Dear editor,
In Thursday's edition of The Daily Cardinal, columnist Nico Savidge posed a question a lot of people have asked ever since the Penn State scandal broke: Can what happened in State College happen in Madison?
It's a fair point. What happened at PSU and to the victims of Jerry Sandusky's crimes is despicable and calls into question what heinous actions (or lack thereof) people will take to preserve the reputation of an athletic program and its idols.
But we cannot keep speaking in hypotheticals when all college campuses, especially our own, are dealing with horrific realities. The fact of the matter is 25 percent of the women on the UW-Madison campus will be victims of rape or attempted rape throughout their time at college. That number should disturb you-it should rock you to your core.
There is no sense in comparing what happened to the boys sexually abused by Sandusky and ignored by PSU leaders to what is happening to victims on this campus. Traumatic experiences are not relative to one other: They are traumatic. End of story.
I happen to be a good friend of Mr. Savidge and know him as someone who takes the issue of sexual assault very seriously. Still, if we are going to prompt the student body to think about this epidemic, we must do so in a way that is both thought provoking and productive.
It's not that Mr. Savidge was ill intentioned. It's not that the question he asked was an unimportant one. It's that we cannot concentrate on a hypothetical when sexual assault exists as a reality on this campus.
We need to translate the anger and disappointment we felt upon hearing of the Penn State scandal into something that truly benefits our campus and fellow Badgers affected by sexual assault.
Sincerely,
Jacqueline O'Reilly
PAVE Media Advocate
PAVE is a student organization dedicated to ending sexual assault, dating/domestic violence and stalking on the UW-Madison campus through education and activism. Please direct questions to uwpavemedia@gmail.com.
