Students Rally for Class on Rape Prevention

It was a noisy rally and that’s how the students wanted it.

Marching and carrying signs Thursday at Monroe High School, they shouted, “Is there ever an invitation to rape? No.” Many motorists on Nordhoff Street honked in support.

About 80 students and rape crisis center advocates gathered to draw attention to what they say is a lack of sufficient rape prevention education at schools.

The demonstration was triggered by the Dec. 1 gang rape of a 16-year-old who is a student at nearby Birmingham High School in Van Nuys. Police say the girl was sexually assaulted by at least six males after she had passed out drinking alcohol during a daytime party at a student’s home.

Last week 18-year-old Nathaniel Sanchez and three boys ages 14, 16 and 17 were charged with sexually assaulting the girl. Police said they all attend Birmingham High.

Rally organizers are calling on the Los Angeles Unified School District to set aside one day when all students can learn more about why rape is wrong. Although people of any age can be raped, organizers said that victims are disproportionately women under 18.

“The district needs to provide the leadership. It has to show it supports young people living lives free of sexual violence,” said Leah Aldridge, director of youth violence prevention with the Los Angeles Commission on Assaults Against Women, a private nonprofit group that sponsored the event with the Valley Trauma Center.

“The district has to help change a culture that still says females do invite rape, that she’s at fault, that she asked for it,” Aldridge said.

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Aldridge wants the school district to make an anti-rape session mandatory for all students. Young people would be taught the myths and realities about rape and how to avoid becoming victims of sexual assault. They would also discuss how survivors often are wracked by shame and depression afterward.

Los Angeles Board of Education member Julie Korenstein said she would support the idea.

Although there are strict guidelines about how school time must be used, “There should be a way to fit something like this in,” Korenstein said. “Many of our kids have become desensitized because they have very difficult lives.”

Organizers said they chose Monroe High School for the demonstration because they didn’t want students or staff at Birmingham to feel that the assault was somehow their fault, Aldridge said.

She said her group already talks to 10th-graders at Monroe each year about rape. In addition, administrators are working with school clubs at Monroe to organize information assemblies about rape prevention for students, said Assistant Principal Thane F. Opfell. The assemblies should take place in a month or two, he said.

Although Monroe has been open about teaching about sexual assault, the topic needs to be taught districtwide, said Karen Navarro, a 17-year-old senior at Monroe.

“We grow up in such violent communities and this is something that we need,” said the North Hills girl, who belongs to the school’s chapter of Students Together Organizing Peace, or STOP, which mobilized many of the student protesters. “[Many] schools don’t focus on it and a lot are touchy on the subject.”

She said that reaction at Monroe to the recent assault of the teenage girl made her realize more education is needed. “A lot of students and teachers felt it was partially her fault--that’s why we need that education,” Karen said. “It’s not a Birmingham issue, it’s not a Monroe issue, it’s a human issue.”