Recently, Donald Trump has been inaugurated as the 45th president of the United states. A lot of women have taken this as a highly negative occurrence, seeing as this man has insulted minorities and has now taken away the funding for abortion clinics across the country. Even before this, were the multiple allegations of sexual assault against Trump that ruined the relationship Trump had with several politicians. Even so, he was chosen by the electoral college to be the president of the united states, making it as though women are now a minority too.

More recently came the arrest of a sophomore from our school for the crime of sexual assault. With this came a series of Facebook posts that defended the student, saying that an allegation was simply and only, an allegation. In these posts were people defending rape, and arguing whether or not rape was a crime. When this was brought to the attention of the school officials, action was taken. Evidence was taken of what had been said and the further consequences were to be determined. The question that stands is: what will the school do to prevent anything similar from happening again?

Our freshman year (2013), we had a program called Peer health exchange that would come in almost every friday and teach us about health, with particular focus on sexual health. In these classes, we were supposed to learn about the reproductive organs, contraceptives, and consent. Though this was initially a brilliant idea, it soon became apparent that some of the people coming to teach us did not know what they were talking about. This was seen when the conversation of contraceptives came up, and a student brought up spermicide. The student was dismissed by the educator stating that that was not a real form of contraceptive, even though it is absolutely legitimate.

The incompetency and the lack of certification that these health educators had made the class pointless. What is needed now more than ever are real health professionals that are experts in what they are talking about to come in and talk about this very serious problem. Furthermore, consent should not be an afterthought and should have a full class of it’s own. “No means no” is not enough to pass for a consent class. Health educators should explain that any sexual contact with a person that is not able to consent, is sexual assault. This would clarify any confusion on what sexual assault means and how it in fact is a crime.

With this should come some type of education for the instructors, so that they too know how to handle a situation in which a student of theirs comes up to them and opens up about a instance of sexual assault. A student should not be questioned on the legitimacy of their story by being told that they may have misinterpreted what had occurred. A faculty member should not tell a student that it was their past that made them believe they were sexually assaulted, and actually weren’t. No one should feel like they have no one to turn to if something does happen to them. Due to the recent occurrences, overall sexual education and crisis management should be taught and dealt with in the school so that nothing like this happens again, and the legitimacy of rape is not questioned.