IOWA CITY, Iowa ― As much as any college administrator could be, University of Iowa President Sally Mason was prepared for the growing nationwide pressure to curb campus sexual assaults.
An experienced leader with a calm but determined approach, Mason had taken steps that made the 30,000-student university a model on the issue. Following a high-profile assault involving football players in 2007, Mason hired an administrator to coordinate help for victims and mandated prevention training for employees. And she had personal experience, having to fight off an assailant while an undergraduate in 1970.
Yet one statement she made last month—that ending sexual assault was probably unrealistic “just given human nature and that’s unfortunate”—ignited a firestorm. A student group called it a hurtful remark that exemplified the university’s insensitivity. Mason quickly apologized and held a student forum on the issue, but she was still chastised by the university’s governing board and directed to improve communication with its members.
Mason’s predicament illustrates the tremendous pressure facing administrators—from well-organized student activists, boards concerned about campus safety and an increasingly active federal government—to do more to stop what the White House calls a public health epidemic.
With national statistics indicating that as many as one in five women are assaulted during college, the issue has become explosive, never far below the surface.
Activist groups have formed at universities from California to Massachusetts to raise awareness, deftly using social media to organize. After Mason’s quote appeared in an interview with the student newspaper, word spread quickly over Twitter and Facebook.
“This was an issue that so many people wanted to talk about for such a long time but hadn’t been provided the opportunity or space to do so. That’s why the movement snowballed the way it did,” said senior Stacia Scott, a protest organizer.
