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(11/09/17 12:38am)
On Friday, Nov. 7, rapper and internet star Cupcakke performed a lively show hosted by WRMC in the Pit in Johnson Memorial Building. The 20-year-old performer from Chicago is known for her sexually-explicit and sex-positive songs such as “Deepthroat” and “Vagina” which have both gone viral on YouTube.
(09/21/17 12:19am)
On Friday, Sept. 15, WRMC and Middlebury College Activities Board hosted Middlebury’s annual S.O.S. (“Start of School”) Fest on the Kevin P. Mahaney ’84 Center for the Arts front lawn. The free concert featured Middlebury singer-songwriter Rubby ’18 and Chicago-based poet-rapper Noname.
(05/11/17 1:09am)
Samuel Beckett’s absurdist tragicomedy “Waiting for Godot” is a notoriously difficult piece, and a group of students took on the challenge.
(03/24/16 10:29pm)
Rainey Reads Mean Yik Yaks from Margaret Lindon on Vimeo.
Charles Rainey ’19 is from Lithonia, Georgia.
(03/24/16 3:49am)
What makes an idea powerful? A good idea is not implicitly powerful; an idea is made powerful by being shared.
Over the past few months, a friend and I have built a laser sensor system that tracks and updates how crowded the dining halls are, so students can make more informed decisions about how to spend time and avoid meal rushes. But progress has been slow and the project has proven difficult. This is not because the sensors are actually hard to build. I’m quite confident that, given the opportunity, all of you would be capable of building the same system. What’s made the project hard is that it’s extremely difficult to get access to tools. There is no open, accessible and welcoming space on campus where one can make something. In my search for tools I encountered many others with the same problem: creative ideas stifled by a lack of access to tools and a disjointed network of students with knowledge and skills. So, last fall, some friends and I set about to change this. We decided to create a space where these people can come together and teach others how to take an idea and bring it into the world, a space where ideas are shared and empowered; a makerspace.
We invested a huge amount of care and effort into a proposal to the Fund for Innovation. We asked students to tell us why you would like a makerspace on campus, and many of you responded: students, faculty and staff representing over 27 different academic departments from across campus. But ultimately — despite recognizing its merit — our proposal was denied on the basis of “belonging within a greater conversation of the role of entrepreneurship on campus.” But a makerspace is not just about entrepreneurship. A makerspace is about community. A makerspace is about empowering individuals. A makerspace is where ideas are made real, sharable and powerful. While academia fosters the pursuit of ideas, innovation fosters the sharing of idea. Middlebury has the opportunity to create a space for the intersection of the two.
Recently, Middlebury’s reputation as an innovative institution has grown more prominent. However, we’re still missing an essential piece of the puzzle. A place where people can go to “make,” and where they can learn to “make” together. A makerspace would equip the Middlebury population with the tools for creation — metalworking, woodworking, fabric working, electronic integration and digital fabrication. In a makerspace today, people are more capable of creating than ever before. New technology lowers the barriers of creation to a point where anyone could learn to make almost anything. Technology that unleashes the innovative potential of individuals to revolutionize the world of atoms the way personal computers revolutionized the world of bits: by equipping people to bring their ideas in the world. This is how we’d like to equip you.
Earlier this week, you received a survey (which can be found at go/make) that asked if you’d be willing to have a makerspace in the Bunker. If we vote yes, there is a realistic possibility that Middlebury will have a makerspace in time for current students to access it. After months of planning, we’ve found that the Bunker is the most realistic place for this makerspace. There are some downsides to the use of this location, but I urge you to consider the immense opportunity at hand. An opportunity to create something that could dramatically enrich our experience. A place that could empower individuals at Middlebury to develop their ideas for years to come.
Leo McElroy ’18 is from Westport, Conn.
Joey Button ’17 is from Seattle, Wash.
(03/24/16 3:47am)
Katrina Drury, the first-year responsible for last week’s opinion piece “It’s Not Fair,” shows no remorse. Like her prior writings, Drury openly attacks Black and Brown people here in The Campus, the widest read medium for college voices past and present. At best, the op-ed’s social outlook is malign and untaught; at worst, it’s abjectly racist.
The author argues that America guarantees “equal opportunity” to all its citizens, irrespective of race. Following her logic, our uprising against bigotry in America, along with the repressions of its social-political systems, aren’t worthwhile. American systems are functioning properly; and, as Drury advises, we’ll just have to work harder, to “strive for excellence.” I’ve heard the adage before: “nothing worth having comes easy.” Still anyone who editorializes in 2016 that “the dream” is an equitable possibility for all people in this country is a racist. In a professed post-racial world, doctrines like Drury’s have spiraled into frenzy. And today, at Middlebury, racist denialism, beliefs and behaviors are seen in our schoolyards as often as spandex. I implore students, alumni, faculty and administration to act immediately; else, our community may as well endorse a White House with the Apprentice inside.
Since Drury’s piece “I’m Only Human” was published, I have received messages from concerned Middlebury parents, “prospies” and townspeople. A high school senior “prospie” wrote me a few weeks ago saying that, of all the opinions in student papers she’d read during her visits to New England colleges and universities, ours were “least impressing.”
Thousands of people have read this year’s editions of The Campus with opprobrium, and as a result, the oohs and aahs of our school – and significantly, how it’s reputed and remembered from the outside – are under critical review. Our learning community in the valley is weighed quite strongly by the writing and allyship conveyed in this venue. As Drury’s ink in this paper sets, our college is marred in permanent ways.
Zane Anthony ’16.5 is from Annapolis, MD
(03/24/16 3:43am)
This column is written by white students and for white students. Each week, we will discuss topics or themes regarding race and, more specifically, the role of whiteness in race relations. If you would like to reach out to us personally to continue these conversations, please feel free to do so.
“Equity is giving everyone what they need to be successful. Equality is treating everyone the same” (Everyday Feminism).
The Civil Rights Act did not end racism. White people never lost their privileges. Imagine a 6’6 person standing next to a 5’2 person. Hopefully we can agree that there’s absolutely nothing that makes a 5’2 person intrinsically lesser than a 6’6 person. These two people are standing in front of a 6’2 wall when they’re asked to identify what is on the other side of the wall. If they succeed, they get anything of their choosing. They are technically on equal ground: the floor is straight and even. But they do not have an equal opportunity in the game. The game, in a way, is made for taller people. Equity would mean giving the 5’2 person something to climb on that would allow them to have the same view as the 6’6 person. We should acknowledge the extra effort that the less advantaged figure faced. Even this parable is over-simplified: if our society functions without some form of affirmative action and accountability for systemic and interpersonal discrimination, we are jeopardizing people of color’s access to education, jobs, wealth, healthcare etc., rather than just a prize. A lot more dire, right?
In the first article of this column (Facing Whiteness), we discussed why claiming to be colorblind ultimately works to perpetuate inequalities. Two subsequent articles quickly overviewed institutionalized discrimination practices that further racial oppression — housing policies, police brutality and mass incarceration. These (and many more) systemic inequalities render it ultimately impossible to claim that all races and ethnicities are treated the same in the United States. “Working hard” to achieve success and overcoming “obstacles” are much easier mantras to adopt when we are white. The obstacles we face are not rooted in 600 — and counting — years of institutional racism.
Affirmative action is the act of advancing the employment or educational opportunities of members of groups that have historically faced discrimination. Indeed, an attempt to work toward combating that institutional racism. While affirmative action programs regarding employment or private educational institutions have proven less controversial, similar programs in public colleges and universities have been defended multiple times at the Supreme Court, and for that reason face harsher scrutiny.
