STUDENTS at The University of Edinburgh protested today over the university’s handling of sexual assault and rape cases.
Rallying today for the fourth year in a row, FemSoc, Sex on Campus, and Girl Up Edinburgh called for justice for survivors of gender-based violence.
Students report that despite rape culture being prevalent on campus, it is treated in the same manner as plagiarism.
Dozens collected at Bristo Square to protest the poor handling of sexual assault cases, chanting “Edi uni (sic) protects rapists”.
Students gathered outside McEwan Hall at the main campus to share their own experiences of misconduct at the university, holding signs with phrases such as, “I’m not asking for it” and “Protect us not your reputation”.
This is the fourth year that the protest has been organised, the first created by Aarthi Mukhedkar who created a petition titled “Sexual Violence at The University of Edinburgh: The Redressal System Needs to Change”.
In 2022, she stated that after filing a formal complaint about sexual violence committed against her, the Student Disciplinary Committee dismissed the case as “the allegations against the respondent could not be proven on the balance of probabilities”.
Her petition for the university to change their procedures received over 60,600 signatures, and a protest was organised the next month.
Now, the protest is held every year with a different theme, the first being “Me Too”, the second titled “Edi Uni (sic) Protects Rapists”, and last year’s being termed “Am I next?”.
President of the Feminist Society, Ugne, said today: “Edinburgh University is number one in Scotland based on reported rapes.
“We’ve been having more conversations with the university, because in the past they have not engaged with us at all and have seen us as a nuisance, which we will continue to be a nuisance until they listen to us.
“We have an open letter on our social media from about two years ago with our demands and the points we’re working on communicating to the university.
“So far, the only commitments we’ve been given are a pilot of a workshop on consent meant to be coming this semester, a survey about the services that the university provides, and one on the prevalence of gender-based violence.
Committee member of Femsoc and Women’s Officer for the student union, Syjil Ramjuthan, added: “We’ve had 300 cases reported that we know of in the last five years up to 2021.
“Of those, only 56 have been closed and only 27 expelled.
“Most victims start by going to the uni and realise how terrible it is, then go through alternative routes and find us.
“No one wants to start looking for a support group for survivors when they come to university, so they don’t know about us – they find us through trial and error.”
After last year’s protest, the university met with student campaigners to discuss their demands but follow-up meetings were allegedly cancelled four times from June to September, prompting another protest called “We’ve had enough”.
As of now, consent training courses are available on Learn and are embedded in the matriculation process, and a survivors hub is set to be created this summer.
Societies like FemSoc, however, say there is still much more to be done to enact the necessary institutional changes regarding codes of conduct, resources, and staff-student relationships.
Syjil went on: “The university needs to hold students accountable.
“There was a case in the medical school in which the victim took the case to the head of the school, who said that even if they had a video of the perpetrator punching her in the face, they still wouldn’t expel him.
“The whole system doesn’t believe victims and is biased towards the perpetrators.”
