Duke Lax: Girls Speak Out

Sex. Assault. Scandal. It all sounds so Danielle Steele.

By Candy

Yet these things don’t just happen to fictitious characters in novels; they happen to real women daily.

The most important issue that came to light as a result of the Duke lacrosse scandal (whether the players are guilty or not) is that sexual victimization occurs on college campuses nationwide. Sadly, this reality is often kept under wraps by university administrations in order to preserve the reputations of the institutions. In this case, however, the victim’s indictments spread beyond campus grounds.

As a girl, how would you feel if this was happening at your school?

We asked Duke girls what they thought, and this is what they had to say:

“I will say that as nice as a person can seemingly appear to be in everyday interactions, alcohol can bring out other, darker sides of an individual, especially their aggressive side.”

- Nicole, ’07

“There have been Duke parties where I have felt harassed by friends and by strangers, but unwanted attention is not something, by any means, uncommon in the world of a 20-year-old female. I have not felt threatened sexually at Duke but I have at other universities that I have visited, at bars around the world. Harassment at parties is a reality that us young women have to deal with almost incessantly. A woman [must deal with harassment] at your average fraternity, bar, dance club, sports team party … of course not exclusively in these situations, but in these social options, wherever there is alcohol, there is unwanted attention.“

&#8217 A., ’08

“Within my first week of school, the older [lacrosse] players had a party for the incoming guys. They would walk around the freshman campus looking for only the good looking girls to come. They would actually walk up to a group of maybe eight girls and be like, ‘You, you and you should come.’ I wouldn’t consider that harassment, but it’s not exactly the biggest compliment to the other five girls.”

&#8217 Kat, ’09

Would you like to voice your opinion? Submit your thoughts to yourthoughts@collegecandy.com.