Tag Archives: Tufts University

Critic’s Pick: LGBTQ-Inclusive Language

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After thinking about what consent means for people with disabilities, I want to explore other often marginalized identities and discuss how campus sexual assault policies use (or don’t use) lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer transgender and gender non-conforming inclusive language.

Let’s begin with some unfortunate news: I’ve searched a heck of a lot of these policies, and I have only found ONE that explicitly mentions LGBTQ people. Recently reviewing a student submission, I came across this statement in University of Akron’s policy:

Sexual misconduct and sexual assault is a serious crime that can affect men and women, whether gay, straight, transgender or bisexual.

This is good—a policy needs to be explicitly inclusive of different communities of people. University of Akron does not simply say something vague about “all members of the community” or exclude (like many other schools!) huge populations of students by only using “man” and “woman.” Where I could see Akron’s statement improving is in addressing gender non-conforming, or genderqueer, individuals. To specify, gender non-conforming refers to people who do not follow societal norms, such as dress and activities, based on their biological sex. Gender non-conforming people may present themselves as gender-free rather than clearly male or female; they may identify as transgender, gay, lesbian, bisexual or none of the above. A more inclusive alternative to Akron’s policy might be: “Sexual misconduct and sexual assault is a serious crime that can affect any individual, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity. It can affect men, women, or gender non-conforming/genderqueer people, whether gay, straight, transgender, or bisexual.” While the wording is only slightly altered, it would have huge implications for many students. The unfortunate reality, however, is that Akron is still miles ahead of other schools in this regard—they may not offer the most inclusive language, but they are the only institution I found that mentioned the LGBTQ community at all.

When a school’s sexual assault policy does not even consider certain populations of students, what does that mean for those students who consider themselves part of these populations?

In general, sexual assault is hard to talk about. It’s already the kind of thing that makes people uncomfortable, that people want to keep quiet. Sexual assault within the LGBTQ community has received so little attention even from those whose job it is to discuss it: researchers, support services and the criminal justice system. The discourse around sexual violence is often so focused on heterosexual men and women that any person not in those categories may feel marginalized and ignored. It’s hard to wrap your head around the idea of a woman assaulting another woman or a man assaulting another man when no one ever brings it up—but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. LGBTQ survivors of assault have the same basic needs as heterosexual survivors of assault, but this lack of attention serves to keep this topic even further under wraps, resulting in a lack of culturally competent support and very few resources for healing. Queer survivors have an equal right to be believed, validated, and supported to reach recovery and justice.

We live in a society with so many levels of internalized and externalized homophobia and part of understanding and changing violent behavior is acknowledging and challenging that homophobia. Although violence does exist within LGBTQ communities, their sexual orientations and gender identities are not the cause of that violence. Like all forms of sexual violence, assault within the LGBTQ community is used to assert power and maintain the status quo (specifically here, heterosexism).

There are several unique needs and problems that arise in the LGBTQ population when it comes to reporting sexual assaults. Just to name a few: fear of prejudice and victim-blaming because of societal homophobia and bias, fear of being forced to reveal their sexual orientation, fear of betraying the LGBTQ community if the perpetrator is also LGBTQ, and fear of having the experience minimized or sensationalized.

Looking at the wide range of campus sexual assault policies out there, it is shocking how few schools make explicit mention of the LGBTQ community. Even the most liberal campuses well known for having large LGBTQ populations don’t seem to directly address the issue. For all the reasons I mentioned above, it is not enough to simply use gender-neutral language.

Many schools, like College of the Holy Cross and Carleton College, limit the identities in their policies to “man” or “woman.” Although this wording recognizes same-sex assault (“by a man or woman upon a man or woman”), it does not acknowledge any gender identity outside of those norms.

Some campuses, like Macalester College and the University of Vermont, work to be inclusive of all identities in general, but do not name the LGBTQ community specifically. Tufts University provides a good example of this middle ground. Listed under the Survivor’s Rights, it says:

We will treat your case seriously regardless of your or any suspect’s sex, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation and behavior, race, ethnicity, religion, national origin, age, disability, or veteran status.

