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OPINIONS
Appleton, Wisconsin Spring 2016 Volume XXI Issue II
Page 4
Noctiluca
Mission
Statement
The Noctiluca and north
noct.com are the student-run
news sources of Appleton North
High School. Noctiluca and
northnoct.com are designated
public forums for student ex-
pression. Student editors make
all content decisions.
Noctiluca’s mission is to
publish information relevant
to its readers and its commu-
nity. Its goal is to maintain high
ethical standards and provide a
designated public forum for free
and responsible expression of
views.
The newspaper and website
welcome diversity of scope,
depth and breadth of cover-
age in order to heighten mutual
understanding and awareness
through our entire community.
Appleton North High School
5000 N. Ballard Road
Appleton, WI 54913
Phone: (920) 832-4300
Mr. Ramponi, staff advisor,
at: ramponiaaron@aasd
.k12.wi.us.
Editorial Staff
Senior Editor-In-Chief
Megha Uberoi
Co-Junior Editor-In-Chief
Nora Ptacek
Erik Bakken
Managing Editor
Elise Painton
News Editor
Katharine Hackney
Opinions Editor
Kate Bennett
Features Editor
Rachel Flom
Co-Centerspread Editor
Fatima Ali
Leah Dreyer
Culture Editor
Maddy Schilling
Sports Editor
AJ Floodstrand
Photography Editor
Sofia Voet
Copy Editor
Abby Davies
Advertising/Social Media
Rachel Brosman
Graphics Editor
Morgan Stuedemann
Online Editor
Abby Plankey
Advisor
Mr. Ramponi
Contributors
Fatima Ali
Erik Bakken
Kate Bennett
Rachel Brosman
Maddie Clark
Rachel Flom
AJ Floodstrand
Caroline Holmes
Olivia Molter
Salma Abdel-Azim
Circee Novick
Elise Painton
Ally Price
Nora Ptacek
Maeve Salm
Maddy Schilling
Morgan Stuedemann
Sonia Tallorth
Megha Uberoi
Sofia Voet
Carl Zuleger
Students should not opt out of consent lessons
By Carl Zuleger
According to the Rape,
Abuse, & Incest National Net-
work (also known as RAINN),
every 107 seconds, someone
experiences sexual assault.
On average, there are 293,000
people above the age of twelve
victimized by sexual assault
each year. 68 percent of those
sexual assaults are not reported
to the police, and 98 percent of
rapists will never spend a day
in jail.
Each victim is a real per-
son, one with thoughts and
emotions. Each one is a person
like you. What they experi-
enced, to have their basic hu-
man rights invaded in a cruel
and abusive manner, is irrefut-
ably awful and unacceptable.
Now, there are numerous ar-
ticles that have been written
about how one can protect
themselves from rape, but re-
cently the focus has shifted.
The goal, the endgame, is to
stop people from raping others
in the first place, which starts
with a clear understanding of
the term consent.
Consent is the key aspect
that determines whether or not
a sexual act can be considered
rape, which is why Gender
Equality Club, of which I am a
member, decided to take an op-
portunity to educate freshmen
classes on what consent is and
why it is important. According
to the Wisconsin Legislature,
consent is words or overt ac-
tions by a person who is com-
petent to give informed consent
indicating a freely given agree-
ment to have sexual intercourse
or sexual contact. The Legis-
lature cites two cases in which
a person would be considered
unfit to give consent, the first
being “A person suffering from
a mental illness or defect which
impairs capacity to appraise
personal conduct,” and the sec-
ond being, “ A person who is
unconscious or for any other
reason is physically unable to
communicate unwillingness to
an act.” So essentially, if some-
one says no, or is unable to say
yes, then the answer is no. It’s
that simple.
This information is crucial
to the betterment of society. It
is vital for all to have a working
understanding, which is exactly
what club leaders were working
to achieve by visiting freshmen
classes. The catch, however, is
that students had an option to
not attend the presentation due
to its sensitive subject matter.
This allowance was unaccept-
able, for a few reasons. First of
all, by allowing students to not
attend, it de-emphasizes the im-
portance of consent. It gets the
students thinking “well, con-
sent must not be that important,
if we don’t have to go...” Sec-
H
umans of
n
ortH
ondly, if attending the presenta-
tion is optional, it implies that
asking for consent is optional.
Not only is it morally wrong to
have sex with someone against
their wishes, but it is illegal as
well. In order to keep in line
with the law, one must know
what the law is. And thirdly, if
freshman health can spend an
entire unit talking about sex ed-
ucation (which only touches on
consent), they can surely han-
dle a presentation that doesn’t
even last an hour.
The only reasonable in-
stance in which it would be
acceptable for a student to re-
fuse to be educated on consent
would be if they have already
been a victim of rape. Then
talking about the issue of con-
sent may be a trigger to them,
and it is very understandable
if they would like to avoid that
situation. But for everyone
else, education on consent is
too important to have the op-
portunity to opt out of it.
One in four girls and one in six boys are sexually
abused in the U.S.
Statistic by the National Sexual Violence
Resource Center. Graphic by Kate Bennett
“My first show at North
was the Tempest; I
played a younger ver-
sion of my sister, and I
was so afraid of the di-
rector. Now this is my
twentieth show at North,
and I am the student di-
rector. In my position,
I get to see everything
from a different per-
spective. It’s a very
empathetic role; I can’t
participate in anything
going on onstage, but
I still feel everything
that’s happening good or
bad.” - Molly Biskupic
“When I was a little
kid, I really struggled
with math until my dad
taught me how to add
and subtract. Now I’m
in Calculus BC, and I
am planning to study
applied mathematics in
college.” - Rishi Pawar
Molly Biskupic is an
assistant director for the
musical
. Photo by Kate
Bennett
Rishi Pawar is a senior
at North.
Photo by Kate
Bennett
Freshman classes attend presentations, hosted by various clubs, every late
start Wednesday.
Photo by Adison Cole