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Silencing and Sexual Assault at Colby College

An Honors Thesis Submitted to the Colby College Department of Women’s Gender, and Sexuality Studies

By: Heather Pratt

Waterville, MaineApril 2011

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“It is not fair that I suffered so intensely for so long.” –Colby Sexual Assault Survivor

“I began to realize that I owe it to myself…to push beyond the rage and articulate an agenda…my anger and awareness must translate into tangible action…to be a feminist is to join in my sisterhood with women” –Rebecca Walker

Is it best for us to be silent? What shall we gain by silence? Will our influence have any effect by and by if we don’t try to use it now? Won’t these contemplated changes be ‘sprung on’ us again just as this has been? And if we seem not to care now will it be expected that we care by and by? Shall we be given any chance to use our influence if we don’t attempt to do it now? Is it right for us to remain silent and thus really assent to the changes? I understand President Small invites criticism and asks the girls to express their opinion about it. His references to our modesty or want of it are of the nature of an insult . . . and then are it right for us to remain silent and let the impression go abroad that everybody favors this new plan? -Mary Low, Colby’s First Female Student (1875)

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Acknowledgments:

I would have never been able to complete this project without the help and support of my friends, family and professors.

I want to thank Lisa Arellano, Hollis Griffin, and Elizabeth Leonard for guiding me through this process and editing countless pages of material. They pushed me in ways that have not only made me a better thinker and writer, but also a better person. I am very grateful for their hard work and encouragement throughout this past year. I also want to thank the Colby Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Department and the Colby English Department for giving me the tools to take on a project of this scope.

Furthermore, I want to thank my mom for encouraging me to be a feminist since day one, my dad for teaching me the importance of helping others, and my triplet brother and sister for being my biggest cheerleaders these past 23 years. Whether my mom was listening to me cry on the phone after a tough interview with a sexual assault survivor, or my Dad was making me tea so I could stay up late to meet a deadline, my family was as much a part of this project as I was and I am eternally grateful for their love and support. As for my friends, I must thank all of my girlfriends for giving me much needed writing breaks, listening to my rants about structural sexism, and keeping me sane. Toni Morrison said that “It is sheer good fortune to miss somebody long before they leave you.” If what she says is true, I am very fortunate because I miss all of you already.

Finally, I want to thank all of the sexual assault survivors I interviewed for this project. Your bravery and resiliency inspires me.

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Methods: How Did I Complete This Project?

“In dealing with open-secret structures, it is only by being shameless about risking the obvious that we happen into the vicinity of the transformative” –Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick

Introduction: Why I Undertook This ProjectI chose to take on this project for a number of reasons. As a senior Women’s, Gender,

and Sexuality Studies major at Colby I have spent the past four years analyzing issues of gender

oppression both inside and outside of the classroom. Whether I was reading bell hooks for Intro

to Women’s Studies or deconstructing sexual double standards with friends on a Sunday

morning in Dana, my academic life and my personal life have been greatly intertwined.

Consequently, my personal principles have been largely shaped by feminist academia and

reciprocally, my work as women’s studies major has been, in part, informed by my personal life.

Given that I have been evaluating Colby and my relationship to the community through a

feminist lens for nearly as long as I have been here; it only makes sense that I would formally do

the same for my senior thesis.

I specifically chose to focus on issues of sexual assault, which I define as sexual activity

of any kind that does not involve the other person’s consent, because I think it is a huge

problem that needs immediate attention. Professor of criminal justice, Robert Hanser defines

sexual assault as “a blanket term that refers to a number of sexually related forms of

victimization” and asserts that “the word covers sexual offenses that involve touching or

penetration of a person’s body without consent” (Hanser 29). Throughout history, many

cultures and legal systems have referred to all forms of sexual activity without consent as rape,

whereas others have differentiated between sexual assaults involving penetration and those

that do not by using “rape” to refer to those involving penetration and “sexual assault” to

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describe instances that do not involve penetration. Currently, both Maine State Law and Colby

College Policy define use the term “sexual assault” to define sexual conduct commonly known

as rape and any other sexual misconduct (Important Information for the Colby College

Community about Sexual Assault Brochure, Maine Statutes on Sexual Assault). Taking these

definitions into consideration, I argue that sexual assault includes rape, forced sodomy, forced

oral sex, and any form of unwanted sexual touching.

Additionally, I use the term “silencing” to mean the various series of institutional

actions, practices, and policies that dismiss victims of sexual violence and cover up the

prevalence of sexual violence at Colby. Examples of silencing at Colby include the

administration’s practice of not immediately notifying the student body when a sexual assault

has been reported to campus authorities, not punishing perpetrators despite clear and

convincing evidence that they have committed gender violence, and questioning the testimony

of women who bring their cases forward. Within the Colby community the term

“administration” is used rather loosely. I define the term to mean the President and Vice

President of the college, the most powerful Deans, and the members of the Board of Trustees.