In 1978, the Supreme Court upheld the use of race as a factor in college admissions n the University of California v. Bakke. However, the use of specific racial quotas, or in this case, the reservation of 16 out of 100 seats for students of color, was ruled impermissible. The Court’s 2003 decision in Grutter v. Bollinger again upheld the use of race as a factor in public college admissions. In 2008, Abigail Fisher filed a lawsuit against the University of Texas at Austin for discrimination on the basis of her race. Ironically, Fisher, a white woman, argued that using race as a factor in university admissions violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment, which states, “no State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States … nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” Ratified in 1866, this clause was largely intended to impede the passage of discriminatory laws known as the Black Codes that were designed to greatly restrict the freedom of Black U.S. Americans and largely perpetuated the socioeconomic and political conditions of slavery. Fisher v. University of Texas was argued in front of the Supreme Court on December 9, 2015, and a decision is likely to be published before the end of the term.
In 2013, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas cited mismatch theory in his concurring opinion in the Fisher case, and just a few months ago, the late Justice Scalia offhandedly endorsed it as well. Richard Sander, the author of the cited study, stated “the ‘mismatch hypothesis’ contends that any person … can be adversely affected if [they] attend a school where [their] level of academic preparation is substantially lower than that of [their] typical classmate.” Sander promises that in a world without affirmative action, Black Americans would attend lower-ranked law schools where they would perform better academically, producing an 8 percent increase in the number of new black lawyers. Among a storm of flawed assumptions in his analysis, the most glaring assumption is this: that the academic performance of Black students is due to personal failures, rather than the failures of racist institutions. Contrary to Sander’s claim, studies at Wisconsin and University of California at Davis found that, controlling for educational background, “the mismatch students are more likely to succeed at the more competitive UC campuses than those who ended up at less competitive campuses.”
Mismatch theory does not indicate that affirmative action is not beneficial; instead, its unintended side-effects illustrate that its extension would further compound institutional racism, because it would bar Black students that are just as likely to succeed from opportunities for success and leadership.
In a letter to the Supreme Court, the group for Equity & Inclusion in Physics & Astronomy illuminates the roots of this debate.
“Justice Roberts asked, ‘What unique perspective does a minority student bring to physics class?’ and ‘What [are] the benefits of diversity… in that situation?’ Before addressing these questions directly, we note that it is important to call attention to questions that weren’t asked by the justices, such as, ‘What unique perspectives do white students bring to a physics class?’ and ‘What are the benefits of homogeneity in that situation?’ We reject the premise that the presence of minority students and the existence of diversity need to be justified, but meanwhile segregation in physics is tacitly accepted as normal or good. Instead, we embrace the assumption that minority physics students are brilliant and ask, ‘Why does physics education routinely fail brilliant minority students?’”
What we are reading:
1. Ten Myths About Affirmative Action (Journal of Social Issues)
2. Equality Is Not Enough: What the Classroom Has Taught Me About Justice (Everday Feminism)
3. An Open Letter to SCOTUS from Professional Physicists (Equity & Inclusion in Physics & Astronomy Group)
4. The Real Impact of Eliminating Affirmative Action in American Law Schools (David L. Chambers et al.)
5. When You’re Accustomed to Privilege, Equality Feels Like Oppression (Huffington Post)
Aliza Cohen ’17 is from Chattanooga, Tenn.
Juliette Gobin ’16 is from Harrison, N.Y.
Emma Ronai-Durning ’18 is from Salem, Ore.
Anna Iglitzin ’17.5 is from Seattle, Wash.
Annie Taylor ’16 is from San Carlos, Calif.
(03/24/16 3:37am)
I’m only human, but I think it’s long past time for me to shrug off the pitiful garments of my victimhood and take a stand, and as a person with Black heritage, I believe that I am an authority in my community and can thus speak for all of us. I mean, all Black people are basically the same, and it’s not like there are intra-community nuances, right? Why else would white people keep confusing me with the three other Black people at Middlebury? Actually though, I don’t even want to claim the label of “Black.” When I look at myself I don’t see race. I don’t see anything at all; I don’t even have a reflection. I’m not sure if I’m “colorblind” or just a vampire, but that’s beside the point.
What is the point, you ask? It’s that I can say pretty much whatever I want in the Op-Ed section, call it freedom of speech, and get away with it. Psych. The point is that racism is over — that at this point if people of color don’t succeed, it’s on us. Who cares that Black women only earn 63 cents to a white man’s dollar; it’s probably because we’re lazy. We just need to work 37 cents harder so we can pursue the traditional American dream of getting rich, and maybe, someday, finding a marginalized group of our own to oppress.
Which group could it be? Who can I persecute? Refugees fleeing conflicts that were caused by U.S. policies? Children with chronic illnesses that were the result of federal negligence? Some people might say, “that sounds evil Elizabeth!” But I say, “yeah, so what?” If I’m doing well, who cares about other people? This country is founded on the powerful exploiting the weak, why break away from such a great system now?
I get it though. Maybe our first instinct when we see such imbalanced and unfair dynamics of power between people is to respond with sympathy or empathy. But those emotions have no place at Middlebury College. I’m pretty sure “treat everyone who is not white, cis, straight, male or rich as subhuman” is a rule in the student handbook. Not that I’m going to fact check that.
When people of color experience racism, I think we need to ask the question, who is really being hurt here? Is it us? Or is it actually white people? It may hurt to experience “racism,” but imagine being accused of racism? Imagine living in a community so “politically correct” that you have to go on Yik Yak just to call someone the N word? Imagine not being able to check your own white privilege long enough to not become immediately defensive when a person of color looks you in the eye, and has the pure unadulterated nerve to not be cleaning your house or working in your fields? Imagine how much that hurts.
It’s just not fair.
Elizabeth Dunn '18 is from Atlanta Georgia
(03/16/16 8:56pm)
This article is not meant to be comprehensive as it neither discusses the depth and complexities of policing, prosecution and incarceration nor the intersections of identities. We encourage you to explore how trans and gender non-conforming people, queer people, people with disabilities and impoverished people might acutely bear the negative impacts of mass criminalization.
Nowhere is it more apparent that we do not live in a post-racial society than in the United States criminal justice system. At an incarceration rate of over 700 per 100,000 people, the United States holds five percent of the world’s population, yet a staggering 25 percent of the world’s incarcerated population (and one third of the world’s incarcerated women). This is not an easy statistic to grasp, considering that the incarceration rates of China and Russia combined are still less than that of the United States. In absolute numbers of people under correctional control, the United States again takes the gold with over 2.3 million people incarcerated and nearly five million more on probation.
Racial discrimination marks every stage of the criminal justice process, from arrest to sentencing to incarceration. While the Fourth Amendment in theory “guarantees [the] right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects” and guards “against unreasonable searches and seizures,” its protections have been largely undermined in recent decades. Beginning with the Supreme Court’s 1968 decision in Terry v. Ohio, legal restraints on police searches began to soften. As Michelle Alexander articulates in The New Jim Crow, so long as a police officer has “reasonable articulable suspicion” that a person may be involved in unlawful activity, “it is constitutionally permissible to stop, question, and frisk [them]—even in the absence of probable cause.” Take New York City’s infamous stop-and-frisk practices, for example. In 2012, 55 percent of the 500,000 people stopped and frisked were Black, despite the fact that the city’s Black population was only 25 percent of the whole population. Although the NYPD reports that rates of stop-and-frisk have dropped within the past three years, over 50 percent of stops target Black people, with a rate of innocence above 80 percent (NYCLU). In Arizona, indigenous peoples were 3.25 times more likely to be stopped and searched, despite no correlation with illegal conduct. According to a database of civil rights complaints brought against law enforcement officers, U.S. attorneys have declined to prosecute cases 96 percent of the time (Justice Department, National Caseload Data; Pittsburgh Tribune Review).
