One day into Sexual Assault Awareness month and the internet is on fire with campus SA news. First of all, while not explicitly college-related, check out the President Obama’s SSAM Proclamation.

This week, a lot of attention has been given to an article posted in an American University newspaper that, among other things, that date-rape doesn’t exist and any woman who goes to a man’s room “wants sex.” To be honest, I don’t have much to add to the conversation that hasn’t been addressed elsewhere, except to say that I’ve been really impressed with the impassioned student response, and would like to remind student journalists about what it means to be a good editor. Glad to see that the editors at the Eagle are reviewing their editorial policy.

The Maryland Attorney General’s office has apparently issued the opinion that MD colleges and universities are not allowed to keep disciplinary records in cases of sexual assault private. Schools have long kept these records sealed, claiming that by making them public they would be violating the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. I’m interested in how this plays out; look for a longer blog post in the future, I’m definitely not comfortable with the tone the article takes regarding accessing these records once they are released.

Faculty at Gonzaga University are protesting the school’s decision not to allow a performance of the Vagina Monologues on campus as it has been deemed “is inconsistent with being Jesuit and Catholic.”  Their letter to the editor sparks a really interesting dialogue on how to discuss sex and sexual assault on a historically religious campus. Another future blog post….? Anyone want to weigh in on their experience with the issue?

There has been some excellent journalism lately about rape on campus. First check out this  great piece about how Clery numbers coming out of colleges and universities in Vermont don’t match up to the reality of sexual assault on campus. Also the Huffington Post now has a campus reporting team, and yesterday published this student-written piece on sexual assault at BU.