With the school year soon coming to a close, many seniors have chosen the path of enrollment at Mt. San Antonio Community College. Concerning this, a recent pattern of sexual assault and battery incidents on campus points to the need for more decisive action on how administration deals with protecting students. In the combined years of 2022-23, five rape cases and three sexual battery cases were reported on campus.
Abiding by the Clery Act of 1990 which requires colleges and universities to record campus crime statistics and safety policies for the protection of consumers, Mt. SAC publishes any reported crimes on their website through the daily crime log.
It’s through this system that the school upkeeps transparency with students however this federally mandated transparency only works to inform rather than work towards a solution. With tens of thousands of students and many more enrolling in the upcoming school year, concerns over safety on campus are surfacing.
Anabel Martinez, a senior at Mt. SAC Early College Academy shared her experience with dual enrollment on Mt. SAC campus.
“From all of the alerts and other people in my class discussing it, I don’t think administration is doing too much…I’ve seen police officers on campus a few times, but from all the times I’ve been there it was only like two or three times,” Martinez said.
While Mt. SAC offers a safety escort system, it is apparent that many are not aware of it as made clear by the Oct 11, 2023 campus safety event. In this, two questions were provided that specifically raised concerns around if the system existed, and expressed their desire to have one in place. The safety event allowed many to voice their concerns directly.
In the same event, Mt. SAC provided insight on what they are doing to improve campus security and transparency.
“Over the past few weeks, there has been a noticeable uptick in reported incidents,” Mt. SAC said in the safety event in response to questions about a number of crimes occurring within Sep-Oct. of 2023.
Mt. SAC provides in depth information on the programs they are implementing to prevent crime in their Annual Security Report. These include educational programs that teach about sexual assault prevention and discussion, as well as the dissemination of information across campus. These come in the form of flyers and cards for events and messages, a Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month Campaign in April, and the “Mountie Consent Challenge”.
Despite the measures being taken to mitigate crime, there are still concerns over communication about crimes.
“Within the last school year, there have been a few underreported sexual harassments that took place on campus. Some incidents occurred outside of school grounds involving students as the victims—all of them women…incidents off campus do not make the school crime log,” Hanna Kang said in her 2017 article “Former Student Files Lawsuit Against Mt. SAC,”.
Mt. SAC provides off campus crime statistics as seen in their ASR.
Her article concerns the case of Aarefah Mosavi v. Mt San Antonio College, in which Mosavi alleges that staff at Mt. SAC attempted to privately rectify the matter of her alleged rape by Chester Brown at the campus farm in an attempt to save face. Mt. SAC was found in clear violation of the clery act by SAC. Media by failing to add Mosavi’s report to the daily crime log, which they have since corrected.
Concerning the stabbing incident on Sep. 20, 2023 it was reported that the safety team responded to what they believed was a fist-fight, arriving on scene in four minutes to assess the situation to which armed officers were deployed after confirming it was a stabbing. Miscommunications are another hurdle to clear in making Mt. SAC as safe as it can be, a future that administration assured they are working towards.
