At Christian Colleges, Theology Can Complicate Sexual-Assault Prevention

The first month of the fall semester is the time of year colleges are counting on their sexual-assault prevention training to make a difference. The time between the first week of college and Thanksgiving break, known as the “red zone,” is generally recognized as the time when students are most vulnerable to assault.

Every college tackles the issue of sexual assault in its own way, but Christian colleges face unique challenges in crafting an approach because of Biblical interpretations on sexuality. Should they or shouldn’t they integrate theology into sexual-assault education?

The amended Clery Act, which governs campus crime reporting, requires every college in the United States that receives federal aid to provide sexual-assault-prevention education to new students and employees as well as continuing training to the entire student body.

Religious colleges have provided some of the most infamous examples of inadequate treatment of campus sexual assault. And in some cases, their restrictive codes of conduct and behavioral standards have reportedly played a part in worsening the situation.

At Baylor University, where several top leaders were fired after a major controversy over sexual assault, premarital sex is denounced by the code of conduct. That kind of prohibition can cause students, faculty members, and administrators to avoid talking about sex at all.

Brigham Young University, which is run by the Mormon Church, is another religious institution with an honor code that speaks against premarital sex and consumption of alcohol. These policies have caused administrators to allegedly focus blame on victims of assault instead of perpetrators.

At BYU, Madi Barney, a student who said she had been raped off campus, alleged that when she pursued criminal charges against her perpetrator, campus officials also opened an inquiry to examine whether she had violated the campus honor code on the night of her assault.

Institutional action around sexual assault can be influenced by a college’s theological stance on sexuality. Two issues in particular can be much more difficult to discuss at some Christian colleges: consent, and sexual violence against LGBTQ people.

Tricky Conversations

Many Christians believe that premarital sex violates Biblical instruction, and so the idea of promoting consent on a college campus would acknowledge the existence of an illicit activity. As a result, some Christian colleges are hesitant to talk about consent, even though federal law seems to demand it.

According to the Campus Sexual Violence Elimination Act, an expansion of the Clery law, colleges must provide training on consent in the same way that they educate students on bystander intervention and risk reduction. Increasingly, colleges are using the phrase “yes means yes” to define consent, which means that only an explicit “yes” counts as consent.

Consent is not commonly discussed in sexual-assault education at Cedarville University, an evangelical college in Ohio that has been investigated by the federal government for alleged Title IX violations.

Teresa Clark, Cedarville’s Title IX coordinator and an associate professor of kinesiology, said the university mostly avoids the topic of consent. “We don’t emphasize that,” she said. “More, we talk about warning signs of an abusive person and the tips for an active bystander and to help your friend.”

Cedarville emphasizes that “no means no,” Ms. Clark said, although that discussion is to be found only in the sexual-assault policies listed online and not in the training that is presented to students. The university did not respond to requests for further details about the language used in the trainings.

Cedarville’s sexual-assault education involves completing an online training module, which is integrated into a course titled “Physical Activity in the Christian Life,” which students must take during their freshman or sophomore year. The module was created by Cedarville’s administration to be “Biblically based,” said Ms. Clark, and to explain Cedarville’s policies along with the “perspective of what the word of God says in terms of how we treat one another.” She added that she also visits smaller student groups to talk in greater detail about sexual-assault prevention.

Cultures in which premarital sex is discouraged can end up hurting victims of sexual assault, said Boz Tchividjian, a law professor at Liberty University and founder of Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment, or Grace, an organization that seeks to prevent sexual abuse in Christian communities. When someone is sexually assaulted at a college where premarital sex is denounced, “not only is that victim already struggling with whether or not they have been sexually victimized, but they have the added fear that their own actions will be the focus of the institutional response, causing greater trauma and shame,” he said. “As a result, tragically many of these victims remain trapped in silence, while the offenders are empowered to re-offend.”

John D. Foubert, a professor of higher education and student affairs at Oklahoma State University and president of One in Four, a nonprofit that works to end sexual assault on campus and in the military, is hired by Christian colleges to consult with administrators and speak to student groups. Mr. Foubert says colleges can stress consent without broaching the topic of premarital sex; for instance, it can apply when two people are holding hands. “It makes sense to have consent before you do something to another person’s body. … It’s a fairly intimate gesture to ask someone if you can hold their hand and it honors their bodily integrity,” Mr. Foubert said.

The Importance of Consent

Although consent can be a tricky conversation, Eastern University, a Christian university in Philadelphia, has decided that it can’t ignore the topic. Courtney Johnson, a current resident director and previous student leader for Eastern’s “It’s On Us” assault-prevention project, said, “One thing we always want to be clear about is consent, regardless of sexual identity or your theology on premarital sex.”

