Joey Wilkerson, a third year graduate law student at the University of Louisville, and Georgia Turner, a University of Louisville law alumnus have been doing this seminar for 3 years.

The pair travel to different universities to speak about consent, sexual assault prevention and bystander education. They will be going to their first high school, Butler Traditional High School, on Oct. 4.

Greek Law began with a group of Greek law students and they thought how we can give back to our chapters. They a landed on the idea of sexual assault prevention and education. That’s when Turner and Wilkerson ran with it and created Greek Law.

Unfortunately, Turner could not make it to the seminar this year because she was out sick and had lost her voice, but Wilkerson decided the show must go on. Wilkerson gave the seminar on his own and still managed to impact the students attending.

Wilkerson started out with a lighthearted approach, gradually switching into a higher intensity. He automatically had the students engaged as he begun speaking about how common sexual assault is in Greek life, and why students need to be proactive and not reactive.

“Despite it being 2018 and them doing this thing called Greek life year after year after year, sexual assault is still a problem that we just cannot shake in Greek life, and in college in general,” Wilkerson said.

Wilkerson discussed how common sexual assault is in fraternities and how important it is to be educated on this issue that continues to occur.

“If you go and Google fraternity sexual assaults, you’ll have stories and stories pop up; some as recent as last week, which blows my mind, cause I’m thinking ‘We should know better, we know how this story ends’,” Wilkerson said.

Wilkerson commented on how, because IU Southeast is a smaller university, the Greek community is more like a family than at UofL or other larger universities. At larger schools, many students don’t even know the other Greek chapters that they share a campus with.

“IU Southeast community must start treating each other as a family. People should be able to tell their story and know that everyone will support them,” Wilkerson said.

Wilkerson read a survey out loud to the audience that was conducted in a high school with 50 men and 50 women. He first asked all the students the same questions and had everyone close their eyes.

He read different scenarios about women being assaulted, and if anyone thought the scenarios were acceptable, they raised their hand.

After this activity, he read the statistics from the actual survey.

From the 50 men that were surveyed:

• 39% thought it was okay to hold a girl down and force her to have sex if he has spent a lot of money on her
• 36% thought it was okay if he is so turned on he doesn’t think he can stop to still force sexual intercourse
• 39% thought it was okay if she’s had sexual intercourse with other guys
• 39% thought it was okay if she was stoned or drunk to force sexual intercourse
• 39% thought it was okay if she lets him touch her above the waist to force sexual intercourse
• 54% thought it was okay she is going to and then changes her mind, over 25 of the 50 guys thought this
• 54% thought she has led him on it was okay to force sexual intercourse
• 51% thought it was okay if she gets him excited sexually to force sexual intercourse
• 43% thought if they have dated for a long time it was okay to force sexual intercourse

“Now that sucks, but let me tell you what else sucks,” Wilkerson said as he read off the women’s answers to the survey questions:

• 12% thought it was okay if he has spent a lot of money on her to force sexual intercourse
• 21% thought it was okay if he is so turned on he doesn’t think he can stop to force sexual intercourse
• 18% thought it was okay if she has had sexual intercourse with other guys to force sexual intercourse
• 18% thought it was okay if she was stoned or drunk for him to force sexual intercourse
• 28% thought it was okay if she lets him touch her above the waist for him to force sexual intercourse
• 31% thought it was okay if she is going to and then changes her mind for him to force sexual intercourse
• 26% thought it was okay if she has led him on that it was okay for him to force sexual intercourse
• 42% thought it was okay if she gets him excited sexually, almost half of the 50 girls said that was okay for him to force sexual intercourse
• 32% thought it was okay if they have dated for a long time for him to force sexual intercourse

“No means no, no matter how strongly you say it,” Katie Hayne, business freshman, said. 

“We have to stop not believing each other because that makes it difficult for people to come forward and tell their truth,” Wilkerson said.

Wilkerson commented on how he was disappointed with the male turnout at the event on Sunday afternoon. He believes men specifically need to hear about sexual assault prevention, so there will be less need for seminars like this in the future. 

Amanda Felton, associate director of student life, was in charge of putting the event together and always having an open door for students to come to.