This isn’t terrible; it acknowledges the diversity of survivors of sexual assault and ensures that a case will not be unfairly minimized. However, there is something powerful about naming LGBTQ students as survivors. Especially on college campuses, LGBTQ people are often disproportionately assaulted, and therefore merit explicit acknowledgment. A study done by the Wisconsin Coalition Against Sexual Assault shows that from a sample of 412 university students, 16.9% of the subjects reported that they were lesbian, gay, or bisexual; the remainder identified themselves as heterosexual. 42.4% of the lesbian, gay, and bisexual subjects and 21.4% of the heterosexuals indicated they had been forced to have sex against their will. With this in mind, when policies explicitly include the LGBTQ community, it is validating and supportive in an active way that encourages individuals to come forward.

The majority of policies that I’ve seen fall under this last category, and while maybe it’s not the worst, there’s no good excuse for not being more explicit. The problem does not seem to be that schools are not aware of sexual violence against the LGBTQ community. In fact, many schools have fact sheets and other information about this very topic posted online to help. Check out these great resources from Illinois State University, Lewis and Clark, Harvard University, George Washington University,University of Minnesota, and University of California, Berkeley. The Office of Sexual Assault Prevention (OSAP) at Evergreen State College even states:

OSAP is committed to being a culturally competent, Queer-positive, Transgender-positive space and provides services sensitive to the unique needs of all students, staff and faculty, particularly those whom are members of groups disproportionately affected by sexual violence. OSAP collaborates with community agencies, First People’s Advising and student activities groups to provide advocacy and services relevant to each individual.

Not one of the schools listed above includes anything about LGBTQ students in its policy, however. It’s baffling that the great resources and knowledge that schools possess don’t translate into inclusive policies. The majority of policies that I’ve seen fall into the same category as Tufts with regards to inclusiveness, and while maybe it’s not the worst, there’s no excuse for not being more explicit. One or two sentences in a policy could make all the difference for many students.

New Judicial Process Policy Revealed at Tufts University

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Just wanted to share that the students of Tufts’ SAFER just had a victory! The complete new sexual assault policy has been made. You can check out their site here. It’s weird to think just two years ago I was being trained among some of these activists and they’ve done such a great job to create progress. I clearly have some personal investment since some of my friends and I helped jumpstart the movement for change. I wish I was able to support the students for longer, but they’re clearly doing a great job.

While it is great there is a new policy, I think this is a great example of how even though an administration may be willing to provide change there can always be improvement. It takes a long time to work towards a better sexual assault policy that students can feel like their rights are protected.

One thing I noticed that made me a bit uneasy is that they have a new confidentiality section.

Any information or written material related to a disciplinary case must be treated as confidential. Disclosure of such information to anyone other than the Dean or the fact-finder, legal counsel, support person or confidential counselor is strictly prohibited and may subject the person responsible for the disclosure to disciplinary action. Individuals with whom a student has shared disciplinary case materials are prohibited from disclosing them to others without the permission
of the Dean of Students or the Judicial Affairs Officer, and any disclosure by such individuals may subject the student who disclosed to them to disciplinary action.

A big part of the Center for Public Integrity’s investigative findings that schools have been big on gag orders. While they said that the outcome of the cause will/can be shared with the community, I can see the potential for this confidentiality clause to go wrong. What if the school handled the case improperly? It would be a huge conflict of interest to ask the Dean or Officer for permission to share how *they* messed up in address their rape and is showing the case information to another person, group, organization, etc. to see what those very people did wrong while doing their job.

However, it’s great to know that the SAFER group on campus are in touch with the administration about further improvements. The students have hit the ground running as soon as the semester has started to look over the policy and identify what they would like to see changed. I hope that progress towards the policy they need and deserve continues to go quickly!

