Sarah Morin

AP Lang
9/15/2015
The recent scandal centered around St. Pauls has prompted many elite boarding schools
to develop and implement a response to the issue of sexual assault. The best response to this
issue is that, "At Exeter, officials plan a new bystander intervention program, which will train
students to help prevent sexual violence." (Binkley) This response provides valuable information
to students, is not a new limitation on student life, and is not necessarily eared towards one
gender over another.
Creating a program to train students to prevent sexual assault gives the students
information about a serious issue they may not have known. Rather than establishing new rules
and further limiting students, administrators are giving the students something useful, not only at
boarding school but throughout college and adult life. Creating or strengthening the rules of a
campus may actually be counter-intuitive in a situation such as this. Teenagers, by nature, want
to break rules and do things they are told they cannot do. Also, many sexual interactions at
boarding schools, like the one which occurred at St. Pauls, do not happen within the bounds of
parietals or even areas on campus. Rules create a divide between the student body and the
administration, while information and training may form a connection.
Programs that intend to train students are often gender neutral. They do not target males
as predators or females as victims. A training course would provide information equally, because,
although rare, sexual assault happens both ways. In an article written by Bernie Reeves for
American Thinker, Reeves explained that when prep schools such as St. Pauls began admitting
girls, Girls were rarely disciplined, while the boys were subjected to even stricter rules to ensure
that the girls were given special status. Tampering with school rules and disciplinary procedures
may or may not prevent sexual assault but will probably cause issues like this to arise. Unfair
punishment could easily divide the boys and girls of a prep school and cause other serious
problems such as bullying and harassment as well.
Creating an informative training program is the best response to this issue because it is
not further constricting students or segregating them by gender. At the same time, it provides
information they can all apply to their lives and improves the atmosphere of the school as well.

Articles:
http://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2015/09/08/questions-from-ex-student-rape-trial-lingerat-prep-schools
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2015/08/sex_and_the_senior_salute.html
Outside Feedback: Student
Most of the argument is based on segregation and gender inequality
add that students should also be taught about abusive relationships
Reflection
The point of this essay was to argue which was the best response to the issue of the three
quotes from the Binkley article. In my argument, I mainly focussed on why the other two
responses were ineffective. I had difficulty explaining why the response I chose was the best. I
think adding information about the extensions that could come from a training program, like my
outside reviewer suggested would have made my argument stronger.