Both OUSU and University authorities have promised new measures to tackle sexual harassment, starting with OUSU’s compulsory consent workshops to be held in freshers’ week.
The University has also promised that a revised harassment policy, to be released “during the course of the term”, will make “explicit its inclusion of all aspects of harassment, including sexual violence, assault and stalking”, as well as “encourage disclosure”,
The announcements follow major concerns about the ways in which University officials deal with cases of sexual harassment.
A recent survey by the NUS reported that 37% of women and 12% of men say they have faced unwelcome sexual advances in the form of inappropriate groping and touching, while at the start of the month an Oxford student using the pseudonym Maria Marcello wrote a blog describing how she had been raped while she lay unconscious at a party.
She describes how the University largely ignored her requests for help, and that the police – in forcing her to make a decision whether to press charges or not, while emphasising that her case would not stand up in court – pressured her into dropping the case.
When queried about the failings of the existing harassment policy, a university spokesperson told Cherwell that the review for the new policy “in formulating a procedure for students, has focussed on providing the complainant with a greater right of inclusion within the process, with a consistent point of contact for advice and support.
“The procedure details the stages of the process and also provides clarity for students as to where they should go for professional and practical advice. Where the matter is potentially a criminal offence, the student will be encouraged to report allegations to the police.
“All forms of harassment are unacceptable at Oxford and all members of the University community are expected to play their part in creating an environment which is free from it.”
Commenting on the new policy, OUSU Vice President (women) Anna Bradshaw told Cherwell, “Over the last few years OUSU has put a lot of work into improving harassment policies and procedures at Oxford University. OUSU’s It Happens Here campaign, successive Vice-Presidents (Women), and members of the Student Advice Service team have worked with the University to update the University’s harassment policy.
“The new policy is in the final stages of edits and approval, and I am personally really pleased with how much of an improvement it will make to the current policy.”
The University is also working on new training methods for its staff – a spokesperson explained that “pilot workshops were run in spring 2014 for front-line staff in colleges to build their confidence in responding effectively to reports of any type of abuse”, while in particular, staff have been guided on signposting students to sources of specialist advice and support, as appropriate to the incident.
Meanwhile, at least 24 colleges will be holding OUSU sexual consent workshops this freshers’ week, with 20 of those compulsory for first year undergraduates. The workshops have been running across the university since 2011, while Wadham was the first to make theirs compulsory last year.
The aims of these workshops, as an OUSU statement explains, are to “provide a safe space in which to evaluate and develop our understanding of sexual consent, and to stimulate community-wide conversations about sexual consent. This helps to create a culture of enthusiastic and informed consent, and may also help to reduce harmful attitudes towards sexual violence such as victim blaming.
“The workshops deliberately validate the stories of survivors of sexual violence, and send a clear message that sexual violence is not tolerated within the community. We believe that all of these measures are desperately needed.”
The workshops will last for one hour, and take place in groups of about 10 students, while all facilitators are trained by OUSU. In March 2013 the workshops were a finalist in the UK Sexual Health Awards in the category ‘Adult sexual health service/project of the year’.
While they may be nationally recognised, organisers are keen for them to become compulsory for all new Oxford students. Jesus’s JCR women’s representative Emilia Carslaw explained that if the workshops were optional, “Only those who were already interested in consent-based issues would attend.”
Bradshaw has however expressed her excitement at the number of JCRs who have so far agreed to run the workshops, telling Cherwell, “[the workshops were] a central election pledge of mine in November, and it has been wonderful to work with so many students who recognise the importance of starting college-wide conversations about sexual consent.”
However, because of the relative autonomy of each college, it is not certain that the policy will be immediately adopted across the entire university. “A big piece of work for OUSU this year, led by our campaigns and working with the University, will be to pressure colleges to update their harassment policies to match,” Bradshaw explained.
“The updated policy is a step firmly in the right direction, but we need to change the culture as well as the policy. This is why growing the OUSU Sexual Consent Workshops is a key focus for me this year, because a shift in culture is what they are all about.”
Details about the University’s current harassment policy can be found here.