I chose to write about sexual assault because it relates to a plethora of other related

issues in the field of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. As a result, I am able to comment

on a wide range of feminist topics that are intertwined with sexual assault, including male

entitlement, homophobia, and institutional sexism. Consequently, my thesis is more of a

comprehensive evaluation of sexual assault and other factors that contribute to the issue, which

is the type of discursive project I wanted to do. Finally, I was motivated to focus on sexual

assault by my own experiences and the experiences of my friends. I think that we, as well as

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many other members of the college community, have instinctually felt unsettled about many

aspects of the social culture, particularly as it pertains to gender and sexuality, but had difficulty

asserting why. I chose to do this piece to explore and give voice to the reasons for these

feelings. While I myself am not a survivor of sexual assault I do know many survivors, and the

anger I have felt while watching them grapple with such violence and the anger I continue to

feel as a result of seeing continuous gender violence both inside and outside of Colby has

motivated me to do this work. Above anything else, I chose to write this thesis for the survivors

in the hopes that by researching the issues and proposing solutions I could prevent future Colby

students from enduring similar violations.

Methodology: College Students as a Social Category College, like high school, is a time of extreme identity work for most individuals.

Historically, college is seen as a time of personal growth, as many young adults begin to figure

out their identities, morals, values, and goals during these years. Popular culture often depicts

college as a reckless four years full of sex, alcohol, and little personal responsibility. This sort of

free-for-all mentality towards college is specifically seen in popular movies such as “Animal

House” and songs like “I Love College,” which both illustrate college as a fuzzy period of beer

and sexual conquests. Oftentimes, college is the first time that many individuals have lived

away from their parents with a group of peers. For many, college is a time of sexual freedom,

exploration, and experimentation. College, specifically the first year, is also a time when

females are at the greatest risk for sexual assault. According to Julie E. Samuels from the

National Institute of Justice and Jan M. Chaiken from the Director Bureau of Justice Statistics,

women on college campuses are “at a greater risk for rape and other forms of sexual assault

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than women in the general populations or in a comparable age group” (Reeves Sanday 198).

One in four college-aged women report experiences that meet the legal definitions of rape or

attempted rape and one in five women are raped during their college years (Young). According

to research, “the typical scenario of sexual assault on college campus includes the woman’s

drinking at a party (especially a fraternity party) and playing drinking games, a situation where

she has been given a drink in which the alcohol has been disguised as punch” (Bohmer, Parrot

20). In my experience, this scene is typical for a Saturday night at Colby. Even more troubling is

the fact that one in twelve college men admitted to committing acts that meet the legal

definitions of rape and thirty-five percent of men report some likelihood that they would rape if

they could be assured that they would not be caught or punished (Young). Given the identity

work that occurs during the college years, specifically in regards to gender and sexuality, and

the greater risk that many women face for sexual assault during this time, I chose to focus on

college age subjects.

More specifically, I chose to study my own college community because as a senior

female student of the college, I have greater access to the community and more knowledge of

what queer theorists Eve Sedgwick calls, its “open secret structures” (22). Sedgewick’s theory

about the “regime of the open secret” points to the ways in which contradictory rules about

privacy and disclosure, public and private, and awareness and ignorance have molded the way

we see and value knowledge (22). While Sedgwick primarily uses the metaphor of the “open

secret” to depict the societal structures that contribute to “the closeting” and silencing of gay

and lesbian people throughout history, I use her metaphor of the open secret structure to

describe the ways in which silencing and sexual assault at Colby College is also a regime of

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“open secret structures” that both silences survivors and keeps others from becoming educated

about the issue (22). Women’s Studies Professor at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Cris

May defines Sedgewick’s open secret as “knowledge in some sense known but not circulated”

(Mayo). Applying this definition to Colby, I contend that sexual assault at Colby is an open

secret because although students in some sense know that it occurs, specific knowledge

concerning the rate, frequency, and types of gender violence (types meaning the various acts

that exist on the spectrum of gender violence, including acquaintance rape, stranger rape,

sexual assault, sexual harassment, etc.) that occur is not widely circulated amongst the Colby

Community.

The structures that keep sexual assault an open secret at Colby are reflected in the

school’s silencing of sexual assault victims and the silencing of gender violence itself, which, as I

said before, is seen in the school’s practice of not immediately notifying the student body

when a sexual assault has been reported to campus authorities, not punishing perpetrators in

cases where clear and convincing evidence suggests that they have committed gender violence,

and questioning the testimony of women who bring their cases forward. Silencing of gender

violence is also seen in the school’s practice of not punishing those who commit micro

aggressions that perpetuate a sexist and misogynist environment where sexual assault is more

likely to occur. Some examples of these micro aggressions that have occurred at Colby in just

this past year include the verbal harassment of women at parties, the use of misogynist and

sexist discourse on the sports field, and the rating of women on the academic quad.

Levels of Analysis

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To explore sexual assault, I looked at my subjects’ individual experiences, gendered and

sexual identities at Colby and the investments that various Colby students have in such

identities, and how both relate to issues like sexism and sexual assault. I also looked at

institutional discourse which covers both the type of language used as well is what is said and

not said (What can be talked about at Colby and what is silenced?). I researched institutional

discourse by looking at old Echo articles, reading through Colby’s website; and talking to Colby

community members. Much of my analysis on institutional discourse comes from my own

experience as a Colby student and the discourse I have heard amongst members of my

community in my four years here.