The racial component of police violence can be difficult to track given that many law enforcement agencies do not report arrest-related homicides by race. In 2011, the CDC reported that Black people were more than twice as likely as white people to be killed by law enforcement. Recent estimates from the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) indicate that this racial disparity could be even greater. Notwithstanding the potential margin for error in these statistics, the numbers fail to expose the gruesome and violent actions that U.S. law enforcement inflicts on Black and Brown people. As just one example of such action, Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old holding an airsoft gun in a Cleveland park, was shot and killed by two police officers before their patrol car had even come to a stop. Rice received no first aid from the offending officers, and died the following day of gunshot wounds. The officer was not indicted. It is difficult to argue that the same fate would have befallen a white child in Rice’s shoes; in a recording released after the homicide, the 911 dispatcher asks twice whether the suspect was Black or white before sending officers. Rice’s 14-year-old sister arrived at the scene and was immobilized by the police officers, handcuffed and put in the police car, unable to bring final moments of comfort to her little brother.
Incidents of police brutality that do not result in homicide are even more difficult to track. Emergency room records reveal that from 2001 to 2012, Black people suffered five times as many nonfatal injuries from law enforcement than white people. Furthermore, a study conducted by the BJS in 2008 found that “the percentage of Black people who reported experiencing the use or threat of force during their most recent contact with police was nearly three times that of white people.” These are the very people that U.S. police forces pledge “to protect and serve.” Marissa Alexander from Jacksonville, Florida, a survivor of domestic abuse, fired a warning shot through a wall, injuring or killing no one, after her husband threatened to kill her. She feared for her life since her husband had physically abused her. She was sentenced to 20 years in jail. Activism surrounding the case helped get her released after three years of serving her sentence. Florida’s “stand your ground” law didn’t seem to apply to her in the way that it applied to George Zimmerman.
Incarceration and police practices in the U.S. reflect highly racialized criminalization patterns. The U.S. imprisons a larger percentage of its Black American population than South Africa did at the height of apartheid. Latino, Indigenous and Black men are incarcerated at three, four and five times the rate of white men, respectively. This disparity extends to women as well, with Black and Indigenous women incarcerated at a rate six times that of white women and Latina women incarcerated at over two times the rate of white women (Bureau of Justice Statistics).
Like the racial overtones to police violence, racial disparities also plague sentencing practices. Though the War on Drugs may not be the primary driver of the mass incarceration boom, it is perhaps the most striking example of disproportionate treatment of Black people under the criminal justice system. Despite evidence that the rates of drug use and sale do not vary significantly among Black and white people, Black people are disproportionately arrested, charged, convicted and imprisoned for drug crimes. Three-strike policies, mandatory minimums and overall harsher drug sentencing laws mean that drug arrests that previously did not result in extensive time in prison are now four times more likely to result in prison sentences.
According to the International Centre for Prison Studies, 21.2 percent of prisoners in the U.S. (roughly 465,000 people) are un-sentenced at any given time, i.e. held in jail or prison on bail, usually awaiting trial or sentencing. If someone is unable to pay for bail, even though in the eye of the law they are “innocent until proven guilty,” they are still imprisoned, unable to go to work or take care of family members. To cite one case, 16-year-old Kalief Browder, arrested on robbery charges, spent three years in jail without a trial. Two of those years were spent in solitary confinement. Browder committed suicide two years after being released.
Incarceration’s detrimental effects are not isolated to the sentenced individual; consequences ripple within their family and community. Not only do families of incarcerated people generally lose an income, they then have to pay, on average, about $13,000 in fines and court fees for their family member, as shown in the report “Who Pays: The True Cost of Incarceration on Families.” Costs continue throughout the sentence as families pay exorbitant phone rates and travel fees for visitation. These costs impose a tremendous burden.
Once marked by the criminal justice system, a person is also subject to an onslaught of legal discrimination. A person who has been arrested or incarcerated can be barred from jobs and schooling because of requirements to “check the box” on applications. They can also be excluded from SNAP (the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly known as food stamps), denied public housing benefits and stripped of their voting rights. Moreover, conditions of probation and parole can dictate where a person may live or be at any given time, with whom they can associate and when they must be in certain places. All of this is to say that even despite the most earnest attempts to reintegrate into communities, legal and structural impediments make this extremely difficult, if not impossible.
Hundreds of books on mass criminalization and its racialized components have been published and we urge everyone to further their research on this topic. The implications of what we have highlighted, however, are this: while the majority of Middlebury students regularly break the law without fear of consequences, when Black, Latino and Indigenous people behave identically, their hyper-policed bodies and minds are more likely to be criminalized, disrupting the lives of individuals and communities they interact with. Mass incarceration is part of a chain of institutions designed to strip the constitutional rights of people of color. In other words, law enforcement is not one bad apple within an otherwise functioning system; the entire tree is rotten from its core. These incarceration statistics are the synthesis of quota- and profit-driven policing, over-policing in communities of color and systematic racial discrimination within a judicial system designed in many ways to disenfranchise Black, Latino and Native people. As white people, it is essential to keep asking, whom does law enforcement protect? And how do we maintain these systems of policing and pre-emptive criminalization on the basis of race?
What we are reading:
“Thanks to Republicans, Nearly a Quarter of Florida’s Black Citizens Can’t Vote,” (The Intercept).
“Kalief Browder, Held at Rikers Island for 3 Years Without Trial, Commits Suicide,” (The New York Times).
“Native Americans are the Unseen Victims of a Broken US Justice System,” (Quartz).
“Obama Bans the Box,” (MSNBC).
Senghor, Shaka. (Writing My Wrongs: Life, Death, and Redemption in an American Prison).
Aliza Cohen ’17 is from Chattanooga, TN
Juliette Gobin ’16 is from Harrison, NY
Emma Ronai-Durning ’18 is from Salem, OR
Anna Iglitzin ’17.5 is from Seattle, WA
Annie Taylor ’16 is from San Carlos, CA
(03/16/16 8:54pm)
Life’s not fair. Ever since we were little children, we’ve heard that phrase so many times, and while we never wanted to believe it, it’s true. Life isn’t fair. And it all starts at birth: we arrive into this world carrying different kinds of baggage already packed with genes that predetermine certain aspects of our identity. Then more gets stuffed in on top of those genes – things like our socioeconomic status, dialect, talents, sexual orientation or faith – and at a certain point, it may seem like some people are blessed with a lighter load while others struggle with baggage that holds them back in their journey through life.
Those born with baggage viewed as disadvantageous often choose to wrap themselves in the pitiful garments of victimhood, deeming the baggage they received at birth the reason why they cannot meet certain standards or why people treat them a certain way. When I was younger, I remember taking a 4-H trip to Cornell University with one of my friends. We both came from the poor, rural town of Cincinnatus, NY, and I distinctly remember my friend saying, “I don’t think anyone from Cincinnatus could ever end up in a college like Cornell.” I hear a similar mentality even today, with people complaining about how unfair it is that others look down on them because of their gender or race. Now, I’m not denying the existence of discrimination. It definitely exists, and yeah, it is unfair. I just think that instead of letting other people determine what we can and can’t do, we should know ourselves and not let any discrimination define our value as human beings.
After all, we are who we are, and there are some things about our identities that we just cannot change. We can’t change our ethnicity. We can’t change the family situation into which we were born. We can’t change our height or our skin color or our genes. Those are the cards we were dealt, and there’s nothing we can do about that. Of course there will be people out there who deny us opportunities because of those things, and of course there will be certain times when our situation puts us at a slight disadvantage in life. But should that stop us from pursuing our dreams? Personally, I want to do what people say I can’t do. As an introverted girl raised by a single mom from a poor family in a small town where many treated us as outsiders because of our Asian heritage, no one expected me to graduate with honors from a reputable private school or get accepted into a prestigious college like Middlebury. There were many things that people thought I couldn’t do and many times I was denied opportunities because of who I am. But instead of discouraging me, that just fueled my desire to prove them all wrong.
