Milam's Musings, milambc@miamioh.edu
The most beautiful campus there ever was is not so beautiful when it comes to sexual assaults on campus and the university's response to them.
Despite the best intentions of Miami, administrators' actions are a lot of table arranging without much reward. Miami's website, under Task Force for Prevention of Sexual Assault, is Appendix A, nicely lays out the history of Miami's response to sexual assaults on campus.
Starting in 1980, the university created Project TIPP with the stated goals of better coordination among campus and community agencies, better statistical reporting on sexual assaults on campus and assisting students, particularly women, "to gain control over their lives through awareness of situations of vulnerability."
From there, the TIPP Brochure, an informational publication, was provided to all first-year students and their parents during summer orientation and the TIPP Report was published monthly. About 17 years after its creation, the TIPP Committee stopped publishing the report because of concern over its effectiveness in changing students' behavior.
Women's Advocacy Group (WAG) took the place of Project TIPP starting in spring 2002 with the aim of "strengthening the Student Affairs Division's programs that support women students." In August 2005, the Women's Issue Task Group was created to review WAG and recommend actions that "would improve the climate for women at Miami." Another task group was created in spring 2006, mostly working on better centralization of all of Miami's programs and efforts. In spring 2007, a Sexual Assault Coordinating Team was created, committed to publishing new sexual assault brochures and a better website.
Then in 2012, Miami created the Prevention of Sexual Assault Task Force after a student posted a flier tilted, "top ten ways to get away with rape," and Miami ended up in an unflattering national spotlight. President Hodge's bullet list of what he wanted the task force to accomplish could have been created 32 years earlier with the creation of Project TIPP with such buzz phrases as "enhance effectiveness," and "increase awareness."
Rebecca Getson, Miami's sexual assault response coordinator (the university's Deputy Title IX Coordinator for matters related to sexual violence), referred to herself as a "program of one," and her title and role indicates a history of consolidation. In a talk to my journalism class, Getson mentioned various campus events and awareness campaigns, such as Take Back the Night, Walk a Mile in Her Shoes and One Billion Rising. Moreover, similar to Project TIPP, all incoming freshmen are educated on alcohol abuse and sexual assault.
In other words, no matter how well-meaning Getson or the university, not much has changed in 35 years, whether initiated by the university itself or in response to federally mandated guidelines (guidelines, it should be noted, that are connected to federal money to the institution - the Title IX Protocol). Getson and the university will point to these events, education models and the like as "doing something," but effectiveness is more important than window dressing.
The problem is two-fold. One, Miami has been doing the same thing for 35 years, irrespective of federal guidelines; campaigns for awareness, educating incoming freshmen, calls for consolidating the process and creating task forces. Where exactly has it gotten us? The process seems as convoluted now as it did back in 1980 with various agencies and figureheads launching various education efforts and events.
Where is the report just from the latest task force created under Hodge in 2012? What has it done? They did what was necessary in the aftermath of the rape flier: the appearance of doing something. Three years later, nobody is holding them to account for the "doing."
The second problem is the federal guidelines via the Title IX implementation tied to federal money. Comply with these standards or be threatened with losing your federal funding. Those standards - adjudicating sexual assault cases in-house - are well-intentioned, but put the university in an unenviable position that has dire consequences for the accused and the accuser. There is no due process, no legal representation, the hearings are closed and the panel's (one administrator, two staff volunteers) qualifications to adjudicate such serious issues are dubious at best.
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While a sexual assault survivor most certainly has the option of filing a report with the police, from a university response context, if I was an assault victim, I'd have no idea where to begin to traverse this thicket of policies and coordinators.
Perhaps most troubling about Miami's most recent history is the claim of negligence related to the Antonio Charles case. In the Student's reporting on sexual assault, the university didn't pursue a hearing because they couldn't ascertain if the individuals in the video were Miami students. I'm not sure why it matters if the victims were Miami students or not - the alleged perpetrator was a Miami student.
Furthermore, Miami's standard is a preponderance of evidence, as outlined in the Student Handbook, "Is it more likely than not that our policy was violated?" It's difficult to see how Charles' actions didn't meet that lower standard than would be found in a criminal proceeding.
As I mentioned in a previous piece, there's also the problematic double standard applied to men and women. Both can be blackout drunk, but only the man will be wholly responsible for his behavior; whereas the woman will not be. Again, it's well-intentioned, but it is also the antithesis of feminism - characterizing the woman as hapless victim, negated of autonomy and decision-making abilities.
In as much as is feasible under federal guidelines, Miami ought to streamline the process more, return autonomy to female victims, and start issuing clear reports with metrics and results on the effectiveness of all these programs, awareness events and education efforts.
Additionally, so much focus is on incoming freshmen students and hammering alcohol abuse and sexual assault education into their heads. This is not necessarily a bad strategy, although it was deemed ineffective 18 years ago, but it would seem more focus should be on students that have been here for years.
Researcher and co-director of Prevention Innovations at the University of New Hampshire Jane Stapleton said incoming students are not the ones who are predominately sexually assaulting other students.
"It's the upper-class students who have the social capital and who are creating and sustaining environments that support sexual assault," she said.
Moreover, researcher and advocate with the national Title IX movement Nadia Dawisha mentioned to me in email correspondence an idea I've seen promoted elsewhere and one which has already been implemented at some universities: campus climate surveys to get a better handle on just how often sexual assault is occurring on campus.
There's an adage that it's better to light a candle than curse the dark. With sexual assaults on campus, there's justifiable cursing to be directed at Miami and/or complex government guidelines, but at the end of the day, despite it all, the student body has to be willing to light a candle, too, and reflect the inward beauty of the campus.
It's on us, indeed.
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