In the 10 years that I spent at a Christian-dominated Canadian university attempting to secure a bachelors degree, I did not encounter anything there that I would consider to be humanity.
What was present there was the set of behaviors common amongst groups of rapists and pedophiles, which I think is described with the phrase rape culture. This was the standard amongst the racist whites, the colorist fair-skinned Asians, and casteist Savarnas there—I found this to be the standard amongst men and women alike. Dark-skinned bodies were considered to be merely products for consumption.
I was consumed there for the entire span that I was a student. The fact that I was a survivor of CSA mattered none to anyone there nor to anyone in the surrounding city, province, or country.
I was handed a bible by white students and immediately treated like a rapist even whilst I had no interest in any sexual activity with anyone. I identify as asexual, aromantic, and I am celibate.
My time there, and my life afterwards in Waterloo has left me with lifelong trauma and scars. I despise and detest the city of Waterloo and I have not met anyone from that city that is worth knowing, that has any sort of meaningful humanity worth being around. It is a city of rapists, pedophiles, eugenicists, and genocidaires.
Degrees can make a person academically accomplished without necessarily making them educated in empathy, consent or human dignity. I keep saying this to people.
The Cornell 7 case is shocking to many because we struggle to imagine Ivy League students from 'respected families' as capable of sexual violence.
Privilege can shape not only how violence is perpetrated but how readily society recognises it.
When privileged men are accused, institutions tend to prioritise their reputation over justice.