That’s why I can’t understand why so many people insist on being defined and limited by the baggage they carry through life. Instead of focusing on the negative and complaining about the unjust system or bigoted people in society, I think we should commit ourselves to striving for excellence, no matter what anyone tries to tell us. We know our own selves better than anyone else, so we should be able to determine when the criticisms actually hold merit or when they are just plain untrue. Besides, we have standards in place not to prevent people from success, but to encourage them to work harder to meet and surpass those standards. When you push yourself to work hard and achieve something others thought you couldn’t achieve, and actually succeed at doing so, the satisfaction and pride that you get are so immensely pleasant and rewarding. Even if you don’t succeed, at least you tried and didn’t give up just because other people didn’t believe in you. And we are extremely fortunate to live in a country that gives us that opportunity. That’s why so many people flock to America – in America, everyone is guaranteed an equal opportunity to achieve whatever they want regardless of their race, religion, gender or anything else. The only things not guaranteed are results. But the inequality of results is not simply caused by some people having heavier baggage than others; it’s caused by the inequality of effort put in to compensate for that baggage. No matter how much of an advantage you have, if you don’t put in the effort to get something, why would you complain when you don’t get it?
In the end, it’s not about what others say or do to hold us back; it’s about what we actually do despite those obstacles. Sure, we may not all have the same backgrounds, the same things or the same skills, but that’s not what’s unfair. We all have the same opportunity to make the best of what we’re given, so we shouldn’t let anything prevent us from achieving success. We shouldn’t make excuses for ourselves or elicit pity so that we can reap the benefits without putting in the work. Because that’s unfair.
Katrina Drury ’19 is from Cincinnatus, NY
(03/16/16 8:51pm)
We will not engage in a “debate” about the college judicial process. We are not here to attack college administrators who are working within the confines of Title IX legislation to create as supportive and fair a process as they can. Despite administrators’ best intentions, the judicial process can be an extremely difficult process for a person to go through, especially someone who has experienced theft of agency through power-based interpersonal violence such as sexual assault. In addition, it is a process that seeks to clarify whether or not the incident in question “more likely than not” constituted a college policy violation. It does not determine whether or not someone was hurt, or whether or not the respondent used their privilege to create a power imbalance that harmed someone. Sometimes, those things occur at the same time as a policy violation. Sometimes they do not; sometimes they occur at the same time as a policy violation but there is not a preponderance of evidence to suggest it.
Power-based interpersonal violence like sexual assault occurs when one person exploits the power differential between themselves and others. Due to differing relationships with power related to race, class, gender, etc., this exploitation could be unconscious, automatic or consciously intentional. In order to understand sexual assault, we have to understand power, and in order to understand power, we have to understand the systems of oppression that inform power differentials in relationships. These systems include but are not limited to: racism, cis/hetero/sexism, ableism, classism and Islamophobia. This past year, the campus community as a whole has made stumbling vocal attempts to address and understand systems of power, and we have failed. We have failed because we refuse to acknowledge our own individual and personal accountability as actors and observers. We have failed because dominant campus culture sees acts of violence such as sexual assault and racial micro/macroaggressions as something that “rapists” and “racists” do, as acts that we could never be responsible for because we — at Middlebury — are “good people.” We fail to recognize the ways that “good people” consistently reinforce structures of violence and contribute to violence.
Speaking or acting on sexist, racist, ableist or other such oppressive and problematic assumptions is not always punishable by law or judicial processes. It is, however, always harmful. Does this mean we always need to resort to carceral or punitive measures to hold our community accountable? What if, instead of only framing sexual violence in terms of “crime” or “policy violation,” we recognize it as a failure of our community, our educations and our interpersonal communication? So few of us are given the tools we need to engage in not only safe relationships but also honest and fulfilling ones. These missing tools include engaging with and questioning what constitutes power, privilege and violence, and the way that these forces impact our relationships. Maybe, recognizing that our communities have failed us will help us understand why taking responsibility for our actions when someone is hurt is not necessarily a concession of guilt, but rather an acknowledgement of humanity.
Supporting survivors and being accountable for the well-being of our community at large means expanding and reframing conversations about power-based violence to think outside of judicial processes and to focus on community responsibilities to one another instead. To begin, we must acknowledge the way current campus conversations about diversity and inclusion are connected to the work of combatting sexual violence and supporting survivors. We will not and cannot powerfully combat sexual violence — which lives at the intersection of various systems of power and oppression — if we are unable to have meaningful, empathic and/or productive conversations about racism (and ableism, transphobia, sexism, Islamophobia, etc), both interpersonal and institutional, as they operate at Middlebury. Trauma as a result of multi-generational oppression and macro/microaggressions is as real as the trauma of sexual violence, and — for many survivors — they are inextricably linked to one another.
We want to expand the potentialities for how we as a community understand sexual violence at Middlebury. First, we must take the conversations about oppression and violence outside of The Campus. It is a limited form of engagement for what should be serious and mindful conversations. Pieces like “Reexamining Our Sexual Assault Investigative Process” and other recent op-eds rooted in privilege are triggering, derailing and exhausting for those who consistently have to deal with trauma or defending and debating their worth and presence at Middlebury. These op-eds attempt to disengage from and avoid the conversations about power, privilege and oppression that our community desperately needs.
Next, we must think about violence in the context of its location and the way that harm manifests in power-based violence, rather than only defining actions by legality/illegality. Our community would then focus more on how people are affected by violence and less on whether a policy was violated or not. This concept is as relevant to conversations about sexual violence as it is to those about political correctness and freedom of speech. Some tactics for harm-based interventions could borrow from restorative justice practices — informally or formally — in transformative or prevention work. The College’s PRISM project (of which Middlebury is a member of the advisory group) is beginning to research the possibilities for implementation on college campuses. Initiatives like Circles of Support and Accountability (support systems utilized by perpetrators returning to their communities after incarceration consisting of volunteers, trained staff and experts) are already used in Vermont’s criminal justice system, and — pending further research and activism — could be used for perpetrators found responsible returning to campus after suspension, or — informally — in social or organizational circles on campus. Other tactics could include an everyday ethic of taking responsibility for ourselves, our community and our mistakes, and of making a commitment to social justice education: individually, in friend groups and through initiatives like JusTalks and Green Dot.
We must lean into discomfort and reimagine a community that practices an ethic of radical accountability.
Molly McShane ’16 is from Washington, DC and Rebecca Coates-Finke ’16.5 is from Northampton, Mass.
(03/16/16 8:49pm)
This letter was co-authored by three Middlebury survivors. It is not our intention to speak for all survivors, but rather to speak from our own situated experiences. The identities inhabited within adjudicatory processes are not divorced from the world outside of them – race, class, ability, gender, immigration status, etc. continue to matter. We appreciate the full range of survivors’ experiences; the decision to speak out is an entirely personal one.
Dear Editor,
As a collective of Middlebury survivors, we wish to respond to last week’s article “Reexamining Our Sexual Assault Investigative Process.” We intend to rebut many of the sentiments expressed in this article. Although the author claimed to abhor victim-blaming, we believe that they largely reproduced the violence of victim-blaming in their own writing.
The author’s primary concern surrounds the idea that some rapists are actually innocent; we must be critical of survivor’s stories. “Skepticism is the defining trait of any good learner,” including skepticism of lying survivors. Such concerns surrounding false reporting are grossly overstated. The FBI Bureau of Justice Statistics has collected data on false reporting for decades, consistently finding that the rate of false reporting in instances of rape is somewhere between two and eight percent. This isn’t to say that false reporting does not exist, but that it is incredibly rare. The rate of false reporting for rape is significantly less than the rates reported by the FBI for other serious crimes. Would we question a victim of robbery in the same way? The bottom line is that survivors of rape, as a category, continue to be marked as suspect, and misconceptions about false reporting have direct, negative consequences on why many survivors don’t report their assaults (see Lisak et. al. 2010).
