Bishop's University students, alumni erupt in protest over decades of sexual violence allegations

Students at one of Canada’s supposed top “party schools” are holding their administration to account—and questioning whether that very "party label" is putting them in danger.

At Bishop's University in Sherbrooke, Quebec, women in particular are at higher risk of sexual assault because of this school-wide reputation, some say.

“I remember going on a date with a guy who went to another school and he got mad I didn’t want to sleep with him,” one young woman wrote on Instagram. “He said ‘well you’re from Bishop's, aren’t the girls all supposed to be sluts there?’”

The reckoning at Bishop’s began in the last week, when a student grew so frustrated with the university administration’s response to her sexual assault allegation that she posted a message as publicly as possible: on a bridge near campus.

“He raped me. I reported. He's still in my class. BU take action,” the anonymous student wrote in black-on-white pages pasted to the bridge.