UC says there’s no good news in harassment report

MORE than a quarter of Australian National University (ANU) students responding to a survey, reported being sexually harassed while on campus.

The 2022 National Student Safety Survey (NSSS) on sexual assault and sexual harassment at the ANU found that 26.1 per cent of respondents were sexually harassed at some point during their time at university, which is double the national average.

More than 12 per cent of respondents reported that they had been sexually assaulted at some point during their time at university, which is three times the national average.

The NSSS survey is a follow-up to a 2017 survey, which had ranked the ANU as worst in Australia for instances of sexual harassment and second worst for incidents of sexual assault.

ANU Women’s Officer, Avan Daruwalla said the survey’s findings were “deeply troubling” and demonstrate that students at ANU face a much higher risk of sexual assault and harassment than at almost any other university.

“This is an appalling and unacceptable failure by Australia’s national university,” Ms Daruwalla said.

“The institutional betrayal at ANU is underscored by the fact that student advocates have been campaigning for specific, actionable and immediate actions to redress a dangerous and unresponsive culture – to no avail for the past five years.”

ANUSA president, Christian Flynn, said the ANU released a pre-emptive response to the NSSS survey results on Monday (March 21) in the form of a new “Student Safety & Wellbeing Plan”.

“The plan has been rushed out without appropriate consultation and neglects to acknowledge that all promised actions could have been undertaken at any prior point,” Mr Flynn said.

ANUSA and the ANU Women’s Department’s statement says none of the changes should have taken five years to implement: “Senior residents, community co-ordinators, ANU staff members in academic and residential hall positions, women’s officers, and countless others all knew that there was a problem, and every year we told the ANU to do better. We knew there was a problem, they knew there was a problem. The ANU response was too little too late.”

The ANUSA and the ANU Women’s Department are calling for:

• The creation of an actionable ‘Cultural Change Action Plan’.
• A zero-tolerance approach that precludes students who have demonstrated violent, antisocial and threatening behaviour from residential accommodation.
• The cessation of outsourcing pastoral care to for-profit institutions.
• The inception of an empowered oversight body including student representatives to hold ANU accountable and directly report to the vice-chancellor.
• A commitment to creation of prevention campaigns based directly on feedback provided by student leaders with real, on-the-ground experience.
• https://citynews.com.au/2022/anu-to-invest-millions-to-stop-sexual-assault.

ANU to invest millions to stop sexual assault