The basis of my analysis mostly comes from one-on-one interviews with sexual assault

survivors at Colby and concerned members of the Colby community, including my peers,

faculty, and staff. I was also able to talk to a former Colby student who upon hearing about my

thesis asked If she could talk to me about her experiences, saying that she was bothered by the

“sexist social scene” when she attended. Paying attention to my peers’ voices in these

interviews enabled me to become more informed of the issue and analyze the structures at

work that perpetuate an environment that dismisses and silences survivors of sexual assault.

While my interviews certainly contribute to a large part of my thesis, looking at sexual

assault without seeing it through the lens of theory and scholarly work would lead to a much

too individualized analysis. Doing so would ignore the larger structures at work that perpetuate

sexual violence at Colby and on college campuses in general. Therefore, I incorporate gender

theory and feminist scholarship to look at sexual assault at Colby as it relates to other issues of

universal inequality such as sexism, classism, patriarchy, etc. While my goal is to promote policy

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and cultural changes specifically at Colby, I also want my piece to tend to the overarching issues

that contribute to sexual assault in all communities outside of Colby by providing a model for

change that can be applied to places other than the college itself. Therefore, I try to strike a

balance in my research between individualism and universality by applying comprehensive

theories to specific Colby problems.

C.J. Pascoe asserts in her ethnography on high school masculinity that “at the level of

the institution, schools are a primary institution for identity formation…they play a part in

structuring adolescent selves through the setting up of institutional gender orders, or the

totality of gender arrangements in a given school—including relation of power, labor, emotion,

and symbolism” (Pascoe 18). Similarly, I think the same theories can be applied to college

institutions like Colby. Just as institutional structures in high school, such as the valorization of

male-coded sports such as football and the reinforcement of heteronormativity at school

events like prom, contribute to the formation of identity and gender orders in high school, I

think that the same sorts of institutional structures occur in college and contribute to gender

violence. For example, institutional ordering is seen in the way the college dealt with a situation

involving homophobic speech last semester. One Saturday night, a young man called another

student a “fag” in the student union, which under the Maine Civil Rights Act, is against the law

and is considered a hate crime (Maine Human Rights Act).

While I know about the event because of my status as a women’s studies major and ally

to the gay community, very few others know about it. The fact that the institution did not

express public condemnation of what happened, or even inform the students of the event,

exposes institutional silencing around issues pertaining to the gay community, since the

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decision to keep the hate crime a secret was a decision made by the institution. Such silencing

also suggests institutional disregard for the gay community, as well as other victims of hate

crimes. This sort of disregard contributes to the invisibility of gay people and other survivors of

hate crimes, and also contributes to the formation of students’ identities and the ordering of

gender at the college by creating a hierarchy between those whose identities are protected and

those who are not. In the same vein, my thesis examines the way Colby’s institutional ordering,

which involves both the formal (policies, official announcements, Echo articles, disciplinary

procedures) and informal (community discourse, the student social scene) ways Colby’s

structuring of gender, sexualities, and identities reinforce an environment where sexual assault

not only occurs, but is also silenced.

Research Site: My CollegeI conducted fieldwork at my own college, Colby College. Colby is a private liberal arts

school that was founded in 1813 (A Brief History of Colby College). It is located on top of a hill in

Waterville, Maine and is pretty isolated from the city of Waterville and 1 hour drive from

Portland. This paired with the fact that 95% of Colby students live on campus, make the school

the site of both academic and social life. While Colby itself is located in a fairly poor area, Colby

students themselves are for the most part affluent and privileged, illustrated by the fact that

the school itself costs $51, 990 but only 60% of students qualify for financial aid. Out of 1, 825

students, 46% are male and 54% are female, while 17% are minority students. 55% of students

attended public school, 45% graduated from private schools. 62 countries are represented in

the student body, as well as 45 U.S. states (Quick Facts: Colby College Profile).

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Nevertheless, Colby has a pretty homogeneous student body. Colby understands itself

as consisting of a white, privileged, heterosexual, New Englander (the running joke is that

everyone is “20 minutes outside of Boston”) population. Colby has a very physically fit student

body and most people wear brand name clothes like J. Crew, Ralph Lauren, and Gap (according

to Urban Dictionary.com and College Prowler.com). While there is definitely some variance, the

stereotypical Colby code of dress is “outdoorsy prep,” with LL Bean boots, button downs, and

north face fleeces. On average, girls are heterosexual, very thin, have long hair, and dress fairly

conservatively. Most men either fit the “bro” or the “preppy” stereotype and homosexuality

amongst men is more closeted than it is amongst women. Even so, the college population is

extremely heteronormitive. Like many colleges, Colby has a pretty active drinking and party

scene and social life mainly revolves around the consumption of alcohol, but there are many

students who do not participate in it too. The most popular majors are economics, biology, and

government and Colby is known to produce future Wall Street workers (according to Urban

Dictionary.com).

