ConsentEd: More involvement from LSE and students is paramount

Maria Vittoria Borghi Contributor

Illustrated by Mithalina Taib I

It was the beginning of September, and I was slouching on the sofa when I had my rst contact with ConsentEd. My phone lit up, showing me an Outlook noti cation welcoming me to LSE, and I found a timid invitation to sign up for the course between the 'Student Hub' and the ‘Welcome events and updates’ sections. Its wording is assertive, but visually, ConsentEd looks almost afraid to claim its space among the announcements.

For those who don’t know, the ConsentEd program was launched in 2021 by our Students' Union (LSESU).

e aim is to raise awareness of strategies to recognise and prevent sexual misconduct, as well as encourage selfre ection on the di erent norms that in uence perceptions of consent. With these goals in mind, the SU designed an interactive online course and recruited students to host 90-minute in-person sessions on the topic, taking place at the beginning of the Michaelmas term every year.

LSE funds and receive a salary of approximately £12.40 per hour.

e rst thing I noticed during the online training was that there’s a survivor-only workshop designed for those who might nd the content upsetting or triggering, as well as an opt-out option for the inperson session – both of which I nd very thoughtful. I could tell that behind ConsentEd, there’s a team who put a lot of time and e ort into its production and curation: there is a good balance between the interactive elements, which make the experience interesting and engaging, and the written content, which is short and to the point. I also appreciated the sections on the current UK legislation around sexual consent, because it’s easy to forget how important the legal framework of your country of residence is until it isn’t.

For all its strengths, I couldn’t help but wonder if anyone took the time to do the online course. All its sections have a very visible ‘next’ button that allows you to move onto the next part(s) without interacting with the screen, and by clicking on the navigation bar, one can skip a good number of units whole course without looking at the screen.

I found myself surprised and proud to be part of an institution that invests into sensitizing on this topic and asked people around me what they thought about the online course of the program. Interestingly, many male postgrads did not know what I was talking about. And sadly, those who did know hadn’t done the course yet. Although my ndings aren’t representative of the postgraduate cohort, I found it disheartening that so many people could not make the time to get behind ConsentEd. While I understand that studying at LSE is demanding, why is this the one thing at the bottom of our priority list? It seems like we expect change but refuse to be an integral part of it.

I initially thought the lack of participation was merely a visibility issue. As one of my friends put it, "Why did I get at least ten di erent emails from LSE about class representatives, free yoga lessons, and inclusion commitments, and not even one exclusively on ConsentEd?" But I was wrong.

My department had 27 sign-ups for the in-person session and attendance was compulsory. I get it: we’re all busy. But if we –the presumably open-minded and well-educated citizens of the world – don’t make time to engage in these conversations, who will? e question of showing up to ConsentEd has been an ongoing topic of conversation between my friends and I. Obviously, going to these sessions does not necessarily mean that you were a victim of abuse, nor that you have a “problem” with consent. It’s mainly about getting everyone on the same page; our di ering backgrounds can make the LSE experience so unique and rewarding, but they are also something to take into account in daily social interactions. For example, while cheek kissing is a very common way to greet people in my country, in other places, it is considered an intrusion of personal space even among close friends. Under these circumstances, everyone bene ts from a ConsentEd session.

Of course, students are only one part of the equation. A quick Google search will tell you that our community had cases of sexual misconduct where the victims turned to LSE and received insu cient support (e.g. Charlotte). is is by no means our institution’s nest hour. While acknowledging that the generous funding from LSE and the hiring of an antiharassment o cer represents a huge improvement of our institution's support network, money can only do so much.

Given LSE’s internationally recognized expertise in media and communications, it is not a lack of knowledge that's keeping it from improving its messaging ConsentEd. In fact, if it wasn’t for Anaëlle oreau, LSESU Community & Welfare cer, actively reaching out to every department to er postgraduate sessions, I wonder if I would have even gotten wind of ConsentEd. Frankly, I cannot make much sense of LSE’s disinterest in involving postgraduates in ConsentEd, considering that we outnumber undergraduates. As I mentioned earlier, LSE is against mandatory ConsentEd for postgraduate students, resulting in wording that leaves the importance of attendance ambiguous. Without exception, all materials include the following sentence: "all students are expected to complete the online training course and the in-person seminar."

My department (Media and Communications) is one of the six who took Anaëlle up on her o er. Indeed, she con rmed that out of 25 LSE postgraduate departments, 19 decided against o ering a consent workshop to their postgraduate students at no personal cost. Maybe not actively, sometimes emails just get overlooked –Anaëlle was the rst to point out that she reached out at a very busy time for departments. However, the LSESU will never get enough funds for a session per department if most of them don’t express interest in having one.

Despite everything, it is important to remember that there is no villain in this story. ConsentEd might’ve been created by LSE students for LSE, but it’s also the other way around. It is the hardfought result of the e ort of negotiations between student activists and LSE. We must remember it did not emerge by chance but out of necessity, and address this lack of interest on both sides.

One of the rst facilitators I talked to summed up the problem as "a communications issue" and I couldn’t agree more. Promoting ConsentEd and a safe campus culture is a shared responsibility between the LSE, its students and the SU – at present, only the latter is holding up their end of the bargain. Between students and faculties, many of us represent today's and tomorrow's policymakers, economists, managers, and lawyers. But this isn’t just about our professions. As classmates, friends, siblings, and parents: what kind of message are we all sending?