Hear Our Stories: Campus Sexual Violence, Intersectionality, and How We Build a Better University

Despite focused efforts to stop the perpetration of campus sexual violence, the statistic that one in four college women will experience such violence has remained steady over the last sixty years. The number of higher education institutions under federal Title IX investigation for mishandling sexual violence cases also continues to grow.

In Hear Our Stories, Jessica Harris demonstrates how preventive efforts often fall short because they lack intersectional perspectives, and often obscure how sexual violence is imbued with racial significance. Drawing on interviews with Women of Color student survivors, staff, and documents from three different universities, this book analyzes sexual violence on the college campus from an intersectional lens, centering the stories of Women of Color. Harris explores the intersectional realities of campus sexual violence, including survivors’ racialized and gendered experiences with campus rape culture, institutional betrayal, prevention programming, reporting and disclosing, and feminist and anti-racist movements.

Hear Our Stories challenges dominant approaches to campus sexual violence that too-often stall the implementation of more effective sexual violence prevention and response efforts that could offer transformative outcomes for all students.

Jessica C. Harris is Associate Professor of Higher Education and Organizational Change at the University of California, Los Angeles.