The author also raised concerns over the preponderance of evidence standard, meaning the evidentiary standard used by colleges to adjudicate Title IX cases across the country (for more on the federal government’s justifications for the use of this standard, see the April 4, 2011 Dear Colleague Letter). It is worth noting that even under a preponderance of evidence standard, a finding of “not responsible” does not necessarily mean “innocent.” For a number of reasons, cases of interpersonal violence remain notoriously difficult to “prove,” and many methods of collecting evidence — such as through rape kits — remain incredibly traumatic and invasive.
The author would lead readers to believe that the preponderance of evidence standard causes potentially innocent respondents, such as John Doe, to be routinely expelled from this institution. Yet in contrast to the sentiments expressed in last week’s op-ed, the Doe case signals the degree of agency and recourse that respondents actually have, both through Title IX claims as well as through civil law.
Here are some facts that last week’s author failed to disclose to The Campus: Clery data indicates that Campus Security Authorities became aware of 17 possible allegations of forcible sex offense during the 2013 reporting period. Of those 17, College Disciplinary Actions data reveals that only five cases resulted in a sexual misconduct proceeding. Of those five, only three saw an end to their adjudication processes. Of the three that went through a complete proceeding, two cases resulted in a finding of “responsibility.” Of the two cases reaching “responsible” decisions, one respondent was suspended and one received “Official College Discipline.” To insinuate that the Middlebury system or society at large disfavor “alleged rapists” is nothing short of factually inaccurate.
“You want justice? Don’t go to the administration, go to the police.” As if this decision was so easy, or was an alleged rapist’s decision to make. There are a number of reasons why a survivor may elect to forego a criminal proceeding. Some Middlebury survivors have taken their respondents to court. But at the end of the day, it is up to each survivor to determine how they want to proceed — whether they elect to transfer, not report, report to the campus, confront their rapists themselves and/or pursue criminal or civil charges. Rape is often experienced as a site of great choicelessness, and who makes the decisions matters. It is not the job of society to tell survivors what justice should look like; it is up to the survivor to reassert their agency to best meet their own justice needs. For those of us who choose to co-exist on campus with our assailants, that decision is extremely difficult. Yet that remains our decision to make.
The one thing that we’ll agree with the author on is that Middlebury’s SMDVS policy is a highly imperfect and adversarial process; “The College’s system for dealing with sexual assault does not give you what you deserve, regardless of whether you are an alleged victim or alleged perpetrator of violence.” This reality was echoed by a video made by Middlebury survivors a year ago entitled Middlebury Unmasked (go/unmasked). Each choice comes with unfortunate consequences, yet we stand firm in the belief that it remains a survivor’s task to analyze the array of options before them and decide which option(s) they should pursue.
The author of last week’s op-ed emphasized their own feelings of isolation as they underwent their campus judicial process. Does the author seriously think that their sense of isolation would have been lessened during a more visible proceeding in a court of law? For survivors, we’d argue that such experiences of isolation in this community are likely amplified. Isolation is pervasive in sentiments which reduce survivors’ lived experiences to nothing more than (a heteronormative) “he said, she said.” Our feelings of isolation are augmented by the enduring impacts of our trauma, including PTSD. Our trauma is by no means neatly contained in one night; in terms of attaining “justice,” there is no silver bullet.
“If someone approaches you and asks “did you do it” it feels an awful lot like the “are you sure?” question we choose not to ask alleged victims.” We’d like to debunk the author’s notion of a “post-victim-blaming era” right now. It simply does not exist. Survivors are still asked “are you sure?” in a number of arenas — within sexual misconduct processes, within criminal court and within our friend groups and families. We are still asked “are you sure?” in op-eds which would call into question our capacity for truth or our ability to make decisions for ourselves.
The fact of the matter is that many Middlebury survivors often feel the need to reassert our voices in this community, even in the smallest of ways. That’s exactly what we’re doing in this letter. We are deeply convinced that the judicial process at Middlebury leaves much to be desired, yet we also believe firmly in our rights to pursue our educations free of sexual violence. Unlike proceedings in criminal court, the heart of Title IX requires educational institutions to bear some responsibility for our experiences within them. The irony of last week’s op-ed is that it replicated the violence that many survivors experience in the aftermath of their rapes; under a barrage of disbelief, we were once more forced to take time out of our educations to defend ourselves from tired stereotypes.
We are multidimensional, and we are so much more than the passive “victim” reproduced in last week’s op-ed. Many of us have felt isolated and alone in our experiences, but we are complex human beings who are also full of joy, desire, empowerment and opinions. We need not be spoken for, and we reject the author’s notion of protection. We are an integral part of this community, and we have a right to be here and to continue to take up space. The resolution mechanisms for these sorts of cases remain imperfect and limited, yet it’s our job as claimants to pause and decide which resolution mechanism seems like the lesser of several evils at the time. To insinuate that survivors’ don’t or can’t take into account the treatment of their perpetrators when selecting a resolution mechanism is insulting.
Moving forward, many of us remain committed to reforming the judicial process and continuing to assert our right to a violence-free education. Some of us remain interested in the possibility of using restorative justice to address campus claims through a more harm-centered discourse. Yet one thing must be made clear: if you truly support survivors, you will empower them with the agency to determine their unique path moving forward. You have not been in our shoes and you do not get to pretend to see with our eyes. This never has been — nor will it ever be — your decision to make.
Anonymous ’15
Anonymous ’16
Anonymous ’16
(03/16/16 8:40pm)
“All paradises, all utopias are designed by who is not there, by the people who are not allowed in.” — Toni Morrison
Many of you may know, and others of you may wish not to know, that many members of our community are involved in “secret” societies on campus. From the leisure activities that many peers engage in, to the exclusive social networks that are forged on campus, Middlebury is not an institution that makes it possible for all students to flourish. Secret organizations foster an exclusion that encourages its members, and elite students alike, to disengage with students from disadvantaged backgrounds. Secret societies reinforce many students’ sense of not belonging on campus. Thus, secret societies create a stratified social environment that infiltrates and perpetuates sharp class and racial divides that undermine any real strides towards inclusion.
One of the year-end events for many members of our community is known as the Rites of Spring. It works through an invite-only system where the mostly straight, white and overwhelmingly upper class (or soon to be) male members of these societies invite five male friends to the party, each of whom invite a date. Having a close friend, Brian, who went to this event two springs ago, my understanding is that it is strongly encouraged for members and their invites to bring straight female students. Brian brought his girlfriend at the time, and it seemed most of his cohorts did something along the same lines. For the night of the event everyone gets dressed up in their finest garb, pregames at a Ridgeline social house, and takes a bus to an undisclosed, off-campus location for a night of bacchanalian revelry, at the cost of $50 for every member. From Brian’s recollection, there was an open bar and a band followed by thumping dance music, cigars and a beautiful view of the Adirondack Mountains across Lake Champlain. Though it seemed like everyone else had a good time, it was one of the worst nights of Brian’s college career, because he recognized that this event could only thrive in environments structured by inequity. If everyone on campus could make this invite list, the Rites of Spring would lose its utility.
Ultimately what I find problematic is that this sort of exclusivity comes at a cost. First off there is a class element. A fifty dollar entrance fee to one party is no petty charge, and I’ve been told that members must also pay dues to be part of these organizations. Rather than speculating about the inner workings of these societies’ finances, what stands out to me are their more explicitly exclusive elements: off-campus events and residences; suits and dresses; the financial ability to fund such fetes; luxuries many students cannot even begin to imagine affording.
Secondly, there’s an implicit racial dynamic wherein the demographic represented by these societies is even whiter than Middlebury’s already overwhelmingly white population. It is redundant and problematic that there are many organizations which hand-pick their members in order to create exclusive, white and wealthy spaces when many students of color and students from low-income families already feel alienated by the student body and College at large. These organizations foster a campus environment that encourages students to sustain myopic worldviews that deny the complexities of their less-advantaged peers’ life experiences.
German Philosopher Max Weber posits that elite social clubs, such as secret societies, are the primary means through which powerful groups distinguish themselves from less powerful groups. “For all practical purposes,” he wrote, “stratification by status goes hand in hand with a monopolization of … opportunities. Material monopolies provide the most effective motives for the exclusiveness of a status group.” This highlights that Middlebury secret societies are not inconsequential; rather, they are emblematic of how power scales up and scales down in society, and reveals Middlebury’s position in tolerating and even turning a blind eye to the excess, insularity and intolerance that we see among Wall Street’s most powerful and privileged.
In One-Percent Jokes and Plutocrats in Drag: What I Saw When I Crashed a Wall Street Secret Society, journalist Kevin Roose provides an exposé of a Wall Street secret society dinner brimming with financial heavyweights. In his account, he describes a brief encounter with a prominent Middlebury alumnus (and donor of the recently constructed field house), who participates in a routine of explicitly sexist and homophobic jokes. Consequently, I worry that students who participate in these secret societies are preparing to become like those in Roose’s description, through their ritualized display and reproduction of power and wealth.
Charles Griggs '16 is from Chicago, IL
(03/10/16 4:36am)
Do you currently play a club sport? Have you ever tried one out? I think a typical experience of many students on this campus, if they are not of the 300+ club sport athletes, is that they tried a club sport for a day or two, and found it wasn’t for them. I would estimate that the number of people who have ever tried or participated in a club sport (even for a brief period of time) is at least 700 students.
Politically, we have seen much discussion about accessibility on this campus. What is accessibility? Are all facilities accessible? On a less quantifiable level, are experiences and organizations on campus accessible for people of all backgrounds? These questions become very prevalent when examining the nature of athletics at Middlebury. The athletic center is not an accessible place for many students. On a base level, it is populated by people who seem to already be physically fit and absolutely beautiful. A girl on my freshman hall once quipped that Midd made her want to “run 4 miles with full makeup on.” Gymtimidation is not the only factor, however. Some gym facilities, like the squash courts or the hockey arena, remain inaccessible to those whose who were not fortunate enough to learn how to use these facilities adequately. I, for one, did not know about the existence of squash until I arrived at Middlebury.
Beyond facilities, varsity sports are decidedly not-accessible. Before the start of the year, coaches plan and assemble the majority of their teams. There is the remote possibility of walk-ons, especially in sports like track, but this is not a prevalent phenomenon. As a consequence, the fitness center often feels segregated. Non varsity athletes generally use the cardio machine areas and the weight room, while varsity athletes use those areas and seemingly everything else. Intramural teams will certainly use the turf in the field house or the basketball courts, but always scheduled around the practice times of varsity squads. This is not a knock against varsity athletes, but it is important to acknowledge that the foundation of varsity athletics is inaccessibile. To remain competitive, sports like lacrosse need people who already know how to play and are physically fit. If you want to learn how to play lacrosse, or master tennis, or swim competitively, tough luck.
Let’s now examine the structure of the competitive club sports, which I will abbreviate as CCS, to differentiate from the recreational club sports (which do not engage in competition with other teams). These sports, which include crew, rugby, and water polo, have active rosters of over 125 students. Crew itself has about 60 members, and would be about the same size as our largest varsity teams. These athletes practice in season on a similar structure to varsity programs. Speaking for crew, on the water practices are about 3 hours a day, 6 times a week. Practices off the water tend to be shorter, with no drive to Lake Dunmore, but are more intense. During the off season, each rower was asked to erg/run/swim/lift their way to 1,425,000 meters. This is approximately the distance between the center of town and Charlotte, North Carolina. From friends and acquaintances, it seems other CCS share similar dedication in practice and fitness. The ultimate key to club sports is that they are perhaps the most accessible competitive athletic programs at Middlebury. The majority of people at Middlebury can sign up to be a “novice” in one of these sports, someone who has had little or no prior contact with the game. Regardless of your physical starting point, these novice programs are designed to take you to the appropriate fitness level needed to be competitive. On the financial side, club sports have a powerful financial aid structure to help lower the barriers for people who want to participate. This aid is raised through fundraising. All the members of the team, beyond practices, spend hours to make sure that all can participate.
There is currently an initiative in the SGA to set a funding cap on club sports, so that each club sport is funded (per person) the max amount allocated by each student’s extracurricular participation fee, which is just above four hundred dollars. Currently, sports like sailing and crew are taking more than this fee per athlete, meaning that each athlete is costing more than the fee they are putting in. The concern is that this funding scheme is unfair, and the Finance Committee has also taken this view. The new proposal will slash some budgets for club sports by up to 30 percent, which may leave some sports unable to exist beyond a recreational level. I, too, share the concern that no club or organization should be funded more than the “fair” level.
Where is the administration when it comes to this? Are the interests in club sports as legitimate as financial interests in Monterey or opening a new school abroad? Is Middlebury College rooted in the small liberal arts campus or a gigantic international corporation? If the new funding gap is applied, somewhere, somehow, the administration could provide $20,000 dollars to keep the club sports at the same operating level. It is particularly notable that the college’s financial health is not particularly vibrant, as admitted by the head of the Finance Committee. Yet, the issue of club sports involves the livelihood of hundreds of students. The interests of students should be the first priority of Middlebury, and the diffusion of responsibility that Athletics, Old Chapel and other agencies on campus have shown in solving the funding issue of club sports is concerning. Why should students who practice and fundraise for upwards of 12-20 hours a week also have to defend the legitimacy of their interests? Why should a student-run Finance Committee be forced with dealing with an issue that should have never been theirs to solve?
I am not going to defend why club sports are important to people. Ask any club sport athlete. If this funding cap passes, club sport budgets will decrease, and student interests on this campus will be damaged. I ask you, as fellow peers at Middlebury, who also believe in ideals of accessibility and student life, to urge your respective senators in the SGA to vote no this upcoming Sunday. Until a new funding proposal can be reached, with the deficit in funding picked up by the administration, continuing with the cap will do far more harm than good.
(03/10/16 4:34am)
In her 2016 letter outlining her philanthropic goals for the year, Melinda Gates chose to focus on the question of unpaid work. Specifically, she outlined the imbalance in the amount of time men and women spend on tasks that must be done to fulfill necessary life functions. She is talking about chores. Gates notes that when it comes to cooking, cleaning and caring for children and the elderly, “in every part of the world, women spend more time on unpaid work than men do.” This is not just a problem of the “developing world”; even in Europe and North America, women average twice as much daily time on unpaid work than men.
If you were to take notice, you would find that this gap also exists at Middlebury. Last weekend at a party, I watched two young men tussle over a bottle of champagne and drop it, spewing the champagne all over the floor. Immediately, three women jumped into action to mop it up, while the students who created the mess returned to the party without a second thought. As a sophomore, I attended a small dinner with a visiting scholar. At the end of the meal, all of the female students, without exception, instinctively started cleaning up the meal, while all of the male students continued their conversation. And I have one female friend who has repeatedly requested to spend the night in my apartment because her male suitemate’s mess has made the space so inhospitable.
Of course, like most cases, this isn’t a simple binary issue of women do X while men do Y. At the Middlebury Women Leaders’ conflict resolution workshop with Laurie Patton last week, we spent half an hour workshopping a conflict in which a male participant could not convince his suitemate to wash his share of the dishes. Over the weekend, I was thrilled that a couple of men took the lead in cleaning up after the Hillel Bagel Brunch, a responsibility I assumed would fall to me as one of the organization’s presidents. But as much as I appreciated that they stood up to help, I don’t believe they deserve to be applauded. We expect women and girls to clean. It shouldn’t be a pleasant surprise when men and boys choose to pitch in, but rather there should be just as much of an expectation for them to contribute their time.
The issue of who does unpaid work is a matter of respect, both for the spaces we are lucky to inhabit and for the people with whom we cohabitate. As Middlebury students, there is little expectation for us to contribute to the typically unpaid work that is necessary for our daily functioning; we are lucky to have paid maintenance staff who upkeep all campus buildings. Perhaps it would help foster a sense of accountability if we were responsible for our own mess. Because there is currently minimal responsibility on students to do this unpaid work, there exists the perception that it is unworthy of our precious time. Although the maintenance staff does much of the heavy duty cleaning, the need for some small amount of unpaid labor persists in suites, superblocks, kitchens and other common spaces. We all know that time is a valuable, limited resource. Thus, the disparity in men’s versus women’s time spent on unpaid work is all the more devastating. It is important time that otherwise could be spent on studies, hobbies or professional development. Such is the opportunity cost of unpaid work. I promise that if you look around your residence or other spaces that are precious to you on this campus, there is more work to be done for this necessary upkeep. I challenge you to search for these opportunities and make your contribution of unpaid work, regardless of your gender.
Shelby Elise Friedman '16 is from Dallas, Texas.
(03/10/16 4:29am)
To the editor,
I laughed out loud when I saw Middlebury making national news with its recent ban on Red Bull. So did the entire station full of paramedics and EMTs where I volunteer, since I couldn’t help but pass around the NBC News article quoting college officials who blamed energy drinks for “high-risk sex and drug use.” We had dramatic readings and re-readings of portions of the article in which a room full of colleagues with 100+ years of combined experience in emergency medicine could barely get through Dining Services Executive Director Dan Detora’s quote - “I see it as the equivalent of banning cigarettes” - without hyperventilating. As a friend who’s a doctor and fellow Middlebury alum put it: “The college that wanted to drop the drinking age to 18 is now banning caffeine.”
I can just picture the scene now: members of Community Council huddled around the WebMD symptom checker, inputting their daily energy drink consumption and convincing themselves they were in the middle of a major cardiac episode. Those of us who attended Middlebury before the school turned into Nanny University eagerly await the college’s coming bans on saturated fats, soft drinks over 12 ounces, sharp objects and any items that may hurt when thrown.
Derek Schlickeisen graduated in 2009.
(03/10/16 4:27am)
In 2007, Middlebury College’s Commencement speaker was former President Bill Clinton. If you weren’t here then, it is probably still possible for you to imagine the attention that was garnered by his presence on campus. We dealt with increased security, the promise of an audience that extended well beyond family and well-wishers, and how to keep the day focused on our graduates. It was busy, bordering on chaotic. Almost nine years later, though, I don’t actually remember the logistics or the specific headaches. I remember a single anecdote distilled into a single phrase: “I see you.” Here’s the relevant excerpt from President Clinton’s speech:
(03/10/16 4:15am)
Editor’s Note: In light of the specific account and criticisms made in this column, The Campus asked the administration if it wanted to respond. We publish that response here.
Middlebury College understands that the process of investigation and adjudication of any alleged violation of our Student Handbook Policy can be a challenging and trying experience for students in spite of all best efforts. This is especially true with cases involving reports of sexual misconduct or related offenses. We appreciate the impact these matters can have on student lives.
Without commenting on this or any particular case, the Title IX Office makes every effort to conduct its investigations in a manner that is both timely and thorough. While it is our goal to complete investigations within 60 days, this is not always possible, as we state clearly in our policies. Student and class schedules, school breaks, availability of witnesses, collection of evidence and the need to review conflicting accounts and contested claims with care, as well as to provide the parties with sufficient time to thoroughly review and respond in writing to all evidence, all can extend the process.
We want to emphasize that we believe Middlebury’s processes, while they can never be perfect, are thorough and fair. The federal government requires that colleges use a “preponderance of evidence” standard in cases involving reports of sexual assault, and we make every effort to apply it with great care.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, we sincerely hope that anyone in our community who believes they have been or may have been involved in an incident of sexual misconduct, domestic or dating violence or misconduct or stalking, or is aware of such an incident, will report it. Information on how to do so is available at go/sexualviolenceinfo. If you have any questions, please contact my office.
Sue Ritter is the Title IX Coordinator/Compliance Officer.
(03/10/16 4:13am)
This student has requested to remain anonymous, and given the highly personal and sensitive nature of the piece, the Campus has honored this request.
Though the John Doe case was settled months ago and he is no longer enrolled at Middlebury, I nonetheless feel compelled to weigh in. I empathized with Doe. I’m not saying he is innocent, but I’m not calling him guilty either. I, too, was accused of sexual assault (and cleared after an extensive investigation, more on that later). There is a myriad of ways a rape investigation can go wrong. There are several factors that can adversely affect alleged perpetrators, alleged victims and the integrity of the investigation.
We have evolved as a society. Student activists have fought for the rights of silenced voices. Now, previously marginalized voices are heard, and this has changed how we view some of the most painful experiences these individuals go through. Nowhere is this clearer than in conversations regarding sexual violence. I would like to believe that we are slowly moving away from victim-blaming and that we take any allegation of sexual violence with the seriousness it deserves. On this campus, I feel that it is unthinkable to stand in front of someone who claims to be a victim of sexual violence and dare ask: “are you sure?” Anyone who questions a victim publicly would be shamed and ostracized.
Yet in academics, skepticism is the defining trait of a good learner. We are taught to inquire and doubt everything that surrounds us. And so it is striking when we are prevented from doing so in cases involving sexual violence. This “always believe the victim” mentality implies that the person at the other end of the accusation must be guilty. He’s being accused ergo, he must have done it. The presumption of innocence goes out the window, along with due process. How does this affect someone? People might be reluctant to be seen with or talk to the accused. Who wants to be associated with someone who has been called a rapist? As a consequence, the person who has been accused is left isolated and confused, all because of one person’s testimony.
And the effects don’t end there. After a student has reported an incident, a No Contact Order (NCO) will be put in place. This prevents the alleged victim and perpetrator from having any type of contact. While this is a good measure, it poses a different set of challenges. If two individuals happen to have a common group of friends, or live in the same house/dorm, it will reinforce the state of isolation, pushing the accused to move out of his or her room and creating a divide among friends. This also gives the alleged victim an outlet to push his/her own version and interpretation of events. If someone approaches you and asks “did you do it?” it feels an awful lot like the “are you sure?” question we choose not to ask alleged victims.
If someone is (unofficially) accusing another person of rape and causing significant harm, could you initiate an investigation to clear your name? The answer is, surprisingly, no. You are powerless, trapped between bureaucracy and one person’s account of how things happened. At this point, I started questioning the “judicial system” we have at the College. I put it between quotation marks because it is a farce. It claims to be fair, but it lacks transparency and allows for situations like the one I described above to happen. It can make promises, but there is no guarantee they will be fulfilled. Title IX states that students will be protected and not discriminated against in such a way that prevents them from learning or creates a hostile environment for learning, yet I was subjected to a hostile environment where my social life, academic career and mental health were all in jeopardy. All this happened before an official investigation had been launched.
