NUSU to offer consent classes for Freshers

This year, classes educating students on consent will be offered to all Newcastle University Freshers.

The implementation of consent classes follows the success of last year’s I Heart Consent classes which were run by last year’s Marginalised Genders Officer, Lucy Morgan.

Inspired by Lucy’s success, this year’s Marginalised Genders Officer, Saffron Kershaw-Mee decided to open up and publicise consent classes to more Newcastle students.  Saffron co-wrote the ‘Consent Classes’ motion with Cara Brooke, who runs the NUSU Free Education Network, and presented it to the first student council of the year.  The motion was successfully passed with an 82% majority.

The passing of this  motion means that consent classes will be scheduled into all Freshers’ timetables, although they will not be compulsory.

The classes will be delivered in the form of an interactive workshop.  The content will cover issues such as consent, respect in relationships, sexual harassment, rape and lad culture on campus.  The workshops themselves will be all-gender inclusive, recognising that rape could happen to anyone and precautions will be taken in order to ensure maximum comfort for vulnerable students.

Despite the recent controversy surrounding consent classes at UK universities, it cannot be denied that sexual assault, harassment and rape are alarmingly common on university campuses and action must be taken to change this.

The statistics speak for themselves:

• One in three women and one in eight men have been sexually harassed whilst at university.
•  50% of transgender people will experience sexual violence at some point in their lives.
• More than half of US university sportsmen admit to raping or sexually assaulting women.

Marginalised Genders Officer Saffron said: “I could throw nauseating statistics around all day, but the real issue here is society’s trivialising and silencing of the victim.

“What we have to do is learn to ask. In the heat of the moment, it is not just about yes or no – it is about respect, and continuous communication.

“Many claim that consent classes are patronising and useless, but these statistics scream otherwise. Not just for informing freshers, but also showing solidarity to their fellow students who have been victims of rape from strangers, partners and others.”

More details on the classes will be disclosed in the next few weeks.