After receiving a $15,300 state grant from the Pennsylvania governor’s “It’s On Us” campaign — part of a national campaign begun during the Obama administration — Eastern bought bracelets, T-shirts, and stickers to provide students information about the campus sexual-assault hotline. Eastern is the only Christian college in Pennsylvania that was awarded the governor’s grant, according to Jacqueline Irving, Eastern’s interim vice provost for student development and director of the university’s “It’s On Us” initiative.

During the fall semester, Eastern students are required to complete an online training in addition to attending a large single-sex seminar led by residence-life staff. The online training teaches students about bystander intervention and how to support a victim. Students learn to not ask “why” questions, such as “why did you go there?” or “why didn’t you scream?”

In the presentation led by residence-life staff, Eastern students are given a definition of consent: “a clear voluntary, unambiguous, and positive agreement to engage in specific sexual activity through a sexual encounter,” according to Eastern’s RA sexual assault training manual. “Consent cannot be inferred from the absence of a ‘no’; a clear ‘yes,’ verbal or otherwise, is necessary.”

Although administrators say there has been little pushback over the discussion of consent on Eastern’s campus, Ms. Johnson mentioned that general sexual-assault-awareness campaigns have caused families of prospective students to fear that sexual assault is occurring on campus and complain to the admissions department.

How to prevent sexual violence against LGBTQ people is another conversation that some Christian colleges struggle with. Biblical interpretations on sexuality and gender can cause Christian institutions to be less empathetic toward the experiences of LGBTQ people, which results in ignoring certain abuses committed against them.

According to Know Your IX, an organization focused on combating campus rape, gay and bisexual men are at 10 times higher risk of assault than heterosexual men; 25 percent of transgender people have been assaulted after the age of 13; and 46 percent of bisexual women have been sexually assaulted, compared with 17 percent of heterosexual women and 13 percent of lesbian women.

Ian Jennings, a third-year student at Eastern and president of Refuge, an on-campus LGBTQ advocacy group, said that Eastern doesn’t properly discuss these issues. Through the group, Mr. Jennings and others teach students about sexual violence against LGBTQ people during Eastern’s Sexual Assault Awareness Week, which occurs in the second semester. In Ms. Irving’s view, Eastern believes that “every student should be respected and should be treated the same.” She says that Eastern cares for LGBTQ students by making available a human-sexuality expert in addition to educating student leaders about sexual violence.

Cedarville takes a limited approach in discussing sexual violence against LGBTQ people. Ms. Clark said that the university’s data “hasn’t shown that we’ve had much need for that, but we are having those discussions around the table especially in the athletic arena because of NCAA policies.”

Keeping Religion Out

Other Christian colleges have found ways to accommodate a diversity of beliefs on sexuality, regardless of what their codes of conduct say. The University of Notre Dame, a Catholic college that has been subject to several Title IX investigations, talks about sexual assault without integrating theological beliefs.

Elizabeth Boyle, a sophomore and a student engagement officer with Know Your IX at Notre Dame, said the university is careful to not use a religious lens when educating students about sexual assault because leaders don’t want Notre Dame’s Catholic beliefs to alter the conversation that should be had.

Even though religious language isn’t explicitly used in Notre Dame’s sexual-assault education, Ms. Boyle finds the college’s Catholic values to be present throughout. “We always come back to our values, that we are called to be our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers,” she said, “and because of that, we are called to protect them.”

Money and staff were routed into sexual-assault education after the university’s first federal investigation, which was resolved in 2011. New students are asked to complete an online module before their freshman year, which is followed up with a meeting with educators during orientation to discuss the basics of sexual-assault prevention. Students are then required to enroll in a class that teaches how to intervene in scenarios that could result in sexual violence.

Those scenarios include giving someone a ride home, asking someone at a party if they are OK, or calling the police when an intense situation is escalating.

Fordham University’s sexual-assault-education program is like Notre Dame’s in that students complete an online module the summer before their freshman year and attend a seminar during orientation. Students also enroll in a core course that discusses sexual assault, which they must complete to be eligible to live on campus for their sophomore year.

Monica Sobrin, a recent graduate and current student engagement organizer with Know Your IX at Fordham, found the university’s Catholic values to influence conversations about sexual assault. She said that during her freshman year, conversations about sexuality facilitated by the administration could be summed up as “I can’t give you a condom, but I can point you across the street where you can find one yourself.” Ms. Sobrin added, “It was expected that students came in knowing about consent and bystander intervention and healthy relationships.”

As a student, Ms. Sobrin ran a bystander-intervention and consent-training program alongside other student leaders. Fordham declined to comment when asked about the details of its sexual-assault education programs.

Regardless of the specific language used in colleges’ training materials, the broader stress should be on caring for one’s neighbor, says Mr. Foubert, the One in Four president. “If you see that someone might be in a situation of sexual violence, you’re going to stand up, step in, and do something.” He added, “If you love your neighbor, you aren’t going to do something with them that isn’t consensual.”