For a $10 donation, your first drink is on us. The bar’s regular happy hour runs until 7:00 pm.

All donations go directly to helping us train student activists in how to hold their schools accountable for preventing and responding to sexual violence. Help us reach more students before this semester wraps up!

And, of course, you know we want to hang out and see your lovely faces! COME TAKE BACK THE BAR WITH US!

It was a truly inspiring day for everyone, and we were so glad to be a part of it. Please continue to keep in touch via www.facebook.com/FlipItNYC!

New Yorkers for Safe Transit (NYFST), a coalition of organizations and advocates that work toward eliminating harassment and assaults on NYC public transport, has just launched a large-scale survey, online and in-person, on the types of violence and harassment that are really taking place in our communities. NYFST will summarize the findings to share with the public.

Please take a minute to take this quick survey about harassment and assault on the NYC public transportation system by visiting their website: www.nyfst.org/survey (NOTE: We’re having some technical difficulties today, so I’m unable to create a link for the survey. Copy and paste the link to visit the survey website.)

Below is an overview of the survey:

This survey asks questions about harassment and violence. If any of the questions in the survey make you uncomfortable, or you don’t know the answer, you can choose not to respond or choose to stop the survey at any time.

Your information will be used to make a broad analysis about harassment and violence in the public transportation system. We will summarize the responses and may choose to present a summary of our findings publicly.

We would love to stay in touch to tell you about the results of the survey! So please give us your information on the final page if you choose to. Your contact information will be separated from your survey responses. However, we think it’s important for people to tell their stories publicly in order to raise awareness about this issue. If you are interested in sharing your story email us at info@nyfst.org.

PLEASE ONLY COMPLETE THE SURVEY ONCE!

The data will not be taken seriously if we have duplicate responses!

For more information about this survey, and how the information collected will be used, please contact us at info@nyfst.org.

Visit us at http://nyfst.org or follow us on Facebook and Twitter!

This year, we’re focusing our Sexual Assault ACTIVISM Month closer to our home with FlipIt! Students Organizing Against Violence. We’ve been telling you about this one-day student summit for a while now, but if we can’t stop talking about it, it’s just because we’re really excited. On April 14th we–with NOW-NYC and A Long Walk Home–have planned a really special day that melds arts activism and policy activism to strengthen the organizing capacity of student activists across the city. We are focusing particularly on bringing together NYC students of color, LGBTQQI students, students with disabilities, and low-income students to help build a stronger and more representative student anti-violence movement here in the city. As of right now, we are still accepting applications, so apply! And tell your friends. Did I mention that the whole day is free, and includes an amazing multimedia performance from A Long Walk Home? Would breakfast and lunch sweeten the deal? Cause we’ve got that too!

But for those of you not in NYC, we hope you engage with SAFER this SAAM by participating in the Campus Accountability Project if you haven’t already; registering for our Activist Resource Center and checking out our latest piece, “Campus Policy: Down to the Details“; or get the jump on next year by thinking about kicking off 2012-2013 with a SAFER training.

But of course there’s more to activism than just what we do. If you’re doing something great on campus this Sexual Assault ACTIVISM Month, tell us about it. SAAM should be not only about taking action, but building knowledge. What’s working on your campus and what isn’t? Leave us a comment, or contact us. We’d love you to blog about it for us, if you can pull yourself away from your awesome postering/protesting/and speaking out (and and school work and having a non-activist life!) for a few minutes.

Most importantly though; have fun. SAAM can be daunting—for us too. Event planning, organizing, sorting through intense issues…this stuff can be hard, and it takes perseverance and sometimes a lot of courage. Remember to celebrate the small (and large!) victories and take some time to take care of you.

We think it’s gonna be a good April.

Are you an undergraduate student currently residing in or around New York City? SAFER has teamed up with NOW-NYC and A Long Walk Home for FlipIt: Students Organizing Against Violence, a free, one-day student summit and interactive workshop focused on campus organizing, policy reform, and using art for social change. Students of color, students with disabilities, LGBTQQI students, and men are encouraged to apply. I’ve included a brief summary of the day’s activities below, but you can head over to the conference’s Facebook page to learn more.

• Receive in-depth training on sexual assault and campus policy with anti-violence and advocacy experts
• Build a new school peer-group that will work together to make change on your campus
• Connect with local organizations and leaders in activism
• Become part of a new city-wide network of students and student leaders working to stop sexual assault

The event will be held at Pace University on April 14, 2012, but the application deadline is right around the corner. Make sure to apply by the end of the month! (And watch NOW-NYC’s awesome promo video below!)

SAFER recognizes that no single policy works for every school; every campus has unique challenges and situations that need to be considered. This article helps students critically analyze their policy in order to be as comprehensive and inclusive as possible. It can also be used as a group activity or conversation starter.

And Happy Friday!

Many of SAFER’s social media-savvy readers have probably already heard about this, but, if you haven’t, it’s worth checking out. Just a few days ago, feminist activists from across the pond coined #ididnotreport, and survivors began bravely disclosing their unreported experiences of sexual assault via Twitter. Here are a few powerful examples:

Absolutely nothing but blame was placed on me after my first 2 assaults. #ididnotreport the most recent. Couldn’t go through that again. -Colleen

#ididnotreport any of them because I’d been taught that it was only rape if violence or threats were used. -Merinnan

An anonymous friend: “#ididnotreport because I’m male, and no one would have believed me.” -imbecillis

So far, survivors and people close to survivors have sent 3,493 tweets using #ididnotreport. Did you or someone you know choose not to report after a sexual assault for fear of poor treatment by school administrators or disbelieving friends, law enforcement officials, etc.? Head over to Twitter and get involved in this amazing social-media movement to shed light on the troubling phenomenon of underreporting.

