Who are we?
#MeTooOnCampus
Initiated by students at the University of Leicester. We are a group of activists and survivors working alongside the students' union and university welfare department to create a fully inclusive, safe and supportive environment where sexual violence and harassment is not tolerated, and sexual trauma survivors feel empowered to report, seek support and speak out about their experience if they wish to do so.
Sexual violence and harassment can happen to, or be committed by, anyone regardless of gender, race, religion, disability or sexual orientation. We aim to increase awareness of this, the post-trauma effects of different lived experiences, and how you can support a survivor should they choose to disclose this to you.
As a group we aim to educate the student body and university powers and make real changes to improve current support services, reporting procedures and disciplinary policies. We hope to increase transparency so that individuals can make fully informed decisions regarding the consequence of the actions or inaction available to them as a survivor, bystander or perpetrator.
Our message is not to reduce the risk through unhelpful victim blaming – it is that sexual violence and harassment will not be tolerated at the University of Leicester, and that our students and staff will not enable or contribute to a culture that facilitates it.
#MeTooOnCampus is a political movement in its own right and is therefore not affiliated with any specific parties.
If you want to get involved, sign-up for #MeTooOnCampus via the link here!
#MeTooOnCampus in the Media
Find us on social media!
Below are some of the links to media that has reported on #MeTooOnCampus featuring some of our campaigners.
Article from WonkHe: https://wonkhe.com/blogs-sus/our-work-on-gender-based-violence-is-about-giving-students-power-and-control/
Article from The Tab: https://thetab.com/uk/2019/07/12/second-year-rape-victim-forced-to-remain-on-campus-with-her-alleged-attacker-109901
Article from The Metro: https://metro.co.uk/2019/09/18/prevent-rape-university-every-student-must-module-consent-10762939/
Podcast episode on Radio 4: https://open.spotify.com/episode/4kvGGrB3LKP874tgxPhS6y
Background to the Campaign
How did it start?
In Spring 2019 students launching the campaign had initial meetings with the 2018/19 Student’s Union President to discuss their experience with sexual violence at university and what could be done about it. The President and other officers helped the students start a campaign in which they reached out to other students who would want to get involved to discuss what changes they wanted to see on campus.
Since then more students have joined the campaign and they are working together with Student’s Union and University of Leicester staff with the aims of seeing change and progress on our campus surrounding the stigma and attitude towards sexual violence and improved support for survivors.
Research that founded the Campaign:
In 2018, the NUS and the 1752 Group produced ground-breaking research on the prevalence of staff-student misconduct and sexual violence in UK higher education at a national level.
41% of respondents (752 out of 1839 respondents who were current or past HE students. Power in the academy: staff sexual misconduct in UK Higher Education, April 2018) had at least one experience of sexualised behaviour from a University staff member. This percentage is even higher for postgraduates, LGBT+ students, and women.
From this research the campaign developed with further research to explore what other universities have in place. The 2016/17 European commission project Universities Supporting Victims of Sexual Violence includes a report detailing the implementation of Sexual Violence prevention and support training administered across several universities world-wide (inc. Keele, York, Brunel, York St Johns, Lancaster, Brighton). The report demonstrated that Keele University had the strongest response to sexual violence, and our research on their university facilities inspired some of the demands articulated by the campaign to generate change on University of Leicester campus. Keele operates its own Sexual Violence Prevention Team, who are dedicated to preventing as well as supporting victims of sexual violence cases. In addition to this they had university staff training, how to notice when a student displays signs of being a survivor, student awareness events and bystander awareness training. Lime culture highly recommends Keele University's efforts.
Research was also carried out to improve nightlife for students attending the O2 Academy on campus. Good Night Out is a NUS affiliated programme that offer intervention training specific to venue staff and have GNO accreditation. The aim from this research was to look over current policies and work with teams to create a best practices policy and training procedures, it would then be the venue's job to maintain and enforce this. Training would hopefully be enforced for O2 staff and the Students' Union's staff - Club Crew.
Find support
If you are in any danger currently, please do not hesitate to phone 999
If you would like to report something to the University, please visit: https://reportandsupport.le.ac.uk/
By completing this report, you will be able to inform the University about something that has happened to you or someone you know, either anonymously or by leaving your contact email.
For other avenues of support, please visit the Students' Union's guide to campus and community support related specifically to sexual violence and misconduct.
Scan the QR code or click on this link for plain text and more signposting options: Sexual Abuse and Misconduct
Campaign Summary
#MeTooOnCampus Summary
A month by month summary of what's been happening in the campaign
February 2020:
- Sexual Assault Awareness week happened: Team Leicester talks, campaign recruitment stalls in preparation for the new academic year and continuing the campaign
- Erase the Grey was put up around campus as per the August demands from the Me Too campaigners
January 2020:
- Negotiating with University Senior Leadership team for more wins - third set of demands were made by campaigners to improve student support and education
- These include: Revision of misconduct policy processes; permanent implementation of me too in education; a public apology to all of those the university didn’t help in the past centenary
November/December 2019:
- Activism started with a silent protest during the inaugeration of the University's new Vice Chancellor
- The start of talks with Team Leicester. Sport teams took in turns to attend talks with the aim to educate those in sport from preventing misconduct and how you can support victims of assualt.
- New wave of #MeTooOnCampus started in time for the new decade
October 2019:
- A new set up of the campaign group to manage how big the campaign is getting
- A more public front with big presence on the website and social media platforms
- A committee of campaigners with various roles to even the workload and have more impact
September 2019:
- Launch of including anti-sexual assault and activism in education campaigning - the University agreed to put up "No means No" and "Silence is not Consent" stickers all over University of Leicester property
- The start of offering seminars to universities worldwide to show their students how they can achieve activism on their campus too – a unified movement
- Start of designing training sessions that will go initially to sport teams but eventually to all subjects
- Launch of disclosure training to be given to Union and O2 staff on how to effectively deal with a disclosure such as someone saying they had been sexually assaulted
- Discussions with academics with research in the field and how it can be incorporated into some curriculums or through activity on campus to reduce the taboos surrounding the topic and get more people talking
- Campaigning to have more resources such as media training for those who feel no choice but to speak out about their experiences to be heard, or ways to keep themselves safe if they want to take it to social media
August 2019:
- New meeting, new members, new demands
- More presence at Wellbeing meetings with new proposals of funding
- Demands now included:
- A more public display of support – visible posters regarding consent on campus
- For MeTooOnCampus to appear on sport kits
- Awareness of the increased assault during certain celebratory periods and an action plan in place
- On the day support available for survivors in counselling
- Change in the appeals process for those who report through the University system, that those who report have a right to appeal
- Have our own version of Erase the Grey on campus during an anti-sexual violence awareness week
July 2019:
- This month we took our campaign to the news – this in turn created more awareness for the cause we are campaigning for, gave good publicity for the group and caught the University's attention
- Campaigners featured and shared their stories in newspapers, radio shows, tv news, etc. Visit our media page for more information.
April 2019:
- Start of the campaign planning: initial meeting, Karli and Amy’s discussion and advertising in Student Union voice
- Twitter revelation
- The planning meetings of what demands people wanted, the best way to go about them and then the potential protest plans if demands weren’t met
- Our practise meetings – preparing what we wanted to say before our meetings with The Vice Chancellor and Head of Wellbeing, as well as, with the CEO of On campus nightlife
- Meeting with VC and HoW:
- Asked for a specific specialised trauma specialist counsellor
- To lift the 6 session cap on counselling
- Meeting with LSP:
- Improve the banning procedure of the O2
- Implement Good Night Out training
Updates
Our 2020-2021 Wins:
