In January 2020, three students at the University of Denver (DU)—Maddie Membrino, Shannon Saul and Grace Wankelman—launched the wecanDUbetter campaign. The primary goal was to stop gender-based violence on DU’s campus and raise awareness of the situation by amplifying the voices of survivors through the campaign’s Instagram account. Almost two years later, the campaign is now national—the dobettercampaign—and provides a safe place for survivors of gender-based violence on university campuses throughout the country to tell their story.

WecanDUbetter held a protest on the Campus Green on Tuesday, Oct. 5. Their demands for this year include external investigation of fraternities, formal investigation into Undergraduate Student Government, disbanding Turning Point USA on campus, creation of a sexual assault response team, adding a required course on consent for all DU community members quarterly and the hiring of Black, Indigenous, people of color and members of the LGBTQ+ community.

“We need an investigation into campus’ fraternities because far too many stories happen at their events and too often perpetrators are allowed to remain in their organizations or even in leadership positions in those organizations. We need an investigation into the Undergraduate Student Government because too many survivors have opened up about how their perpetrators have used USG power to belittle or scare them. We need to disband Turning Point USA on DU’s campus because they have used their platform and power on campus to spread evil messages and inflict harm. We need the university to create a sexual assault resource team to strengthen their response when violence does occur. And we need quarterly consent education for all DU community members because there is apparently not enough knowledge of what consent is, how it looks like, and how healthy relationships look like. And lastly, we need to hire more BIPOC and LGBTQ counselors, because when marginalized survivors experience violence they need someone who can understand their identity and help them recover from that,” explained Grace Wankelman, one of the founders of the project, organizer of the event and a senior at DU, during opening remarks.

“As we all know, gender-based violence is far too common on our campus and attention to the problem is necessary. But addressing this problem as solely a white women issue does more harm than good. You cannot address gender-based violence without addressing racial violence and violence against trans and non-binary folks,” added Wankelman.

Gender-based discrimination and violence are not new to DU’s campus. In 2013, Professor Lucy Marsh filed a lawsuit against University of Denver’s Sturm College of Law after learning that she was the lowest-paid professor on staff, even after teaching for 31 years and being among the most experienced.

In 2019, a music professor was arrested for the sexual exploitation of a child. And within almost two years of its existence, the wecanDUbetter Instagram account has published 182 stories of survivors of gender-based violence from DU, while Campus Safety documents only one sexual assault incident and only 20 sex offenses in their 2020-2021 crime statistics report. All of these were brought up during the protest.

“I think a lot of people have forgotten that this is still a huge issue, there are still so many problems happening on campus with people just using their power and so many incidents where we thought it was important to revisit the demands,” said Wankelman.

This year wecanDUbetter’s leadership is fighting gender-based violence while creating a safe space for survivors of all races, ethnicities and identities to seek support.

“With the first protest we saw direct action, but it is also important to acknowledge that wecanDUbetter was founded by white women and white-passing women, and that is a contributor to that. This year we want to focus on marginalized groups and getting abusers out of positions of power,” said Zara Khan, a senior at DU and one of the organizers of the event.

As the campaign continues to spread throughout the country, wecanDUbetter makes sure to remind the DU community that this fight is far from over.

“We are here to remind the university that we are not going anywhere. I think sometimes you see movements happen and there’s a lot of energy and then it just disappears, but we have been doing all this work behind the scenes and we are still going to continue to do this work after we graduate. This is just the beginning for this year,” Wankelman said.

“This is not just kind of a one-event thing, it has to be continuous pressure on the administration, contacting different people and just letting them know that we are not backing down and we are not okay with the blanket statement. We want more,” added Khan.

For more information on the dobettercampaign and how to support them, access their website.