It was hard for Syracuse University students to miss the lime green T-shirts worn around campus Tuesday.

As part of A Men’s Issue’s two-part campaign, the T-shirts were used to bring about further awareness of students’ attitudes regarding sexual violence.

AMI is an SU student organization that explores issues of sexual violence and masculinity.

‘The main idea of the campaign is to spread awareness,’ said Jacob Bartholomew, president of AMI and junior public relations major.

April is Sexual Violence Awareness month. AMI’s campaign was supported by the Rape: Advocacy, Prevention and Education Center, Students Advancing Sexual Safety and Empowerment, Every 5 Minutes and Substance Abuse Prevention and Health Enhancement.

The campaign is also an effort to promote the upcoming ‘Take Back the Night’ week.

‘If it causes one person to think about it, then it’s helping the situation,’ said Amani Herron, a member of AMI and a freshman in the College of Visual and Performing Arts.

The T-shirts printed a statistic percentage on the front and an explanation of what the statistic represents on the back.

There were three versions of the T-shirts. They stated:

‘Seventy percent … of SU students would stop a friend from taking sexual advantage of a person who has been drinking.’

‘Eighty-five percent … of SU students agree that it is not OK to pressure someone to drink or take drugs so they are more likely to want to have sex.’

‘Eighty-four percent … of SU students say that even if they had the chance, they would refrain from having sex if they sensed that their partner really didn’t want to.’

Bartholomew said most people said they would do the right thing if they saw something happening, but the statistics show not all people feel comfortable stepping into others’ business to stop sexual violence from happening.

‘These shirts aren’t 100 percent,’ Herron said. ‘If they said, ‘Would you rape someone?’ 100 percent would say no.’

Students wearing the T-shirts said other SU students and professors were coming up to them all day long, asking them what the statistics meant.

Bartholomew said when people ask about the statistics, some of them asked about the small percentage that didn’t respond positively to prevent sexual violence from happening.

‘That 30 percent doesn’t mean they think rape is right,’ Bartholomew said.

The statistics printed on the T-shirts were put together after the Division of Student Affairs conducted a survey in spring 2004. The survey used more than 400 random undergraduate students.

In order for students to participate in the campaign, they were required to attend one of two informational meetings for a brief training session.

The second campaign will take place on April 17. The two training sessions will be held on April 10 and 12 at 7 p.m. in the Shaw Hall basement classrooms.

Published on April 4, 2006 at 12:00 pm