What if Mandatory "Sexual Respect" Classes are Counterproductive?

In the past month, as freshmen have arrived on campus, required "sexual respect" and "consent" workshops have been offered at colleges across the nation.

Schools like Indiana University, Bloomington, require students to complete online modules to learn about sexual misconduct before coming to campus. At Columbia University, incoming students are required to engage in what is called the "Sexual Respect Initiative." Many other schools offer similar programming to their students---all in an effort to curb the so-called "rape epidemic" on campuses.

Yet, while these programs have blossomed as a reaction to concerns over sexual violence---the evidence that these programs actually work is minimal.

Not only that, but these required "consent classes" have arose from an era in which sexual paranoia and rape hysteria has been epidemic on campus, fueled in part by debunked rape statistics that have been manufactured by advocacy organizations.

Programs that arise out of a frenzy to deal with a moral panic are well-intentioned, yet --- moral panics often preclude pragmatic resolutions.

The result? Students are taught that 1 in 4 women will be raped during their time on campus. Administrators, in an attempt to combat this epidemic, thus force their students to engage in required "sexual respect" workshops.

While what is is taught in these classes is highly contingent on the individual facilitators' agenda, students generally receive prepackaged (and simplistic) tropes about consent, healthy sexual relationships, and rape.

If their campus is anything like mine, other students will also face "sexual respect" posters on a daily basis as they walk around campus.

Many college administrations create "consent posters" as a continuation of their imperative to educate students about healthy sexual attitudes. On my campus, I walk past at least 10 "sexual respect" themed posters a day, often more. (Yes, I've counted.)

Yet, despite these good intentions, there is little attention being paid to how these required classes effect the students taking them. Anecdotal evidence from students is often conflicting.

When I took my first required "consent class" in a large auditorium at Columbia University, I remember being bewildered at the sheer dumbness of it all.

The session facilitator, who was kind spirited, repeated a number of trite mantras at us students. As a young woman, I remember feeling a wave of contempt during the lecture.

I figured that the infantilizing sermonizing that I was accustomed to in high-school would go away once I went to college. I was wrong.

The required consent class talked to us students as if we didn't know what consent was, as if we didn't know what a healthy relationship was, and as if students were sexual aggressors in waiting. As we walked out at the end of the lecture, nobody seemed happy. Most students spent the lecture on their phones.

If the administration wanted students to take consent and sexual assault seriously, it seemed like they had achieved the direct opposite of their goal.

As these programs become more ubiquitous, more students will be forced to take them. As the campus anti-rape activism movement grows, there will be a continued push for administrations to offer these types of programs.

Unfortunately, these programs unintentionally undermine the seriousness of consent by turning it into a chore.

Consent is a serious topic, but mandating that students "take it seriously" by forcing them into consent workshops paradoxically undermines the goals of the program. These classes often also promote the "affirmative consent" metric, which, as I've written about before, is a terrible way to prevent rape.

The jury is still out on the effectiveness of required consent classes. After emailing three Title IX coordinators at schools that mandated required consent classes, none responded back to my inquiry of whether their efforts have objectively reduced rape on campus, or whether their efforts are backed by peer-reviewed research.

When I caught one Title IX coordinator of an elite University on the phone this past week, she admitted that she was sure that these programs have "helped," but declined to refer me to any studies that have been done on the efficacy of these programs. No studies came to her mind. She declined to talk on the record, which is why I don't mention her exact university affiliation.

But considering the reactions of almost all of my peers, these programs don't just seem trite, possibly counterproductive. And regardless of whether you buy into the "1 in 4 students will be raped" statistic, we should all be fighting for solutions that are peer-reviewed, based on scientific studies (that have been sufficiently replicated), and that have proven effectiveness.

Without proven effectiveness, these programs just might be making the rape problem, and our sense of vulnerability as women worse --- not better.