While We Were Away: A News Round-Up

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So, summer vacations have led to things being a little quiet around here, and when I got back I had SO MUCH NEWS to sort through. Here is some of what stuck out:

A big victory in Wisconsin last week when a U.S. Magistrate Judge ruled that a former UW-Parkside student could continue with her lawsuit suing the school for violating Title IX after she was assaulted by her resident adviser and the school was largely unresponsive and didn’t follow protocol. I’m glad to see that Judge Patricia Gorence understands the impact of sexual harassment and assault, since the university’s Board of Regents clearly doesn’t. They  protested the suit on the grounds that “one assault was not enough to show a ‘systemic effect on educational programs and activities,’ [and]…also argued the woman’s situation was not so severe that it effectively denied her access to Parkside.”

We’ve written a bunch about the hard word students at Tufts have been doing to get a more comprehensive sexual assault policy, and last week the first part of the new policy was unveiled. The new policy outlines definitions, resources, and reporting options, and considering that Tufts’ old policy was two setences long, this is a huge improvement. The judiciary process hasn’t been outlined yet, but a comment on the Tufts Daily article states that it will hopefully be up by next semester.

The story out of Brown, where a former student is suing the school, claiming he was wrongly accused of rape and forced out of the school without a proper investigation got even messier as the woman who accused him filed a counter-suit saying that his lawsuit violates the contract that “settled” the dispute in 2006. She maintains that he did rape her.

This piece at OregonLive works off the CPI reporting on campus sexual assault and looks at the differences between how assaults are handled at Oregon’s Reed College and Oregon State University.

Tracy at Unapologetically Female lists some trends she has noticed in the Womens Studies 101 classes she has been teaching over the last two years. It’s an interesting picture of where some (perhaps many) of her students are at when they begin approaching feminist/social justice issues and the contradictions that riddle their beliefs. A lot of those contradictions were familiar to me, as they are things that I either did or still struggle with. I wonder how many of these ideas/habits will have changed by the time they graduate…

RMJ at Feministe has a really good post (with a very active comments section) about manipulating someone into “consent” and her own experiences in college. For me, the value in this piece is the conversation it starts about looking at sexual violation on a spectrum outside of the one presented by the legal system. So much of the discourse surrounding what rape is or isn’t is based on what would stand up in court. And while this is an important conversation, particularly in terms of how to reform the criminal justice system and encourage folks to report crimes, it’s not always the most helpful conversation. When immediately dragging conversations about consent and assault into the legal realm, defenses go up and the slippery slope argument begins: well if you’re going to call that rape, then everyone’s a rapist! But women like RMJ aren’t talking about wanting the opportunity to prosecute someone or defining what a violation is for every individual. The point (as I see it anyway) is to discuss the different ways in which consent can be violated, coerced, or simply never acquired, and with that on the table we can figure out how to make it better. The point of primary prevention, for example, isn’t: let’s talk about how you can avoid getting arrested and charged with rape. It’s (or it should be) let’s talk about the behaviors and attitudes that devalue your sexual partner(s) and what a healthy sexual relationship/encounter should look like.

And finally, Jessica at CALCASA talks about the importance of incorporating hope into anti-violence activism. Yes.

New Sexual Assault Policy to be Revealed at Tufts

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SAFER visited Tufts University’s campus a year ago, where we held a Teach-in and a Weekend Organizer Training. This was before I joined the board and the trainings were actually my first introduction to the organization. This group prompted my personal investment in anti-sexual violence activism.

This subsequently led to the formation of a student group (which consisted of myself and other students at the time) on their campus named SAFER, which since then has been working to bring vast improvements in policy. They kicked off with a community town hall meeting where about 200 students crammed into a dorm common room and asked why the policy was so inadequate.

Now it seems there is great potential for improvements. I have read in their Daily that their Senate passed a resolution for a better policy to be implemented by next semester. While it is great that more people on the campus are now aware about the current policy’s shortfalls, I know there has been a lack of transparency in the process of improvements. There has been dialogue between the administration and students, but there is no sign whether the administration listened to what they wanted.

While it could be just the framing of how the article was written, I do have two concerns. The first arises from this paragraph near the beginning

The movement to revise the policy, which also involves Health Service, is a product of concern for past victims and the widespread desire for a more comprehensive policy that is on par with those at other private colleges and universities.