I make note of the fashion, popular majors, and future career paths of Colby kids to

illustrate the affluence and privilege of Colby students and depict the type of education many

choose to pursue during their time here. The nature of the majority of Colby students’

education is important to consider when looking at issues of sexual assault and rape because it

somewhat reveals peoples’ understanding of issues concerning sexual assault and rape. If the

majority of students are economics, biology, and government majors--all majors which arguably

rarely deconstruct issues of gender, sexuality, and social inequality pertaining to race, class, etc.

—then there are fewer people on campus who are able to understand structural oppression.

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Such an understanding is crucial to deconstructing issues like rape and sexual assault because if

one cannot deconstruct the issues, one cannot understand their root causes, and consequently,

one cannot adequately address problems related to sexual assault. This is not to say that

economics, biology, and government majors do not understand oppression and issues of social

justice because to do so would ignore the nuances of the students’ educations and erroneously

reduce them to mere majors. However, I think that it fair to say that this statistic, juxtaposed

with the fact that there are currently only fifteen students in my women’s studies senior cohort

exposes the type of student body I am observing. This is to say that the majority of the student

body has very little training when it comes to evaluating the nuances of gender, sexuality, and

oppression.

That being said, to place blame on Colby for this problem would not be fair due to the

fact that Colby cannot predict what majors its student will choose. Rather than blame Colby for

its lack of women’s studies majors, we must look at the various ways in which the sexism and

misogyny that exists in our culture often deters people from pursuing women’s studies degrees.

Such sexism is seen in the various stereotypes applied to students in the women’s studies field,

including, “ball-basher,” “man hater,” and “feminazi.” These stereotypes not only serve to

reinforce the sexist and misogynist beliefs that deter students from becoming women’s studies

majors, but also reinforce rape culture by perpetuating an environment that is hostile to

women and the study of women’s experiences. While Colby certainly cannot control the affects

the greater culture has on its students, it can work to counteract these affects by creating an

environment where misogyny is not tolerated and where acts of sexism are punished. The

college could further counteract the effects of the greater culture and attract more women’s

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studies students by celebrating and promoting the women’s studies department, giving it

adequate funding, and keeping the department sufficiently staffed.

Research: How I Conducted My StudyI gathered data using the qualitative method of ethnographic research, which involves

the researcher coming into contact with the research subjects in their natural setting to answer

questions involving how the subjects make sense of their lives. I spent five months interviewing

students, friends, faculty, and community members on their thoughts on sexual assault the

Colby culture. I formally interviewed 11 sexual assault survivors and had roughly twenty-five

informal interviews with other concerned students and members of the Colby community. I

also met with several faculty members, as well the Head of Counseling Services, Patricia

Newman, and Senior Associate Dean of Students, Paul Johnston. I met with Patti because in her

role as head of counseling services, she sees student sexual assault survivors and is well-trained

in the area of sexual assault trauma. Moreover, she is not a mandated reporter, so she sees

many survivors who do not carry their case to the Dean, and consequently, such cases do not

get recorded in the college statistics under the Clery Act, which is a federal statute that requires

all federally funded colleges and universities to keep and disclose information on crime on or

near their campuses (Bohmer, Parrot 169). This makes Newman a central site of knowledge

since she has talked to survivors who are not represented in the Colby statistics or in my

interviews. Therefore, talking to her allowed me to gage just how silenced survivors are on this

campus (she told me that “the vast majority” of people she sees do not report). I met with Dean

Johnston because he is in charge of school disciplinary processes and is usually the first

“official” person people report to in cases of sexual assault, meaning that he is the first person

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who has the power to help the survivor press charges, schedule a disciplinary hearing, or talk to

detectives.

It is worth noting that I chose to interview people who I thought would help me

determine the weaknesses in Colby’s methods of preventing and handling sexual assault cases,

not its strength. While there are certainly people I could have interviewed, including those who

I quote from The Echo, who would have countered my argument by listing the strong points in

Colby’s policies of preventing and dealing with sexual assault, my project is focused on the

problems, and therefore, I only interviewed people who could help me see these issues.

Moreover, because my project was only a year long project, I was forced to narrow the focus of

my interviews and research and therefore, was not able to talk to everyone who could have

potentially given me valuable insight.

Because of the sensitive nature of sexual assault, I did not overtly seek out individuals

to interview. I also felt like it would have been invasive and insensitive of me to overtly solicit

sexual assault survivors. Due to Colby’s odd culture of everyone-knowing-everything-about-

everyone, I knew that there are several sexual assault survivors on campus. I also knew this

merely based on the statistic that one in five women are raped during their college years

(Young). Aware of these facts, I approached my research having faith that people would talk to

me if they were willing and comfortable.