According to Middlebury’s handbook, complaints of this nature need to be resolved within 60 days. My case took over 150 days. This investigation extended from the second week of J-term until two weeks after classes were over. I was forced to balance the emotional burden of my investigation and my academic career for half a year. I thought it would only take 60 days, but as I got deeper and deeper into the process, the further away the conclusion to this awful ordeal seemed. For those unfamiliar with the process, it goes something like this:
1. A report is made to either Public Safety or the Judicial Affairs Officer (JAO).
2. A No Contact Order (NCO) is requested, preventing both parties from having any form of contact.
3. A formal request for an investigation is put forth by the alleged victim.
4. A private investigator is appointed to collect materials relevant to the case. The investigator collects official reports, statements and conducts interviews regarding the alleged incident.
5. The accuser and accused receive all the materials collected by the private investigator and have a chance to review them. They then have the opportunity to hand in a written response regarding the evidentiary materials.
6. Responses are reviewed and those in charge of the investigation decide if the written responses contain any additional leads that should trigger another investigation or further interviews. If the people in charge decide there is a need for further examination, the process goes back to step 4.
7. If the evidence is conclusive, it will be passed on to the Human Relation Officer (HRO) for examination and deliberation.
8. An interview between the HRO and the accused is conducted (merely a formality at this point since no more evidence can be introduced).
9. A decision and rationale for said decision is usually made within a week of the interview.
The first two steps are fairly straight-forward: the alleged victim contacts Public Safety or the JAO. The alleged perpetrator is notified and served with the NCO. The issue with this is that only the alleged victim has access to this “judicial system” and it completely excludes the alleged perpetrator, preventing him/her from ever filing a complaint against someone who unfairly accuses them of a despicable crime. Reputations can suffer on both ends. I also take issue with point five. I was promised the evidence acquired by the private investigator on two separate occasions, but these promises were nothing but lies. When the administration finally delivered the first round of evidence, it was the first week of midterms, on a day I had a test in one of my hardest classes from that term. All of my inquires before this date about the availability of the evidence was met with a firm “by the end of week” and every disappointment generated by the failure to deliver the evidence was met with a vague “next week.” At this point, I was angry and no longer trusted the people presiding over the case. It felt that they were trying to get rid of me. Midterms are difficult enough as is, but I now also had to grapple with reading approximately 15 accounts of the night I allegedly raped someone. Reading the same story from 15 different people’s perspectives, one after the other, is an incredibly tough experience. It requires mental preparation. I was advised to have someone I trust go through this process with me. After two weeks of being dismissed with a “sorry, next week,” the school finally released the first round of evidence. The presentation of evidence was incredibly disorganized and additional evidence, not included in the initial email to me, was added multiple times, creating a long, incoherent record. But I thought that this was the only way I will ever get to clear my name. There was nowhere else to go, so despite the fact that I did not trust the College officials overseeing the process, I needed to gather the courage to finish. So I followed the procedure. I wrote a response defending my account and pointing at evidence that supported it. Unfortunately for me, my alleged victim lied again and told the investigator that my group of friends had covered up sexual assault in the past. This led to yet another investigation. I had to go through points four and five again. New evidence was released “coincidentally” during the second week of midterms (this was, of course, after requesting the evidence twice again). Now the school was making learning impossible. I felt that I was being harassed using bureaucratic means with an end goal of having me fail, so that I would be kicked out. From the very beginning I cooperated with the school. I provided a detailed and consistent account of the events that transpired. Yet I felt that this was not good enough and the school wanted to get rid of me.
The College’s system for dealing with sexual assault does not give you what you deserve, regardless of whether you are an alleged victim or alleged perpetrator of violence. The “preponderance of evidence” standard employed by colleges, in which you are guilty even when you are only 51 percent likely to have committed a crime, is much weaker than the “beyond any reasonable doubt” standard used in courts. There is no reason to prove that you actually committed a crime and this leads to a weak due process. In case the school does find you guilty, you could face a suspension, expulsion or a nasty comment on your record. I have witnessed people do reckless things at parties like illegal drugs, destruction of school property and underage drinking that could land them the same punishment as sexual assault. As a victim, you could end up facing your attacker a semester or year after the incident. You want justice? Don’t go to the administration, go to the police. The college system is not a safe one. The system is very prone to make mistakes, mistakes that weigh heavily on people’s mental health. From a student perspective, next time you hear someone has been accused of sexual assault, take a moment and look at this process critically. Not everyone who is accused is guilty and not all those who report sexual assault are victims. If you think I’m wrong, go ahead, challenge my words. I would love for activists to disagree with me. There is a much needed debate regarding the standards to which we should hold ourselves accountable.
(02/24/16 9:05pm)
Dear Katrina,
I want to thank you for letting us hear your story. Thank you for saying what you really mean to say. It is only through such difficult dialogue that understanding may ever begin. So thank you again for being yourself.
I totally agree with you. Political correctness means nothing. Back home, I was never a good player in that rope tightening game — straighten your back, hold on to your balancing beam and keep yourself on the thin black line. Watch your mouth because Big Brother is watching. I hated that and I still do now. My home country has taught me not to put my faith in political correctness. It is a world where the meanings of words are lost. People can say anything. But in the end, what matters most is often what is not said, right?
I cannot agree with you when you say “just to avoid offending someone.” It is not “just.” “It” is not just. To reference my favorite quote from Oscar Wilde, “The truth is rarely pure and never simple.” For people like me, this over-complication is not a matter of choice. This complexity, this barrier, these shackles and mantles are what we bear and navigate every day of our life. They have been there before I was born. Life is indeed complicated enough. I used to wish I could forget about all these complexities as well. I wish everyone could forget about them so that I didn’t have to white-wash myself, to tweak my accent and ignore everything that reminds people of what I wish they could forget. Only recently did I realize maybe these are things I don’t want to forget. These are things that are part of me and define who I am. To forget would mean to lose myself. Some differences are not just skin-deep. They run in my blood.
We are all different. But our differences will not stop us. Today, it is less difficult to see the shared humanness in us. Darwin and genetic studies have made that point for us quite strongly. The greatest challenge for our world today — and for our generation in particular — is not to un-see the differences, but rather, to embrace each other nevertheless. Love is about seeing, knowing and accepting completely, including our differences. How can we love people if we do not even start to see and understand the differences?
There must have been wounds deep enough to make these hearts so sensitive, that what seems like a light touch can trigger painful experiences. And if the same system and institution that inflicted these pains is still running, we shall not forget. I agree that there are things more important than the act of donning a sombrero, namely the implications behind it: systematic discrimination, prejudice and indifference, just to list a few. These things are around us, in this country. Just because they are less visible does not make them less serious, urgent or important. Let’s talk about our differences and what caused them, and then try to understand them.
There is a Confuciust saying, “Xiu Shen, Qi Jia, Zhi Guo, Ping Tian Xia.” Jesus also said, “Love thy neighbor.” So I want to talk about love. I believe love is about empathy. Love is an art, a craft and an effort. I think one of the most common misconceptions in our contemporary society is that love is supposed to be easy. We are taught to believe that if love goes through ups and downs — if it is tiring, upsetting or painful — you should just throw away that love. That is simply not the case, and I recommend Erich Fromm’s The Art of Loving for an excellent elaboration on this. If we are really trying to love and understand each other, we must not let the consumerist culture infiltrate into our concept of love. This journey will not be easy, simple or convenient. There are so many obstacles, including historical legacies, class, race, prejudice, stereotype, ignorance, misconception, hate, fear and indifference. If we know that taking a class or playing a sport requires time and effort, we should not expect that love, one of the most amazing human achievements, should always be smooth-sailing.
The path to a truly inclusive campus is long and tough. We will make mistakes and get tired, for we are all only human. Yet whenever I feel depressed about this world, I too look to the encouraging words of Morrie: “To love.” Simple. Concise. A verb. And that’s what all it’s about.
Love, Shan
Shan Zeng ’19 is from Chengdu, China.