Are Mississippi's Open Dormitories Really SAFE for Women?
"At our core is protection for all", says Nancy Barrett, President of Safe Dormitories Association, "This generation doesn't understand what the problem is, but it is a very serious problem. Many young people will make decisions in those dorms that will have consequences they’ll carry for the rest of their lives. It can negatively affect their education and possibly their marriages, and the schools' administrations will be complicit".
The ASR crime data shows exactly how bad this really is from various arrest statics and Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) offenses. It's shocking for residence halls. "Students don't know their own dorm room can be dangerous, so give them knowledge as part of the whole training", states Nancy Barrett.
Just how many women are harmed each year in their dorms at Mississippi Public Universities and Colleges? Below is data collected from the Clery Act for all public colleges & universities that receive federal funding. It's shocking information on the rapes reported*. This ASR data is for the years 2021, 2022, and 2023 below.
* More than 90% of sexual assault victims on college campuses do not report the assault - National Sexual Violence Resource Center
Furthermore studies now show the most vulnerable time is the first two months of the freshman year. In fact, to symbolize the danger, the first few months of the fall freshman semester are now commonly called the sexual assault "red zone". A 10-year study looked at rapes and sexual assaults between 2001 and 2011 occurring on Massachusetts’ college and university campuses – including dorms, apartments and fraternity houses. The study found that 81 percent of all reported rapes and assaults occurred in the dorms, 9 percent occurred in houses or apartments and only 4 percent occurred in fraternity houses."- The Conversation, Published: April 6, 2016
The Safe Dormitories Association is an organization of Mississippi citizens who are deeply concerned that all our state universities allow men students to spend long unsupervised hours in the women's dormitory rooms - bedrooms - and vice versa for the men's dormitory rooms.
Help us and join in the fight to restore sanity to our Mississippi Dormitories. Our organization worked to introduce a bill, The Safe Dorms Act, in our legislature this year, 2025, to return all the dormitories on our state university campuses to separate gender dormitories with opposite-gender visitation only in designated public reception areas -- no opposite-gender visitation in dormitory rooms. To our great disappointment our bill died in Committee in both the Senate (SB 2218-Hill) and the House of Representatives (HB 1605-Hobgood-Wilkes). We also had an amendment to SB 2221, introduced by Senator Williams, which we were hopeful to pass - but also sadly died in House Committee under Donnie Scoggin.
What can you do?
Join forces with Safe Dormitories Association and Donate Online today. We are a 501(c)(3) nonprofit group and all donations go back into the promotion and awareness of our critical cause. Add your company or individual name to the donors list of restoring common sense back into our public dormitories. If Becoming a Donor isn't an option then please pray for our cause, voice your support by liking our social media pages and then share our content onto your social media pages with your family and friends. Then encourage them to do so as well. Together we can make a positive change in Mississippi.
Call your senators and representatives and urge them to join forces with Safe Dormitories Association during this 2025 session of the Mississippi legislature and pass common sense "Safe Dorms" reform for our students.
Question: Have you or a friend been harmed by this "Open Dormitory Policy"? Please send us a Private Online Tip now. It's 100% private and secure.
Please signup and join us to restore common sense dormitory reform back into public Colleges and Universities!
