Forty-eight percent
In the first week of my Civic Engagement FOCUS class, we were instructed to write about one issue that distressed us most about our, thus far, limited perspective on campus culture. I finished my paper in fifteen minutes--there was not one single issue I, as a female-identifying student, was more aware of than lack of a certain culture: consent. It’s as subtle as a waist-grab at Shooters, a sudden hand-on-the-back at Devine’s, an unwanted and unspoken invitation to dance, marked by the drunken presence of a boy standing a bit too close. It’s as overt and violent as the 48 percent of undergraduate women--and this percentage is most likely under-representative--surveyed in 2018 reporting having been sexually assaulted since their enrollment at Duke.