The Pitt News October 20, 2015 Issue 45 Volume 106
Beyond the Red
On campuses across the United States, sexual violence spikes during the first six to eight weeks — a period of time labeled “the red zone.” Some say, though, the label does more harm than good. | by Dale Shoemaker | Photo by Theo Schwarz On fall weekends, while the air is fresh and still invitingly warm, the same scene rolls. Speakers up, drinks served and best clothes on, as Pitt and Carnegie Mellon University students pour into South Oakland homes and bars for evenings of fun. While the music and students’ spirits are up, research shows the rate of sexual violence rises too. Two separate studies — from 2007 and 2008, respectively — show that nearly half of sexual assaults on college campuses will happen during the first six to eight
weeks of the fall semester, a time the 2008 study labels “the red zone.” Title IX coordinators at Pittsburgh’s two largest universities, though, shy from adopting the term. Rather, Katie Pope from Pitt and Holly Hippensteel from Carnegie Mellon have said sexual violence is a year-round problem. And although the studies show sexual violence on college campus goes up nationally during the red zone, the coordinators said they don’t have the numbers to back up the trend locally. After publishing the results of a 126-
page campus climate survey from the Association of American Universities in September, Pitt administrators have said they are not letting the red zone label alter their focus from eliminating sexual assault on campus. Though university administrators and other professionals are united in their fight against sexual violence, the red zone — both the label and the spike — divides them. The red zone According to “Risk of Unwanted Sex for College Women: Evidence for a Red
Zone,” — the 2008 study published in the Journal of American College Health — the red zone is the time during the academic year, usually the first six to eight weeks, when sexual violence rates peak. Both the 2007 study — which the U.S. Department of Justice funded — and the 2008 study said the red zone can last from the beginning of the school year until mid-October or all the way to Thanksgiving. According to the 2008 study, a college student has a 0.4 percent chance of See Red Zone on page 2