Entering the Red Zone
Why we need to better prepare first-year college students for the reality of sexual assault
Claire Lordan
Print illustrations by Hailey Van Boxtel
Like many of us, Ally Heniff’s transition to college didn’t begin the day she stepped onto campus. It began much earlier, in her living room, during a sit-down conversation with her mom and dad.
There, she was told for the first time about the dangers she may face at college.
“They sat me down and told me things I have to keep an eye out for,” Heniff said. “Always be with someone, never walk to places by yourself at night, things like that.”
The first-year biology major had known that the transition to college would bring new challenges. Study habits would have to be developed; friendships would be made, and roommates would be fought with.
Heniff also knew that college would open her to a new world of opportunities that hadn’t been available under her parent’s roof: alcohol and drug use. Things that had seemed worlds out of reach were now a part of her reality.
“I didn’t really do any of that stuff in high school,” Heniff said, “so seeing people do that on a daily basis was really jarring.”
But there is another, darker side to the first-year experience that doesn’t get the recognition it deserves. Whether we experience it ourselves or help a friend through it, the painful reality for many women on campus is that their first-year of college will be marred by sexual assault.
“I’m lucky enough to say that I haven’t experienced it myself,” Heniff said. “But you know that it’s a possibility, especially as a woman. It’s what your mom warns you about. You know that it could happen to you.”
***
When you’re young, everyone generally gets the same safety advice. Kindergarten stranger danger assemblies don’t discriminate based on sex; check your Halloween candy for razorblades, and don’t yell out your address — these are the universal truths of adolescence. The responsibility of parents is to remind us that the world is not always kind and not everyone’s intentions are good.
But eventually, we reach an age when the world's truths are no longer unanimous.
Parents stop reminding their sons to be home before dark or stop hounding them on every detail of an upcoming night out with friends. It’s accepted, consciously or not, that adolescent boys are no longer walking targets for malicious intentions or too-long glances.
Daughters do not get the same freedom. If their education on the world's risks begins as girls, it only changes shape through the transition into womanhood.
“Don’t get in a car with someone you don’t know” turns into “Always watch where your drinks come from.”
“Don’t talk to a stranger if they approach you in public” turns into “Make sure your clothes never reveal too much, never get too drunk and never leave the safety of your friends.”
While the packaging changes, the message stays the same: Someone you don't know who wants to hurt you is watching you to see if they can take advantage of you. They are a shadow just out of reach of a streetlamp on a dark walk home or a hazy face at the other end of the bar. They’re modern boogeymen, waiting for the right moment to strike and change your life forever.
This mythos is a failure. It fails to protect women and girls from the glaringly ugly truth that an overwhelming majority of the time our attackers are not strangers at all. They’re people we know, trust, and believe care about us.
People we expect to keep us safe.
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The Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN), which is the largest anti-sexual violence organization in the United States, reported that over one in four female undergraduate students will experience rape or sexual assault during their time at college. Of those assaults, only 20% will report the incident to law enforcement.
The largest misconception about sexual assaults on college campuses is that they are spread out over four years. In reality, those numbers become much more grim considering that more than half of those assaults occur within the span of a few months.
According to Promoting Awareness, Victim Empowerment (PAVE), a national nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering survivors and preventing sexual violence, over 50% of all sexual assaults on college campuses occur to students in their first year between mid-August and Thanksgiving break.
In 2014, a U.S. Department of Justice study of nine colleges found 629 sexual assaults reported among first-year students in September and October alone. That was more than all the assaults reported over the next four months combined.
This span of time has been dubbed “The Red Zone.”
Many colleges around the country fail to properly prepare us for the dangerous period we enter when our parents drop us off at school for the first time. Schools that provide mandatory instruction regarding sexual assault and student consent don’t always acknowledge the specific danger first-years are in.
While scaring students with the dangers of sexual assault from the moment they step on campus isn’t a practical solution, the vulnerability of being away from home and the lack of support systems puts students at increased risk.
Miami University does provide a resource index to its students regarding reported sexual assaults, but none of the listed contacts or information cater specifically to first-year students.
A records release from the Miami University Police Department showed a reported 157 incidents of rape or sexual misconduct across the past five fall semesters, beginning in 2018.
***
Picture this: You’re 18 years old, and for the first time in your life, there is no one looking out for you.
No parents expecting you home at a certain time, no teachers to call home when you don’t show up to class, no friends watching your back. You know what freedom feels like.
For many of us, that moment was a defining part of the transition to college. Learning how to grapple with personal freedom and how to handle responsibility is no small task. However, in this period, particularly for first-years, students are most vulnerable to the pitfalls of very new and very adult decisions.
