Midday Culture Connections: Sexual Assault on Campus

On today’s Midday Culture Connection with Dr. Sheri Parks: a conversation about sexual assault in education. When Dr. Christine Blasey Ford and Judge Brett Kavanaugh testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week, not only was it another pivot point in the #MeToo Movement, it also afforded a window into a culture of drinking and bad conduct among privileged young people in the 1980s. Was that culture of privilege and excess substantially different from the 1970s or 1960s? Did the culture change in the next millennium at elite private high schools and the nation’s most exclusive colleges and universities? Are students aware of their rights under what’s known as Title IX? And given that so many assaults are not reported to campus police or local law enforcement, do we even have a handle on the scope of the problem, and what we might do to alleviate it? Dr. Sheri Parks is the Vice President of Strategic Initiatives at the Maryland Institute College of Art. She’s the author of Fierce Angels: Living with a Legacy from the Sacred Dark Feminine to the Strong Black Woman. She’s a regular contributor to this program, joining us on the first Tuesday of the month for Midday Culture Connections.Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.