With the recent events at Western University, it has put the entire student body on edge. Students and their families are worried that it could possibly happen to them. There were 30 alleged sexual assault reports after a weekend party at Medway-Sydenham Hall, a residence at Western’s campus, and out of those 30 reports. There have been 3 confirmed cases so far. Just across the Thames River, at the 7/11 located between London Hall, Essex Hall and Ontario Hall, 18 year old Gabriel Neil was found bloodied and later died in hospital. This chain of events all took place on the same weekend.
Ava Schonberger is a first year student at Western and had this to say about what she thinks Western should do in the immediate future to make sure that this doesn’t happen again, “Honestly, scare tactics towards the people that would want to do it. I feel like increased cameras for lounges, streets, at like the 711 where like the assault went down, at like Med-Syd, outside Med-Syd. It seeing like who’s going in, who’s going out. The last thing I want is Western to be like, girls stay in your dorms. Girls don’t go out because really, it isn’t a girls problem to take care of. I feel like it’s more educate the boys.” She hopes to see higher security precautions put into place so that one one has to go through these types of situations again.
With the release of information, lots of students heard about these events from their peers, fellow students and the popular app TikTok as well. “Regarding the drugging situation, I just heard like, girls better be careful, like a bunch of people got roofied. But it was just by students. I didn’t get an email till yesterday, and teachers didn’t bring up anything until yesterday and definitely not in the news until about a day or two ago.” Schonberger said. Local authorities were also not brought in to handle the situation until 3 days later as Western attempted to internally take care of everything.
In support of the victims and to protest against what they describe as the “prevalent threat of rape culture on campus,” Western students have set up a walk-out that will take place tomorrow Friday, September 17th. Students are being asked to walk out of their classes at Noon and gather in front of University College Hill before making their way around campus.