To help bring this problem to light, last spring, the U.S. Department of Education sent out a letter to colleges and universities nationwide, telling administrators what the department expected the schools to do when students filed reports of sexual misdeeds.  The new procedures guide schools’ implementation of Title IX, and lack of compliance could mean a loss of federal funding–a dangerous threat in a time when education costs are rapidly rising and education funds are being cut.

This is why the topic of the “13^th Annual Linda B. Floyd Campus Safety Conference,” held last month, was about how to comply with Title IX’s requirements.  The topic varies from year to year, and strives to focus on current or “hot” issues.

The conference brought nationally-recognized experts together to speak about the nuances of compliance with Title IX, and will help teach what administrators from other schools’ are doing.  The conference allowed them to have difficult and important conversations that are often pushed aside.

Linda Floyd says that “dealing with university and law enforcement officials was at times frustrating [and] there was often resistance from schools because officials felt the sessions were trying to pin blame on schools for violence on campuses.” Fortunately, that attitude changed as they saw the focus was to be education on safety issues, and has had a growing impact for raising awareness of safety on campuses.

Of the schools attending, including Texas, Florida, Tennessee and Virginia, each university official will thoroughly review the school’s policies and procedures to figure out what, if anything, needs to be changed.

Four important changes last spring’s letter from the Department of Education highlights:

• To allow both alleged victims and alleged perpetrators the right to appeal any findings
• To require early notification to the Title IX coordinator and a victim’s advocate of any reports of sexual violence (a broad term covering everything from harassment to date rape)
• To urge campus groups to “please report, please report, please report”
• To speak with faculty members, because often times can be the first person a student would seek if they had a problem, and need to be sure the faculty is sensitive to the situation and reports it to the correct people

However, there are still some unresolved issues with the specifics of compliance. One issue is that the letter mandates university involvement in all reports of sexual misconduct, even if the incidents occur off-campus. This could be problematic because if it happens in a jurisdiction that does not know that school needs to be informed, the school would be penalized.

In the past, conferences have dealt with things such as hazing and alcohol in fraternities and sororities, mental health issues, a loss of civility on campuses and crisis management.

One can only hope that the continuing of this conference, in combination with other conferences, will begin to push more colleges and universities to focus on their sexual misconduct procedures.

Sexual and sexist comments, public masturbation, groping, stalking, and assault – gender-based street harassment makes public places unfriendly and even scary for many girls, women, and LGBQT folks. Join thousands of people worldwide to speak out against this human rights issue during International Anti-Street Harassment Week, March 18-24, 2012.

There are many ways to participate, including by simply agreeing to talk about the issue, sharing stories or tweeting (#NoSHWeek) during the week, and changing your Facebook photo that week. If you want to organize action in your community, submit it to the map so others in your area can find out about it. No action is too small to help collectively say that the streets should be safe for everyone!

Below is a list of ways that you can use social media to get involved in International Anti-Street Harassment Week!

• 10 things you can do for International Anti-Street Harassment Week.
• More than 80% of women and many LGBQT individuals face #streetharassment. Speak out!
• Counter victim-blaming. Take a pic of what you were wearing when you were street harassed. Share your photo in this online gallery.
• Request a free copy of the “walking home” DVD and discussion guide to spark convos about #streetharassment by emailing lauren@artsengine.net.
• During March 18-24, change your Facebook profile pic to this.
• Anti-Street Harassment Week logos are available in 12 languages – post 1 on your site!
• Planning to participate in Anti-Street Harassment Week? Don’t forget to sign up!
• Here’s a guide for organizing an event, march, or poster campaign for Anti-Street Harassment Week.

If you’re in NYC, check out the Facebook event to get involved during #NoSHWeek!

Learn more at Meet Us On The Street.

Both alleged perpetrators have pled not-guilty and have been suspended from the team pending investigation. But I don’t want to talk about these two alleged perpetrators. It is neither my job nor yours in reading this post or news articles to determine their guilt or innocence. But what I want to say to Boston University, and all college administrations seeking to figure out why their students are perpetrating sexual violence, is that they are going to have to look a lot deeper than the climate of a sports team.

Of course, we read about sexual assault perpetrated by athletes all the time — at the high school, college, and professional levels. I don’t think I have to list them. Yes, research concedes that masculinity and gender roles facilitate this perpetration and, yes, I think we can also argue sports teams, especially at the college level, are bursting with masculinity. But being on the BU hockey team did not lead these men to perpetrate violence, if, in fact, they did.

These men have been raised in a society that disrespects women, sexualizes women, fails to protect women’s rights. They have been inundated by the media since they could comprehend what television, radio, and internet was in their very basic essence. Advertisements portraying women as sexual objects, commodities, inhuman displays for the purpose of capitalization. Movies, TV shows, and ideo games displaying horrible acts of violence and zero acts of accountability. Chris Brown dominating two performances at the Grammy’s despite his brutal beating of Rhianna, his long-time girlfriend. The public’s response to Chris Brown  and Rhianna: Tweets saying “I’d let him beat me any day” and “She should be punched in the face for being with him again” demonstrate the outright ignorance of the cycle of violence.

So no, BU, you cannot just look at the culture of your hockey team. You need to look at the culture in which your students have been raised and if you really want to do something about it, you need to stand up against the way women are portrayed, treated, and displayed to the public eye. Then you have to ensure that you hold perpetrators on your campus accountable. We have read news story after news story where sexual assaults occurred and no justice was sought by the university. This sends a message loud and clear that only supplements what the media is telling these students: You can violate a woman’s rights and disrespect her with no consequences.

I do have to say that I applaud BU for attempting to address the perpetrator side. Too often we hear that women need to dress more conservatively, not drink as much, take self-defense classes. But it’s about time we start raising our men so they never perpetrate sexual violence against anyone.