I posted a message on the Colby Digest back in September asking for people to contact

me if they were interested in discussing issues of sexual assault and “hook up culture” at Colby

and several did respond. However, most of the people I interviewed approached me

themselves after hearing about my work from me or after discussing it with other students. I

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think the fact that word about my project spread so quickly reinforces the necessity and

importance of it, as well as the problem of silencing on campus, particularly with issues of

sexual assault. People here not only have stories to tell, but also have a need to tell them. For

me, this need was quite overwhelming and saddening at the same time. I was overwhelmed at

the response but also sad that for some, our meeting was the first time they had talked about

their experience with another Colby student. Many felt that their friends, families, and parents

would not understand and most feared being judged and blamed for what had happened to

them, which I think speaks to the degree of shame that accompanies sexual assault. This

shame, which usually involves the victim “either blaming herself for drinking or for going out

voluntarily with her assailant,” or others blaming the victim for “asking for it,” is rooted in the

sexist and misogynist assumption that women are responsible for protecting themselves from

sexual assault (Bohmer Parrot 13). Such an assumption suggests that any woman who is

sexually assaulted should be to blame for “letting it happen” by drinking, flirting, or even

wearing skinny jeans (in 2010, Italy acquitted a man of rape charges because the woman he

raped was wearing skinny jeans. “The skinny jeans defense” has also been used to acquit rapists

in Australia and South Korea).

Those I interviewed who had taken their cases to the administration and had lost felt

like their experiences had been invalidated and consequently, had not discussed them with

anyone since. One woman said, “After I lost the case I just started convincing myself that it

didn’t happen…I tried thinking that the administration was right, that it did not happen…

hearing them say that, I knew no one would believe me….I have tried putting it behind me.”

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Significantly, several people sought me out not for interviews, but to talk about issues of

gender and sexuality. One woman approached me to discuss her sexuality and how to conduct

an “egalitarian relationship.” A few people just wanted to vent their frustrations towards the

hook up scene. Interestingly, approximately three people approached me asking me to

determine whether they had been sexually assaulted. The conversation would usually begin

with them saying; “I do not think I was sexually assaulted, but this thing happened this one

time….” and then they would proceed to depict a scene that was clearly sexual assault (forcible

oral sex, forcible fingering, unwelcome groping, etc).

At various times during my research students would approach me and ask me just what

the definition of consent is. These students were usually men. A few women approached me

asking me how to make and communicate sexual boundaries with a partner, noting that they

had trouble finding “their voice” in sexual situations. I think the fact that people approached

me with these questions and concerns about sexuality, dating, and consent apart from my

interviews suggest that students need to have someone to talk to about these issues and

currently do not. I also think it suggests the need for more education surrounding gender and

sexuality, since clearly, people need it.

For the most part, my formal interviews took place in the Spa, which is essentially the

student union. I gave my interviewees a choice in where to meet me, and offered to meet them

in their room or a place they were more comfortable. I chose to give my subjects this option in

order to stress their control of the situation. I have found (and read) that many sexual assault

survivors, after their attack, feel as though they have very little agency in many areas of their

life because such agency was taken away from them during their assault. By giving my

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interviewees a choice, I attempted to stress their personal agency in the interview. Moreover,

understanding the private, painful, and emotional nature of sexual assault, I wanted to be sure

that my subjects were comfortable talking to me and were able to cry (or scream) in private if

they needed to.

Despite being given options to meet elsewhere, most chose to meet me in the Spa for

coffee. The interviews usually lasted between 45 minutes and two hours. I typed quotes from

my subjects. To create a safe environment where the interviewees felt comfortable, I set up the

sessions like more of a conversation than an official interview session and did not come with a

script or a set of targeted question. I usually started out by asking them if they had a story they

would be comfortable sharing and if they did not, they could just talk to me about their feelings

pertaining to gender, sexuality, and the social culture at Colby. Surprisingly, many opened up to

me and told me very personal stories about sexual violence, sexism, and personal frustrations

pertaining to gender relations at Colby. At the end of the sessions I would ask my subjects what

they think individual students and college should do to prevent sexual assault on campus, and

we would brainstorm a list together based off of their personal stories. A few cried, but most of

my interviewees were angry and frustrated.

Given the importance of making my subjects feel comfortable talking to me and opening

up, I tried my best make the interviews informal and aimed to have the sessions feel like more

of a chat with a close friend than a student researcher. I made sure to listen intently, clarify

quotes, and validate my subjects’ feelings by giving sympathetic and encouraging feedback.

Because I am a member of the Colby community, and significantly, quite a stereotypical-looking

one (I am white, heterosexual, have long blonde hair, dress preppy, and participate in the social

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scene), I think my subjects were able to trust me more than they would an outside researcher.

They saw me as on their level, which I think helped my interviewees feel more comfortable

opening up to me and being honest with me about their experiences. My status as a normative-

looking Colby student also helped me conduct my informal interviews, which occurred

anywhere from in the pub, to local bars, dorm rooms, apartments, and school dances. During

these sessions I would often just listen to whoever wanted to talk to me and made mental

notes to write certain big ideas down when I got home to my computer. In addition to helping

my interviewees relate to me, my status as a “stereotypical Colby student” allowed me access

to a lot of arenas of research that would not have been available to me otherwise.