I think the CPI report has made it abundantly clear that MOST schools do not have adequate policies. It makes me a little uneasy that the school just wants to be “on par” with other schools, rather than wanting what is BEST and go ABOVE AND BEYOND. They should be caring about a comprehensive policy that suits Tufts’ needs. I unfortunately noticed when I attended Tufts they cared more about ‘keeping appearances’ and opt just compared themselves to other institutions when making policy decisions, instead of taking the interests of the students on their specific campus seriously.

Also the article seems to concentrate on the policy working more on remedies to a student being assaulted. It would be great if they have a lot of preventative work and programs, which could reduce assault by educating students about consent and how to be an affective bystander that could possibly intercede an assault that is about to happen.

Regardless, I hope there are improvements to the policy when the administration shows their draft and I applaud the progress that the students at Tufts have already made.

x-posted at Rapedattufts

Firsthand Account puts Intersectionality into Perspective

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If you have been following our blog, you may have noticed the theme of “intersectionality” popping up regularly. When I first learned about the existence and meaning of this word earlier this year, I thought I clearly understood what it meant. However, it was not until recently until I truly realized the meaning and importance of the word. It was easy for me to grasp how race and class are almost always inextricably linked, but it look a little extra thinking to realize how sexism, ableism, and other forms of discrimination often work together.

Today on Womanist-Musings there is a guest post that originally appeared on the Tufts Survivors of Sexual Violence site. I think it can be very useful for putting intersectionality into perspective and easier to comprehend. A survivor who is not only a woman, but of colour, first-generation American, and in a socioeconomic class that provided little power or resources. All of these identities caused multiple oppressions to work simultaneously.

Can all of this be immediately and easily eliminated? No; but if you look at “What Makes A Better Sexual Assault Policy?” it is very feasible to have a policy that can fight the reinforcement of oppressions. Intersectionality is brought up in not only one,  but two sections:

  • Fairness: All services should be available to students regardless of gender, ethnic background, income, disability, identity, or sexual orientation. All disciplinary procedures should be fair and impartial.
  • Prevention and Education: Policies should include meaningful efforts at education of students in the dynamics of sexual assault, the effects it has on survivors, and the many factors that allow it to continue. They should focus on preventing violence by perpetrators and engaging the whole school community in a stand against sexual violence. They should not blame victims, focus on women’s behavior, or repeat rape myths. These efforts should challenge sexism, homophobia, racism and other oppressions rather than reinforcing or ignoring them.

Part of being an anti-violence activist is not only including a diverse group of people in your movement, but also constantly trying to understand the discriminations that your fellow activists may have to face.

Tufts University, You, Your Partner, and Your Roommate

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I can’t believe I missed this!

Tufts University has taken a bold step toward regulating sexual activity in dorm rooms. The school, whose main campus is in Medford, Mass., instituted a new policy for students with roommates in on-campus housing: No sex while the other roommate is in the room, and no sexual activity should interfere with a roommate’s privacy, study, or sleep.

Well that’s…interesting. What’s odd about this policy is that it’s not really a policy. A rep for Res Life said:

The sex policy, Ales-Rich said, is intended as a tool to facilitate conversation and compromise between roommates, rather than simply proscribe behavior. Ales-Rich emphasized that ResLife hopes students will be able to resolve the issues on their own instead of allowing conflicts to reach a point at which the office has to intervene.

“We want to make perfectly clear that we do not want to hinder someone from engaging in any personal or private activity,” she said. “But when it becomes uncomfortable for the roommate, we want to have something in place that empowers the residents to have a good conversation with the roommate.”

So the policy is really nothing more than a conversation-starter? Are there any actual repercussions for breaking the rule? Wouldn’t it have made sense to start an ACTUAL conversation with students about sexual etiquette before just making an arbitrary rule? Says Tufts: no, because that would make people uncomfortable!

ResLife saw a need to take the lead in addressing the issue due to its sensitive nature, according to Ales-Rich. “We found in the past that when it comes to sexual activity in the room, students find it an uncomfortable topic to talk about,” she said.

