Northwestern Student Op-Ed: ‘I deserve to feel safe on campus’
Numerous women have been harassed on campus lately.
There have been a few incidents of women being harassed on the Northwestern University campus recently.
One student responded by writing the following op-ed for the Daily Northwestern:
I deserve to feel safe on campus
When I was packing to move from New York City to Evanston for college, I was looking forward to being less nervous walking around at night. I was so very wrong. I felt safer at first, perhaps because I was deluding myself. But as more reports of assaults and attempted assaults on and near campus, I have felt more unsafe walking around campus than I have ever felt at home. When I think about that, it seems laughable. I’ve been thinking a lot about how I could feel safer in one of the largest cities in the world than on this campus, which is supposed to be my home for the next four years.
New York City is well-lit. Even with lampposts every thirty feet or so in the more well-lit parts of campus, Northwestern feels so dark to me. I can’t see people’s faces until they’re within ten feet of me. The incidents on campus recently combined with how early the sun goes down in the winter makes the darkness terrifying.
More importantly, New York City never promised me safety. The city has a reputation as being impersonal and, as a result, a little dangerous. Northwestern is supposed to be safe. I should be able to spend the next four years feeling fine going home at 1 a.m. and not worrying anytime I’m outside alone after 4:30 p.m. How am I supposed to spend my time here learning and growing when I have to use up to an hour every day planning walking routes and finding buddies? How can I grow as a person when I’m constantly afraid? How can I make friends if anyone can be a threat?
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Comments
Welcome to leftist utopia, sweetie!
This reads very pretentious.
I understand the sentiment behind it and am not unsympathetic.
However, no one “deserves” to be convinced that their fear and anxiety are unwarranted. That’s essentially what she is asking for, and I don’t even know how that would be carried out. Simply put, she’s asking to live in a crime-free world and have her current state of fear invalidated.
By the way, the reason she knows about these incidents is because of the Clery Act, which requires the campus to communicate these incidents of assault to all students. The utility of these warnings are debatable, with some wanting to know, some not wanting to know, and some indifferent (which is it’s own problem).
Rudy Giuliani made New York City very safe. In all of the other cities where I have lived (Baltimore, Boston, Washington D.C., Jacksonville, FL) women had to be very careful walking alone at night – and in some of these just could not walk alone safely at night. This young woman is seeing a new reality outside of the safety of New York, and she is unfortunately going to have to get used to it. She might consider buying a gun. Chicago is unlikely to crack down on crime like New York did.
“unlikely” is similar to the likelihood of a meteor strike. You should have said “dead certain” to reflect the probability of your proposition.