Tepid Resolutions to Rape: Film Sends Mixed Messages to Freshmen

October 2009

Yale landmarks pan across the screen to the romping beat of Kings of Leon: Phelps Gate, Harkness Tower, Old Campus… and the Women’s Table – a montage of its cascading font. Fade out.

At this fall’s Freshman Orientation, the film Relationships: Untitled replaced the traditional “Sex Signals” program. After 2008′s Zeta Psi incident, when a group of fraternity pledges posed outside Yale’s Women’s Center with the sign “We Love Yale Sluts,” the Women’s Center submitted a report to the administration critiquing the sexual culture on campus. One chapter urged reform of sexual harassment/assault prevention training.

A committee was formed. Another report was written. The cogs of the Yale Machine creaked forward. A year and a half later, a new sexual harassment and assault prevention program filled two hours of the freshmen’s first few dizzying days.

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