On April 26th, the Social Justice group at West K held an assembly in the Commons about consent and the #MeToo movement with the intention of raising awareness and clarifying young people’s understandings of sexual harassment, assault, and consent in the age of #MeToo. The assembly included topics like the history of #MeToo, the creator of the movement, Tarana Burke, and myths and facts about consent and sexual harassment/assault.

Three guest speakers shared their knowledge on these topics as well. Catherine Hart spoke about consent and what it looks like. She showed some popular media examples that influence our thinking about consent and why we need to be critical consumers of media. Lindsay Brown spoke about intersectionality in the context of sexual harassment/assault and consent, and T’ai Pu spoke about reactions to the movement and how individual instances, relationships, and perspectives all have a part to play in appropriate conduct. There was even a performance by the Social Justice group called #WeToo, which shared examples of how sexual harassment affects people of all ages and genders and creates a toxic culture in our society, which is why having this conversation is so important.

After the assembly, attendees broke into smaller workshops to learn and discuss in more depth with the guest speakers about what they just learned in the assembly. For example, T’ai Pu did a spoken word activity that asked students to write words associated with the content of the assembly and develop a creative writing piece from it. This was a great experience for those who participated and hopefully everyone learned something new during the assembly.