For instance, I was invited to the annual Winter Frat Formal and other allegedly

exclusive off-campus parties, because of my privilege as a heterosexual senior girl who

somewhat fit the “Colby mold.” At these events, I acted as both a participant and an observer,

paying close attention to issues of gender and sexuality, specifically in the context of the

drinking and hook up scene. At one point when I anticipated the night to be especially telling, I

hid a notebook in by bra and took notes in the bathroom on what I saw. At these events, I tried

my best to “act normal,” so as not to appear like I was actually doing researchh. I feared that if

people knew I was analyzing the scene from a feminist lens, they would freak out and either a)

kick me out of the party or b) change their behavior to falsely conform to what they perceived I

thought was “acceptable.” Both of these scenarios would have majorly inhibited my research,

since I would not have been able to get a realistic sense of the social scene. “Acting normal” for

me mainly included socializing, drinking, and dancing with friends, which was normal anyways,

since I had already been a part of social scene before beginning my research.

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It is worth noting that most people I talked to did know that I am a feminist and a

women’s studies major. By the end of the semester many more were aware of my project. This

may or may not have contributed to people approaching me or not approaching me. I think that

many females were more comfortable approaching me knowing that I was a women’s studies

major researching sexual assault because they assumed that I had a certain degree of

understanding and empathy towards their stories. In this respect, my identity as “the women’s

studies major and feminist” helped me. On the contrary, I think that my status as a women’s

studies major and feminist sometimes deterred men from talking to me because they were

worried I would yell at them, blame them, or set my bra on fire. This is not to say that no men

talked to me because many did. However, I know that others did not because, having a

stereotypical idea of what a women’s studies major and feminist is, they thought I would

irrationally lash out and judge them. In these cases, my identity on the Colby campus both

helped and hindered my research and therefore, affected the scope of my project.

Organization of ThesisPart One: Methods: This sections serves to outline why I undertook this project, my

methodology and levels of analysis, a summary of my research site, information on how I

conducted the study, and an outline of the organizational structure of the paper.

Part Two: A History of Sexual Assault at Colby College: In order to ground my research

and recommendations in historical evidence, I will chronicle past sexual assault cases brought

up by and against Colby students. I will depict the nature of each accusation, the steps the

College took place to deal with the issue, the result of each case, and my own analysis of the

results.

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In addition to chronicling the sexual assault cases heard at Colby College, I will also

describe any policy or cultural changes that have taken throughout the college’s history, as well

as any activism that has occurred around issues of sexual assault at the college.

Part Three: Informal Practices This section will put my interviews with the Colby

Community in conversation with scholarship regarding sexual assault and rape in order to

outline Colby’s problems with sexual assault and support my criticisms. This section is meant to

outline the issues inherent in Colby culture and depict how some of its informal practices

perpetuate a misogynist culture where sexual assault occurs. Based upon my interviews, I

found the theme of “Male Entitlement and Female Disempowerment” to be consistently

prevalent in almost every testimony and therefore, chose to focus on this issue.

I found research that explains and expands upon the theme of “Male Entitlement and

Female Disempowerment,” providing an academic context for my interviewee’s comments and

observations. For instance, many of the females I interviewed hypothesized that feelings of

male entitlement and Colby’s patriarchal social culture contribute to an environment that

permits sexual assault. In order to ground their comments in academia, I used material from

Michael Kimmel’s Guyland to support my interviewees’ points with an academic source.

Discussing Colby in relation to Kimmel also puts Colby culture in dialogue with research that

demonstrates how Colby is emblematic of larger sociocultural patterns. Defining Colby culture

as representative of larger sociocultural patterns allows me to later posit revisions to Colby.

Although these are not specifically catered to Colby, they apply to the sociocultural patterns

that are prevalent at Colby, and therefore, are relevant revisions. Moreover, using research that

helps me represent Colby culture as symbolic of larger sociocultural systems helps make my

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project more discursive and applicable to communities other than Colby, which is important to

me since I want other schools to be able to use my work to improve their own cultures and

policies.

In addition to employing research to validate my interviewees’ claims, I also use the

research to define and provide examples of how patriarchy operates and is made manifest at

Colby. Additionally, I further analyze and expand upon the themes stated above, which helps

me see how each theme is related to a host of other issues. By identifying these relationships, I

am better able to propose suggestions.

Part Four: Formal Structures: In addition to the theme of “Male Entitlement and Female

Disempowerment,” I also found the themes of “Ineffective Policies and Inadequate Support

Systems” to be consistent in almost all of my interviews. This section discusses the weaknesses

in Colby’s formal methods of responding to sexual assault, which is specifically seen in its lack of

effective policies and sufficient support systems for survivors.

Part Four: Suggestion: Building off of my work done in the previous two sections, I will

recommend suggestions for changes in culture and policy by focusing specifically on finding

solutions to the themes of “Male Entitlement and Female Disempowerment” and “Ineffective

Policies and Inadequate Support Systems.”This section will include quite a bit of theory, but

instead of using these secondary sources to explain and elaborate on my themes, I will use

them to a) suggest programs and policies that foster dialogue about sexuality and sexual

practice on campus b) provide ideas to better support victims of sexual assault. And c) revise

campus culture so it is not misogynist, sexist, homophobic, etc. I also plan on using the research

to suggest solution to themes. For example, in addition to depicting and analyzing the

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particulars of male entitlement, Kimmel poses strategies on how to break down the system of

entitlement, which I will use in my suggestions section. I format this section in list form, with

information on why I am recommending the particular change and how I see the revision being

carried out by the college.

