Academics Against Assault (AAA) is a student-led campaign fighting for better education regarding consent, and for a university culture where sexual assault survivors feel seen, heard and supported.
Molly Hanning, the founder of Academic Against Assault (AAA) says that her own experience of sexual violence exposed the gaps in university support systems and ultimately drove her to launch the campaign.
She recalls that seeking help highlighted not only institutional shortcomings but also the social stigma surrounding sexual assault.
Molly was raped in her first year at university; she began developing the idea of AAA during the summer she spent at home. Struggling with severe PTSD, her hometown return was incredibly difficult for Molly.
“I had a lot of avoidance. I took on a full-time job during the summer just to keep myself occupied and keep my mind off things. I was very antisocial, hiding away in this little makeup factory.”
Molly remembers the aftermath of the assault as an intensely isolating time: “It’s a taboo, and no-one talks about it. You feel like you’re the only person experiencing this.”
After speaking publicly through AAA, she was struck by how many people reached out with similar experiences.
“A couple of months in, we realised this is an emergency. It’s widespread among nearly all women in education, yet it’s treated as a normal part of the student experience.”
Molly Hanning
It was during this period of isolation that Molly found her voice. “I remember thinking, if no one’s going to listen to what I have to say, I’m going to make them listen,” she said.
When Molly first founded AAA, she didn’t set out with one specific goal in mind. Instead, it was about providing a platform and a voice for survivors, whether through support services or prevention initiatives.
“It was more just about forcing them to listen to the issue, because I felt like nobody wanted to know at all, which was really frustrating.”
According to the Office for Students (OfS), 14% of surveyed students said they had experienced sexual violence, including rape, attempted rape, or unwanted touching.
Molly and AAA’s team of volunteers strive to place survivors at the heart of policy discussions. Molly argued that those directly affected should be the ones influencing how universities respond. The student-founded organisation now works to ensure survivors are actively involved in policymaking, lobbying efforts, and student union initiatives. Molly noted that such representation is something she herself wished had been available when she first sought support.
“Having my own experience has really shone a light on where the problems lie,” Molly told me. “There’s such a taboo and there’s such an intersection of problems that rape survivors and sexual violence survivors are facing, that it’s almost like a system that you’re taking on by yourself. And so, I realised that this really needed grassroots organisational change, and it wasn’t just going to be me on my own sorting it.”
Universities and student unions often avoid acknowledging the scale of sexual violence on their campuses, leading the victims to feel silenced. Institutions fear being tainted by the issue, making it difficult for students to be heard or taken seriously.
“As a survivor on the other end of it, I just remember feeling like I was being pushed in every direction – ‘go see these people,’ ‘oh no, go see these people,’ ‘that’s too much for us, go see someone else,’” Molly told me.
“You follow this path thinking that at the end, someone will be there to help you. But it just wasn’t the case. No one wanted to deal with it; it was too big an issue for them. A lot of university well-being departments aren’t properly trained or informed on how to deal with this, which is really surprising.”
“We need to understand that saying ‘no’ to sexual activity can be completely non-verbal.”
Ruth Micallef, counsellor and trauma expert
She also pointed out the near invisibility of male survivors. “No one even knows about them. There’s no welfare or recovery pathway for men who experience this,” Molly noted, adding that the lack of research leaves both groups in the shadows. “It’s a lose-lose situation – an emergency no-one talks about.”
Molly has previously said that “prevention is equal access to education.” Reflecting on her time in higher education, she explains that while the university had initially shown willingness to engage, the reality of consent education fell short of what students needed.
Molly started lobbying the university in 2022, at a time when student voices were demanding change. “We were at the forefront of the prevention campaign,” she says. “We wanted our consent education to be enthusiastic, interactive, and for universities to really push the prevention angle – not just treat it like a tick-box thing that happens and then we move on.”
Consent is an ongoing process of communication and awareness, not a single yes or no answer. Enthusiastic consent takes this further: it means both people are actively engaged and willing.