This uncertainty is precisely what makes students, especially female students, so susceptible to sexual violence during the adjustment period to college life. But this failure to prepare students doesn’t end at what we should be protecting them from, but whom.
In the summer of 2020, the Miami community was taken by storm when @dearmiamiu, an Instagram account platform dedicated to highlighting stories of discrimination and violence across campus, first appeared on Instagram. Of the nearly 500 anonymous testimonies posted to the account, many are dedicated to detailing survivors’ accounts of the sexual violence they have experienced on campus.
Of these, most reference an assailant known to the victim; “I thought he wanted to be my friend,” “I thought I could trust him” and “I thought he was a good guy” are all examples of common statements on the page, submitted by users across the platform.
Know Your IX, a national organization empowering students to stop sexual violence, reported that 90% of all campus sexual assaults are committed by someone the survivor knows. This means that most assailants are likely to be other students familiar to the victim.
So, does that change how we should prepare female students for college? It’s one thing to frighten teenage girls into thinking that a strange man is going to corner them on a walk home from the library; it’s another to remind them that it’s the male friend who offers to walk them home that statistically poses a more real threat.
Just as it is difficult to accept that these assaults are happening at higher rates to students barely into adulthood, it is even harder to accept that the people committing such crimes are little more than teenagers.
Maybe this is not a problem that can be solved when students get to campus. Maybe the burden falls on middle and high schools to teach students about consent earlier. Maybe those lessons should start even younger at home — maybe parents have the greatest influence over their college children, even when they are worlds away.
Regardless, prioritizing the avoidance of discomfort, doing nothing and continuing to miseducate young girls so they are unprepared to protect themselves when they are in danger is not an option.
***
Viviana Selvaggi, a senior journalism and political science major at Miami, remembers moving into her dorm in Clawson Hall in the fall of 2019. She remembers meeting her roommate for the first time, introducing herself to girls in her hall and making hesitant plans to go out with newfound friends.
She also remembers receiving weekly safety bulletin emails from the Miami University Police Department describing incidents of recently reported sexual assaults. More often than not, Selvaggi remembered that the incidents were said to have occurred in first-year dorms.
“Getting those police bulletin emails — if not once a week, every other week — was definitely alarming,” Selvaggi said. “I wasn’t used to experiencing that many instances of sexual assault.”
When the bulletins flooded her inbox, Selvaggi didn’t realize exactly what they stood for. What she did know was that just as much as they were a reminder, they also served as a warning.
In her first month at Miami, Selvaggi and friends went to Brick Street Bar and Grill for one of their first Saturday nights as college students. While on the dance floor, she was groped by a senior male student.
“At the time I was 18, and the seniors were, what, 21? 22?” Selvaggi said. “I was shocked. I had never experienced anything like that before.”
When Selvaggi confronted the man, he and his friends told her to relax.
“They kept saying it was for a dare,” Selvaggi said. “I guess they were looking for freshmen, and I fit their criteria that they were searching for.”
For anyone who hasn’t been on a college campus recently, it isn’t hard to spot a group of first-years. They tend to travel in large packs, alluding to a false sense of security by surrounding themselves with a group. While there is safety in numbers, when you’ve only known your closest friends for a few weeks, it’s difficult to feel you have people to rely on in an uncomfortable situation.
Selvaggi continued to defend herself against the senior student until:
“He called me a bitch and walked away,” Selvaggi said.
In her three years at Miami since then, Selvaggi has never experienced an incident quite like that night. Looking back as a senior, she doesn’t think that’s a coincidence.
“We had just gotten to school,” Selvaggi said. “We didn’t know anybody. I don’t know if they target people that they know are freshmen, but I don’t get approached anymore.”
Unfortunately, Selvaggi is far from alone in her experience. It often feels like highly populated drinking spots are ripe with unwanted grabbing and advances. Despite the frequency of these assaults, women have long been expected to suffer in silence in the preservation of the “college experience.”
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The narrative that every student is at the same risk of sexual assault fails first-year students, but it doesn't have to be this way.
First-year students at Miami must complete an online module on sexual assault and consent. Why not specifically tell first-year students why they are at a greater risk than other students by explaining the factors at play, such as a lack of support system and inexperience with alcohol and drug use?
Student Counseling Services already provides resources to sexual assault victims. Why not create a support group tailored to dealing with the adjustment to the social pressures of college or a page of online mental health and sexual assault prevention resources catering to first-year students specifically?
Either way, I believe change needs to be made because it is impossible to solve a problem before acknowledging that there is one. If Miami and other colleges across the nation created a network of resources for students to utilize in their first semester before something bad happens, then maybe we can prevent some of these assaults before they occur.
