University students are participating in Anti-Street Harassment Week to spread awareness about a behavior that falls into a gray area in terms of legal punishment. 

Street harassment, which includes catcalls and wolf whistles, is not always a behavior police punish offenders for or write reports on. 

But Sgt. Joan Fiesta said she is concerned with how it can detract from the safe environment the University wants students to feel they are living and studying in. She decided to address the issue as a matter of campus culture.

“It does make somebody feel unsafe,” she said. “We want to change the ideas on it so that people do realize that it does create an unsafe culture when this is allowed to happen on campus.”

Because the issue of street harassment mainly deals with free speech, Fiesta said people have to take responsibility for how they use their First Amendment rights.

Thomas Betz, director of Student Legal Services, said he does not approve of a world in which people are objectified based on gender, class or race, but the right to free speech doesn’t include a code of civility.

He said the police would actually violate the right to free speech if they penalized people for speaking rudely.

“In an ideal world, people would behave themselves and be responsible and not … rude and ignorant,” he said. “The First Amendment doesn’t say anything whatsoever about treating people respectfully.”

After finding out about an international campaign to address street harassment, Fiesta decided to organize a committee at the University to participate in Anti-Street Harassment Week.

In addition to a social media campaign and an online petition, the committee is bringing its message to the Quad on Friday afternoon with a chalk contract. Patrol officers and volunteers will ask people to sign a pledge on the Quad to stop harassment and will offer information on how to deal with friends who engage in those types of behaviors. 

Lauren Jeffrey, a member of the committee and graduate assistant in the Office of the Dean of Students, came up with the idea for the Quad contract. Although street harassment isn’t a police matter, she said the environment that harassment creates can impact students’ educational experiences.

Daniela Galvez Nelson, intern with the UIPD Crime Prevention Unit and senior in LAS, also serves on the committee. She said the effect on the academic experience is what makes the issue important on campus.

“It can make students feel really unsafe or unwelcome at the University,” she said. “That’s exactly what a healthy academic living and working community should be trying to avoid.”

Sari can be reached at [email protected] and @Sari_Lesk.