting to become more aware of the problem, however because it is such a complex and entangled cycle, I believe that projects like these, even if they make minuscule dents, are crucial to finally coming to an understanding or solution.”
