I know that the question of how to advise our students vis-Ã -vis college choice has been raised on Lookjed in the past. As I remember them, the discussions focused on such questions as religious life on campus, the challenges of retaining commitment to traditional Jewish values in environments where those values were questioned on a regular basis and a climate of anti-Zionism.
I would like to raise another issue. From what I read, even as college campuses profess to be bastions of openness and sensitivity, there exists a "rape culture" where all values of chivalry fall to the wayside and women are treated as sexual objects after a drink or two.
Occasionally these events make it to the headlines (sometimes even when they do not take place - [
en.wikipedia.org]), but from the media it appears that campuses are rife with events like these that are largely brushed aside as "consensual sex."
Can we in good conscience encourage the young women – and young men – graduating from our schools to place themselves in settings where such attitudes exist? It seems unreasonable to assume that our graduates will not attend those parties, when peer pressure will force them to come "just to see." And what options exist for day school graduates who are discouraged from these college campuses? Should all of them attend YU? Or go to college in Israel where campus life doesn't exist as it does in the US?
Thanks for listening,
Sasson
