Sexual Violence in and around the Classroom

Abstract

Abstract. Sexual violence on campus is a major issue facing students, faculty, and administrators, and institutions of higher education are struggling to respond. This forum brings together three responses to the problem, with a focus on the religious studies classroom. The responses move from the institution to the faculty to the classroom, exploring three separate but linked spaces for responding to sexual violence. The first contribution (Graybill) critiques common institutional responses to sexual violence. The second contribution (Minister) advocates for long-term, classroom-based responses to sexual violence and describes a faculty/staff workshop response. The third contribution (Lawrence) emphasizes the classroom, examining the issues that arise when perpetrators of sexual assault are part of the student body. Read together, the pieces offer a comprehensive view of the complicated intersections of sexual violence, the university, and pedagogical issues in religious studies. Introductory CommentsFrom the rape trial involving Vanderbilt football players to Emma Sulcowicz's mattresscarrying protest of her rape at Columbia, sexual violence is a major problem on college and university campuses. As professors and teachers, we struggle over how best to support our students in the context of endemic sexual violence. As experts in religious studies, we have wrestled with how to address material related to sexual violence and rape in responsible and ethical ways, both in the classroom and in our research. And as members of academic communities, we have watched our institutions grapple over how to respond to sexual violence, as well as how to engage with student protests and activism. Some of us have been involved in this work as well, either working on behalf of our institutions (for example, serving on faculty committees, working with the Title IX Office, and so forth), or against it (such as critiquing university responses or failures to respond.) Sexual violence thus touches on the three major components of the academic vocation: teaching, research, and institutional service.This forum grows out of our concern over these issues. It also reflects a desire to engage the problem of sexual violence in the tradition of critical pedagogy (Freire