CONTENT WARNING: This article contains mentions of sexual violence.
What do parents always tell their kids when they are growing up? You can do anything and change anything as long as you set your mind to it. That seems to be the main drive behind a lot of the protests that happen, especially the ones surrounding college students.
One of the main things that college students protest is sexual assault. Why? Because college campuses seem to brush them under the rug or, based on where a student either lives or the sexual assault happens, the campus may not be required to report it in the crime log of what happens on their campus that prospective students and families may look at.
A recent example that not many people knew about until they logged into their Tik Tok account happened at the University of Delaware.
A student was beaten, blinded by spray paint and thrown down steps over four hours. The university tried to keep it quiet, but fellow students took to the streets, where over 500 protested and posted about it on Tik Tok and other platforms. It reached over 8 million people.
What was the result of this, you may ask? Due to the exposure of the incident Brandon Freyre, the person who committed the act was arrested and charged with assault, kidnapping and strangulation.
Had the fellow students at the University of Delaware not stepped forward and took matters into their own hands, their fellow student who was assaulted wouldn’t have received justice.
A reason students protest more and more these days is it’s the only way change seems to happen. Students take other actions to get change and it’s either not enough or overlooked. When college students protest, they are able to reach more people because they use one of the strongest tools in their toolbox: social media. Yes, we do spend a lot of time on social media, but we also learn a lot while we are on our social media accounts.
The main thing that college students are trying to change with protests is that college males shouldn’t be able to get away with sexual assault, just because they may have an amazing career after graduation in their chosen field, or they are an amazing athlete at a certain sport. Changing this also changes how female students will feel while being on a college campus.
