Northwestern Assault: Bridging the Gap

I am extremely saddened and upset about last night’s news that a 22-year old woman was sexually assaulted two blocks from Northwestern University. This hit close to home. Not only because I lived within blocks from this assault for two years and attended Northwestern, but also because it reminds me that no matter where you are in the world, it may not be safe.

But this event shows that we as part of the Northwestern community must move beyond viewing Northwestern as a bubble—the safe, elite, academic world that does not exist in connection with its immediate surroundings.

Most Northwestern students have walked through this neighborhood several times, either drunk or sober, without paying any attention to what’s around. For many of us, the only time we even noticed our Evanston neighbors was when we pissed on their lawns—clearly not truly noticing them at all. When students heard Evanston residents complain about the disrespect of college students, the overwhelming response was always, “What did you expect? You are living right next to a college campus. Don’t move here if you don’t like it.”

Northwestern is a bubble, and we like it that way. But this sexual assault highlights a larger problem that is true of Northwestern and many elite colleges across our country: isolationism and unwillingness to be part of the surrounding community.

The Duke lacrosse case is an extreme example of the dangers of a college remaining too isolated from its surrounding community. In this case Duke, the elite university, was immediately placed in direct opposition to the city of Durham when a woman accused three Duke lacrosse players of raping her. An us-versus-them attitude took hold in the city itself, but also across the world where those following the story took sides. The results of the case are now infamous, as the accuser’s allegations failed to prove that a rape took place, but the divisiveness between the school and the community have yet to be healed.

It takes a major story like the Duke lacrosse case or the Northwestern sexual assault to highlight these divisions, but it will take a much longer and sustained effort by the schools and surrounding communities to bridge the gap.

But bridge the gap we must.

Fostering a closer relationship between a college and its surrounding community not only will help prevent these incidents from occurring in the future, but also to educate the students of what is actually happening around them. Another world exists out there!

And communities will certainly benefit by having the college students and institutions engage them: by enhancing research, adding valuable resources, and offering an intellectual atmosphere (and I could go on and on).

Bridging the gap between colleges and their surrounding community may not directly stop rapes and violence. We still need better policing, provide women with the proper resources, and even create more campus housing. But it will awaken us to the realities of the real world, which happens to be only a few blocks away.