On its face, I don’t really have a problem with this policy in the sense that it is really just a guideline, as one commenter at the Tufts Daily News points out:

“The Residents’ Bill of Rights…clearly states that students have “the right to free access to your room without pressure from your room mate(s)” and “the right to study [and] sleep without undue disturbances from noise, guests, room mate(s), etc.” This includes “sexiling” and “performing for an audience” of one. This part of the policy needed to be spelled out because it was becoming more and more of an issue. Now, students have something specific to bring up when a room mate decides to be a jackass and do something like this.

And I think that’s more or less correct. It just seems like the whole situation could have been prevented if there had been some more “uncomfortable” conversations going on beforehand. Also the idea of a school in any way regulating consensual sexual behavior—even if there is no real threat of discipline—is really crossing a line.

But more than anything, this rubs me the wrong way because of the sorry state of Tuft’s Sexual Assault Policy. As a writer at the Tufts University Survivors of Rape and Sexual Assault said:

Hmmm…you know what else is of a sensitive nature and uncomfortable to talk about? SEXUAL ASSAULT. Why is Tufts so willing to take initiative to create policies about consensual sexual activities, but failed for so long to acknowledge that sexual assault is a problem for the students (not just the school’s reputation) and to “take the lead” in addressing it?

The Tufts’ survivor’s blog is full of info on why the Tuft’s policy is inadequate, but among other things, the policy has no definition of rape, sexual assault, or consent. So Tufts can take the time to clearly delineate what is and is not appropriate for you and your partner to do in your dorm, but when it comes to sexual assault, students are left in the dark. Take for example the sexual assault policy that appears on the Tufts website and compare it to the policy on relationships between students and their professors. Definitions abound in the latter! And that’s great, because it’s important…but why the gap? The school seriously needs to reprioritize. Waking up to the sounds of your roommate having sex could very well be a huge problem for some folks, above and beyond it being irritating and uncomfortable. But damn, how about spending some of that valuable administrative time and clarifying the policy on rape?

End of the Week Link Round-Up

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Ann at Feministing and Amanda at The Sexist react to the recanting of a rape accusation at Hofstra University.

Cara speaks eloquently about why we shouldn’t pressure survivors into naming their attackers.

Carnival Against Sexual Violence 78 is up at abyss2hope.

At the AAUW blog, hollykearl writes about the street harassment young girls are subjected to as they walk to and from school. This one speaks to me personally, as I’ve discussed here before that this was the exact kind of harassment that got me involved in feminism and anti-violence issues to begin with.

Things I Love: College blogs! I just learned about feminist blog out of Princeton University, Equal Writes.  Tufts University already has the awesome Gender Bender Blog, but this week I also came across the Tufts University Survivors of Rape and Sexual Assault blog. They are doing a great (and disturbing) breakdown of Tuft’s assault policy. If there’s a college blog we should be linking to, leave it in the comments.

Another blog you should be checking out: Where Is Your Line? A new blog “about sex and consent” in association with Nancy Schwartzman’s documentary The Line.

Prevention Connection has a new online presentation up on engaging bystanders in violence prevention.

I haven’t gotten a chance to read it all yet, but this zine made by Paul Brown and “written (mostly) for men about the connections between the construct of masculinity, rape culture, and mainstream pornography” looks pretty interesting.

Enjoy the weekend, and happy new year to all my fellow Jews…

Funding sexual assault prevention in a recession

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Boston-area schools, like many, are struggling with how to keep funding for their sexual assault prevention programs as budgets are cut and money gets tighter. This is a concern that ArchDiva raised in a comment a few weeks ago, and one that I think we will hear about more and more as the months go on.

The key in many cases to keeping funding for sexual assault prevention programs is going to be student insistence, as well as faculty, staff, and administration commitment. The other opportunity for activists will be around the grants the Department of Justice gives colleges to start or enhance prevention programs. As the article I linked to addresses, I think making the grants larger and longer is a good thing, as it will really allow programs to solidify and prove their effectiveness before they have to fight for university funding. But it means that fewer schools are getting these grants.

We can push for more money for these grants and also for a requirement that universities commit to continuing to fund their sexual assault programs for at least three years after their three year federal grant runs out. Otherwise, what’s the point of getting a great program up and running, only to see it collapse for lack of funding, as may happen with Northeastern this year?