By Alexandra Brodsky • @azbrodsky • 10 years ago

Photo of the Day: Dartmouth has a problem

screen shot of ultraviolet dartmouth ad

Online organizers UltraViolet have launched a campaign to make sure students admitted to Dartmouth know that the school has a problem with sexual violence. From their press release:

Just last month, more than 50,000 people signed onto a petition calling on Dartmouth to step up their fight against rape culture on campus– but with no concrete steps in the right direction, UltraViolet is now targeting prospective students with online ads. The ads, currently targeted to accepted students on Facebook, are meant to give them more information on Dartmouth’s rape problem before they decide on a school…

With acceptance letters to schools currently out, this is a key season for colleges to maintain their spot in rankings by getting a high “yield” of accepted students to commit to attending.

“With much talk and little action coming from Dartmouth on sexual assault, we felt forced to step up our campaign,” said Nita Chaudhary, co-founder of UltraViolet. “Ultimately Dartmouth is responsible for stopping rape on their campus–and if they won’t do that, prospective students have a right to know. It’s time for Dartmouth to move beyond words and take immediate and forceful action.”

Dartmouth was already under federal investigation for their lackluster approach to rape and sexual assault on campus when a student posted an online “rape guide” that resulted in the sexual assault of a student last month. Public outrage ensued, with more than 52,000 people signing onto UltraViolet’s petition for action and more than 2,500 calling into the campus.

See the petition here: http://act.weareultraviolet.org/sign/Dartmouth/

Dartmouth, however, has continued to provide big talk and few actions. UltraViolet is asking for the college to expel rapists, something the college has said it is open to but has yet to fully practice.A vote by the college’s Board of Trustees last month to recommend mandatory expulsion for rapists was a step in the right direction– but it has yet to be implemented.

Have any readers applying to college considered info on campus sexual violence when making their decision?

Alexandra bio shotAlexandra is a witty one-liner.

Washington, DC

Alexandra Brodsky was a senior editor at Feministing.com. During her four years at the site, she wrote about gender violence, reproductive justice, and education equity and ran the site's book review column. She is now a Skadden Fellow at the National Women's Law Center and also serves as the Board Chair of Know Your IX, a national student-led movement to end gender violence, which she co-founded and previously co-directed. Alexandra has written for publications including the New York Times, the Atlantic, the Guardian, and the Nation, and she is the co-editor of The Feminist Utopia Project: 57 Visions of a Wildly Better Future. She has spoken about violence against women and reproductive justice at campuses across the country and on MSNBC, ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, FOX, ESPN, and NPR.

Alexandra Brodsky was a senior editor at Feministing.com.

Read more about Alexandra

Join the Conversation