By Jessica Keith

I can’t keep my students safe. As a lecturer at San Diego State, an employee of the university since 2010, I fear for the safety of my students and sometimes even myself. Year after year. I hold my breath reading emails from campus safety with “State-Up-To-Date” information that includes the latest crimes committed on or near by SDSU.

In the Fall of 2021, I re-entered the campus, for in-person instruction, with trepidation. As a lecturer and as a mother of three young children, I feared being in a classroom of up to 100 students, exposed to thousands, with Covid running rampant. Weekly emails from the university announced the “robust monitoring and alert system in place for all reported cases, which may have had campus contact.” Announcements included ways to protect ourselves, the campus, and beyond SDSU— in our communities. The language used in the emails and messaging focused on well being, and the health and safety of others. Resources made available included links to human resources, counseling and psychological services.

The protocol for any close contacts was to phone and email individuals. Additionally, a general email was sent to alert all employees who may have had contact with the unnamed individual. There was also a virtual bulletin board with potential exposures. A safety plan detailed how SDSU responds in these situations. All of those directly or indirectly impacted are alerted of the information, again, I repeat, on a weekly basis.

Yet, the biggest hazard in the classroom, like the virus, is undetectable by the naked eye. Students who have been sexually assaulted, witnesses, perpetrators, bystanders, and assailants potentially are in a classroom together. Inaction by SDSU of alerting the community meant professors stood in the front of their classes lecturing on the importance of a safe learning environment while an assailant sat taking notes.

On the first day of class, I explain my practices of collective learning and ask students to adhere to a basic standard— agreeing to help maintain a healthy environment upon entering the door. I hold my classroom as a safe space for a large spectrum of learners, with varying abilities, diverse cultural backgrounds, and dynamic life experiences. I relate with them on mental health challenges. I champion students who are undocumented, first-generation, international, LGBTQ+, and homeless youth.

But there is a group of students I can’t keep safe. Because I don’t even know who they are. The victims— labeled, judged, and scrutinized, by others, may sit in the classroom with their perpetrators, teammates, witnesses, and bystanders.

In the case of Matt Araiza, on Oct. 26, 2021, SDSU received the first of several anonymous submissions from individuals with third-hand information about the alleged off-campus sexual assault. For an entire academic year, the students brave enough to report information, accounts, and leads, sat in a classroom as the alleged assailant was cheered on by roaring crowds of thousands in a stadium of fans, walking at graduation, partying with friends, nicknamed “The punting god” and awarded a hefty salary by the Buffalo Bills.

“Sexual assault and sexual violence will not be excused, tolerated, or ignored,” JD Wicker, Director of intercollegiate athletics, stated. And yet it is. The gang rape was reported multiple times by various students. It’s been a full academic year since the alleged assault. All the while, witnesses, students who left anonymous reports, secondhand accounts and attendees of the party, all sat in a classroom, like mine. Desks were filled by those who did the right thing: reporting a crime of sexual assault, a gang rape, by SDSU students, as no visible actions of accountability, of any kind were taken by the university. No specific or general information shared. No alerts. No warnings of any kind. No safety plan made public to those impacted.

I work to ensure a safe learning environment for students, I can’t say the university kept the same commitment. By SDSU providing a seat in the classroom for everyone, devastatingly, it shined a light on a space for assailants— who may be seated in the same class, next to a victim.