by Zofia Gimblett
Picture courtesy of the LSESU
For the second year running, Consent Ed stands as both a triumph and proof of the obstacles that continue to stand in the way of building consent culture at LSE. Launched by the student-run Hands Off campaign in September 2021, Consent Ed was created with the intention of opening up the conversation about sexual violence among students to combat the shame-filled silence that often discourages victims from seeking support.
With a focus on empowering students to become active bystanders in situations where sexual transgressions may occur, the program consists of an online course and an hour and a half in-person session where trained student facilitators teach the ins and outs of consent in the context of British law. Participants are presented with high-risk scenarios to test their knowledge of consent and are informed of the services available inside and outside of LSE for survivors of sexual violence. According to one workshop facilitator, David Jehlicka, “three years ago, we didn’t have workshops, so there is an improvement,” but, “it’s just not good enough yet.”
Attendance this year has been low. According to David and Consent Ed facilitator Zoé Vanhersecke, the reasons lie between poor LSESU organisation and a lack of student engagement, even subversion. While the quality of Consent Ed workshops is higher this year thanks to mandatory twelve-hour summer training for all facilitators, nearly half of sessions scheduled to take place in halls of residence in September and October 2022 were cancelled. A small number of cancellations were due to disruptions caused by Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral, but most were because no students signed up, David claims. Facilitators ran workshops even if just one student turned up, but the Consent Ed database records that 35 out of the 94 in-person sessions planned to take place on campus and in halls were cancelled.
This is partly down to bad communication between halls and the SU. Some hall staff claimed to have been notified of sessions only an hour before they were meant to happen. Although, facilitators suggest that even in cases when halls were informed in advance, the promotion of Consent Ed within halls was not energetic enough to secure substantial student sign-ups.
In contrast to last year, the SU has made Consent Ed optional this year. The SU website states that halls residents are “expected to attend if they feel able to”. On the one hand, by leaving students free to choose, the SU has resolved the issue of catering to individuals of different experiences, especially those who have already encountered sexual violence in their lives. This year’s program includes survivor-led workshops and the option to opt out altogether. On the other hand, some facilitators argue the opt-out option is used merely as an excuse by many to get out of the workshops.
Students have also created loopholes to avoid participating in Consent Ed. Training remains nominally obligatory for students who want to become committee members of any SU clubs or societies, but numerous students confirm this is rarely enforced. The Athletic Union’s Carol is a striking example of leniency: a massive all-day drinking fest in the penultimate week of Michaelmas term, for which AU members are meant to complete Consent Ed. However, many students were allegedly allowed to attend with no Consent Ed training, though the reasons for these occurrences vary and remain speculative.
Moreover, an anonymous source told The Beaver about residents in halls ‘QR-code sharing’ in the last academic year. One person would take an unauthorised photo of the QR code, which students are asked to scan at the end of sessions to mark their attendance and would let people outside the workshop scan it. This allowed innumerable others to add their names to the list of people who have completed Consent Ed without ever coming to a single session. Perhaps a return to old-fashioned pen and paper is the remedy.
A 2019 survey of 1,000 students in the UK revealed that only a quarter felt sufficiently prepared by earlier sex education to understand sexual consent properly. In the wake of the ‘shadow pandemic’ of intensified domestic violence during Covid lockdowns, Rape Crisis Centres saw a rise in requests for counselling for victims of sexual violence in every month of 2021. Just a year after the subsequent spiking epidemic of the winter of 2021, sexual violence remains a serious problem. Moreover, although 62% of students report experiencing sexual violence at university, four in five cases go unreported.
The disparity between the prevalence of sexual violence and the number of reported cases indicates dismal student confidence in reporting systems and students’ frequent inability to admit when consent has been violated. Consent Ed solves the latter. It empowers students to recognise when sexual violence occurs, teaching us how to prevent it from happening as active bystanders. Although the former is yet to be fixed, providing tools to reach out for help is crucial to improving student safety.
Consent Ed also challenges LSE’s lack of commitment to encouraging sexual violence reporting. LSE’s online ‘Report It, Stop It’ form is lengthy and, according to Zoé, “makes you want to give up.” Firstly, instead of creating a form specifically for sexual harassment, like in other UK universities, the form at LSE addresses bullying, harassment and sexual violence as one category, like all other LSE online resources. Secondly, it is unclear if any action will be taken after a student makes the report. The form seems to ask victims everything — their ethnicity, religion, and the circumstances of the incident — except the name of the perpetrator.
Zoé speculates that as soon as an individual is accused, disciplinary action must be taken, something the university does not want. Disturbingly, until this year, LSE encouraged victims to sign Non-Disclosure Agreements to prevent word of sexual harassment within the university from spreading. Only in October 2022 did LSE pledge to stop using them. The university leadership’s policy of stifling conversation about sexual violence impedes proper feedback on the efficiency of the School’s response mechanisms. Consequently, this not only leads to a lack of confidence among students in reporting incidents when they happen but also perpetuates tolerance of sexual harassment and violence, so long as it does not cause a public scandal. When speaking with Zoé, her defiance shone through: “LSE buries reports. That’s why I’m doing Consent Ed.”
In the triangular relationship between LSE, the SU and students that build consent culture, we certainly will not be receiving encouragement from the university to talk openly about or report sexual violence. Increasing student agency through Consent Ed is, therefore, all the more significant, even in spite of this year’s lagging student enthusiasm. The hope for next year is recognition by students of the power of attendance.
