Pictured: Nina Gurak ’16, co-president of Students for Consent and Communication.

TRIGGER WARNING: The following discusses emotional and psychological abuse, and the issue of sexual assault at Wesleyan, and may be triggering for some readers. Community and official support resources can be accessed here, here, and here.

Students for Consent and Communication have had a busy semester so far. After staging a “How Much Longer Will We Carry That Weight?” demonstration, confronting the Board of Trustees about the alarming frequency of sexual assault on campus, SFCC brought their latest campaign online. With an “Abuse Is Abuse” photo campaign, showing students holding up signs describing forms of psychological and emotional abuse, the group looks to push the administration into action about creating a definition and policy about that abuse. (Photo campaigns in general are having quite the week, and for good reason.) Their petition, which you can read and sign online, has over 90 signatures at the time of publishing:

We, the community of Wesleyan University, believe that emotional and psychological abuse poses a direct threat to the health and safety of our students and community.

We as a school stand in solidarity with survivors of emotional and psychological abuse.

We strongly believe that the Department of Education got it wrong and that we can do better.

We demand a strong and clear policy that defines emotional and psychological abuse and advocate for its inclusion in Wesleyan’s existing Sexual Misconduct Policy.

I reached out to Nina Gurak ’16, one of the co-presidents of SFCC, about the campaign. Below, you can see a few of the photographs from the campaign, which are also on Facebook and Twitter. On a related note, there is a forum to discuss Title IX policy and procedure tonight at 7PM in the Daniel Family Commons, which will inform policy changes for next semester.