AAA’s vision for improvement is broad and rooted in the daily experiences students must navigate on campus. “Enthusiastic consent needs to be integrated into all aspects of studying and everyday life,” Molly says. “It’s not just about sexual assault or rape – it’s also public sexual harassment and image-based sexual abuse. Consent comes into play everywhere, and we need to teach about every aspect of this violence.”
The Office for Students (OfS) introduced regulations requiring mandatory consent education by 2025, but universities have often fallen short of student expectations. Molly recalls the resistance she encountered when lobbying the university.
“They wanted to do the bare minimum. They wanted to know what they could get away with, what would cost the least. A lot of universities operate like that, which is really frustrating.”
Although she recognises that the current ‘Consent Matters’ module, which her university implemented, is a starting point, she stresses that more sustained action is needed.
“The module we have is a good start, but it’s nowhere near what it could be. We need action. We need this to be supported by the Students’ Union. We need bystander intervention everywhere.”
Molly connects the gaps in university provision to the broader failures in sex and relationships education during the COVID years. “At my Sixth Form, we didn’t have any sex education – it was the height of COVID. All those kids who should have been learning the basics missed that education.”
Those gaps, she argues, have followed her generation into higher education. “We’d been stuck inside for two years, everyone had just turned 18 without any real experience,” she says. “We were almost left to fend for ourselves. The university didn’t help or take any accountability.”
And these gaps, she warns, now intersect with a rapidly shifting online environment. Figures such as Andrew Tate, amplified during the pandemic, have influenced attitudes among young people. “It’s really scary,” she says. “A lot of university leadership don’t understand the gravity of the issue.”
In its early days, before formal consent workshops were introduced, AAA was already laying the groundwork to change campus culture. “We were doing culture and misogyny workshops with different societies and sports groups, and we’ve seen a big switch from locker-room talk in men’s sports clubs to guys who are open-minded and wanting to learn about all of this stuff, which has been really positive,” Molly explains.
She also added that bystander intervention tools have been central to driving change and curbing misogynistic rhetoric before it spirals out of control. “They show people how they can call friends out in a non-confrontational way and empower them to put an end to that culture. It’s been really effective and created positive change on campus.”
AAA has seen meaningful change when universities and student unions actively engage. Their Birmingham branch, for example, was established after a Guild member reached out to support recruitment.
“When we get involvement from the universities and work together, that’s when we can create tangible change. Most recently, we spoke at ‘Reclaim the Night Birmingham,’ launching our campaign and introducing all our new volunteers.”
As of March 2025, AAA registered as a Community Interest Company (CIC) – a development that marks a new phase in the organisation’s growth. This new status opens the door to expanding both capacity and national reach, and AAA is now seeking investment to support that growth.
“We’re not for profit, but we’re hoping to take this on full-time and dedicate much more time to it than I already can,” Molly explains.
After four years building the organisation alongside her degree, and now her master’s, she is eager to see what AAA can achieve with proper resourcing. “If we had the money for resources, we could turn this into a full operation and send it out to as many universities as possible.”
AAA has already begun to take root across the UK, establishing branches at Royal Holloway, Exeter, and most recently, in Birmingham.
“We’ve got three separate teams at different universities, and resources at probably seven or eight now,” Molly explained. But she believes the CIC status will help the organisation grow far beyond its volunteer foundations. “We’re taken more seriously now that we’re a bit more polished, and everything’s more professional.”
With this new legitimacy comes the potential for broader partnerships. Molly is excited about future collaborations with other CICs, charities, and brands, recognising these partnerships as key to maximising the organisation’s reach and influence.
“It’s exciting to see the different collaborations we’ll be able to do,” she says, emphasising the long-term goal: “We want enthusiastic consent to be what’s normal at university – not sexual violence. We want to be the normalised part of the student experience.”
Featured image courtesy of Simon Hanning.