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A History of Sexual Assault at Colby College: What Types of Sexual Assault Cases Have Occurred at Colby? What Have We Done to Address Sexual Assault?

I chose to ground my work in historical evidence because I do not think I could suggest

revisions to college culture and policy and ask the college to move forward, without at first

looking back. Looking back allows us to see both how far we have come and how far we have

to go, which is important trying to map out a plan for progress. Due to the sensitive and

silenced nature of sexual assault, most all of my research in this section comes from old Echo

articles, since this is one of the few sources I could find that discussed sexual assault at Colby.

The Echo is the student newspaper and has been published weekly by Colby students since

1877. Earl Smith’s Mayflower Hill: A History of Colby College was very helpful in its discussion of

the college’s overall history. Alyson Lindquist’s 2003 Senior Honors Thesis, From Apathy to

Acceptance: A History of Racism and Sexism at Colby College, was also helpful, particularly in its

discussion of the way Colby has historically dealt with issues of gender and sexuality. I did

manage to gather some historical information from a few of my interviewees, one being a long-

term tenured professor who had served on the Judicial Board and the other being an alumni

and women’s activist in the community who was very open to reflecting on her time at Colby.

Because this research deals with both sexual assault and the cultural silencing around

the issue, I want to emphasize that it is crucial as a reader to take note of both what is written

and what is not written. Based upon my interviews with survivors, students, and faculty, and

according to statistics and literature on sexual assault, people rarely ever report. That being

said, what I have been able to gather is only a small fraction of the overall history of sexual

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assault at Colby. That being said, I encourage you as a reader to take notice both of what is

written and to also imagine the stories that have not been written because they surely exist.

Colby College: A Brief HistoryAccording to Colby’s website, Colby was founded in 1813 and was originally called the

Maine Literary and Theological Institution. It was established “based on the defense of religious

freedoms in a time when such rights were often contested” and has “historically been regarded

as one of the most liberal colleges in the United States” (Lindquist). After Maine separated from

Massachusetts in 1820, the new Maine State Legislature granted Colby the right to give out

degrees and the school was renamed Waterville College (A Brief History of Colby College).

During the Civil War, Colby’s enrollment decreased due to its all-male population leaving

to fight for the Union Army and consequently, the school almost closed. When a native Mainer

and Boston Merchant, Gardner Colby, donated funds to keep the school running, the Board of

Trustees named the school after him and the school then became Colby College. In 1952, the

college moved from its cramped downtown site to atop Mayflower Hill where it stands today.

In 1871, when the college welcomed Mary Low, Colby became the first school in the

northeast and the twelfth in the entire nation to admit a woman into an all-male college. Mary

Low graduated as valedictorian of her class in 1875 and has a dorm named after her on campus.

In addition to having progressive policies towards women, Colby has also had progressive

policies towards racial minorities. Colby Alum (’03) Alysin Linquist points this out in the

introduction to her own senior thesis, From Apathy to Acceptance: A History of Racism and

Sexism at Colby College. She explains that “In 1887, nearly a decade before the United States

Supreme Court declared state-sanctioned segregation of blacks and whites, including

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educational institutions, to be legal, Adam Simpson Green became the first African-American to

graduate from Colby. Just thirteen years later, Marion Thomson Osborne became the first

African-American women to receive a degree from the college” (Lindquist 9). These facts are

even more remarkable given the fact that “these milestones at Colby College occurred nearly a

century before such integration became a reality at other colleges and certainly long before the

United States Government itself recognized the value and justice of racial diversity in

education” (Lindquist 9).

I depict Colby’s early progressive moves to institutionally combat sexism and racism in

order to illustrate how liberal the school was when it first began, and to give the reader a base

for the type of environment Colby historically set out to be. Being so progressive initially,

particularly in regards to religious freedoms and women’s and black’s rights to education, one

may suggest that there was an institutional emphasis on issues of social justice from the

beginning. Such an emphasis was in fact a main tenet of the college when it was founded.

Because issues of sexism and racism are directly related to sexual assault since sexual assault is

rooted in both these forms of oppression, it seems odd to me that almost 200 years after our

college was found upon the principles of social justice, members of our Colby community are

still perpetuating an environment where sexism (in the form of sexual assault) occurs. This is

not to say that every member of the Colby community perpetuates this environment. There are

many wonderful people at Colby who work very hard to counteract the sexism and misogyny

that plague Colby and the world. However, it is to say that as a community we are still working

towards creating a climate that is free of gender oppression.

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Incidents and Activism:

1970’s

In late October of 1979 the Student Association and Women’s Group sponsored an open

campus forum on “safety” (Macfarlane). While the word “sexual assault” was not explicitly

stated in the article on the event, the discussion points, which include the need for better

lighting on campus, the recent installment of newer and better locks on the doors of older

dorms, and the need for better locker room security in the women’s locker room, implies that

the discussion was focused largely around issues of sexual assault and violence against women.

Significantly, in the fall of 1979, the Women’s Security Task Force was formed. This group’s job

was to review the security of Colby women, as well as promote safety amongst Colby women.

This group was responsible for posting signs such as the one attached below:

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While the forum on “safety” and the formation of the Women’s Security Task force was

certainly a good first step in combating sexual violence against women at Colby, I think that it is

problematic that both The Echo article I cited for this section and the safety sign attached above

fail to use the word “sexual assault.” By covertly hinting at the prevalence of sexual assault on

campus by warning women to “use the locker room when others are present” and “learn self-

defense techniques,” the writers hints that sexual assault occurs on campus but does not

explicitly saying that it does. This vague attempt at raising awareness about sexual assault

undercuts the students’ activism by leaving room for other interpretations of their message in

turn, leave the potential for people to ignore that sexual assault happens at Colby. While this

does not seem to look like a form of silencing in the strictest form, using ambiguous language to

describe sexual assault can be interpreted as a form of silencing, since vague language clouds

the definition of the term in a way that both reduces sexual assault and allows others to ignore

its existence. In this sense, the indefinite language used to describe sexual assault somewhat

covers up the issue. The use of ambiguous language to depict sexual assault was not unique to

The Echo or Colby students because rape did not become a major national and worldwide

concern until the women’s movement of the early 1970’s, and therefore, people did not know

how to talk about it. In fact, the phrase “date rape” did not even exist until 1976 when Susan

Brownmiller coined the term in her famous historical treatise on rape, Against Our Will

(Bohmer, Parrot 8). Given these fact, it is worth considering the possibility that maybe the

writers of the article either did not know the term “sexual assault” or were not allowed to use

the phrase at the time of the article’s publication (1979). Because many people did not know

the proper terminology for sexual assault or were not allowed to use it, rape and sexual assault

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were often referred to in cloudy language, not because people wanted to silence it but because

they did not have any other choice.

1980’s

The first time the word “sexual assault” was written about in The Echo was the October 16th

issue of 1980. Significantly, the word was used in a young woman’s testimony of her assault:

“

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When The Echo published the anonymous woman’s letter, the paper either chose or

was possibly forced to insert a response from the Dean of Students, Earl Smith, who responded,

“If you can identify anyone who does such things, let me know and I will show you how fast the

Student Judicial Board and the Dean’s Office can work.” While I do not doubt that Mr. Smith

was deeply concerned for the woman and determined to investigate the issue further, the

power of his statement and (possible) actions in addressing the case is lost in the lack of

publicized follow-through. I could find no further discussion of the case in my research, which

leads me to believe that either a) The case was not investigated or b) If the case was

investigated, it was handled privately and in the case that the offenders were disciplined, the

discipline occurred under a shroud of secrecy. This is problematic because regardless of

whether or not an investigation occurred or students were found in violation of the school

disciplinary code, it is important that the administration, which I define as the most powerful

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Deans and the Board of Trustees, let the student body know what efforts they are making to

protect, help, and support students. Moreover, by not making clear what steps they are taking

to investigate the case, the administration looks as though they are not doing anything about

the assault and therefore, do not care about the issue of sexual assault. This lack of

transparency is dangerous because it suggests to students that rape and sexual assault are

tolerated at Colby, which makes survivors feel unsafe and potential rapists feel like they could

get away with the crime.

After the assault, Colby tried to raise awareness about sexual assault through education.

On January 31st of 1980 about fifty Colby students attended a short film series titled,

“Acquaintance Rape Prevention” (Caine, Beale). At the conclusion of the film, students

discussed issues of “forced sexual relations” and how they affect life at Colby. The film was

brought to Colby by Jane Schwarz, health associate at the Health Center. She is quoted in The

Echo saying that “her professional experience at Colby has shown her that there is a real need

for awareness of the issue among both men and women.” At the event, “both Schwarz and

Janice Seitzinger, Associate Dean of Students, were careful in declining to give any actual

estimates of the occurrence of forced sexual relations at Colby,” which I think is ironic given the

quote by Schwarz that suggests the high prevalence of sexual assault on the Colby campus. The

juxtaposition between their refusal to disclose official sexual assault statistics to Colby students,

paired with the apparent knowledge that Schwarz had of the statistics, demonstrates an

institutional and structural practice of silencing. Because a conscious choice was made to not

inform students of the rate at which sexual assault occurs on their campus, this instance can be

seen as a form of silencing.

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In analyzing this situation, it is important to not blame Schwarz or Kassman for silencing

the issue of sexual since their actions exist in a larger framework of structural practice. The

institutional and structural practice of silencing issues of gender violence exists at Colby and the

World. Consequently, rather than blame individuals it is important for us to analyze how these

structures shape peoples’ actions and what we can do to break down these oppressive systems

so that they do not make themselves manifest in the choices of individuals.

A student named Mary Glenn further speaks to the administration’s silencing of sexual

assault, asserting that such silencing protects rapists in her article, “Harassment: No Laughing

Matter.” In the article, she points the way in which “discussion of sexual activity is usually swept

under the rug,” since it is considered a “private” matter at the college, and suggests that such

silencing allows sexual assault. She writes, “But what about the recently publicized trend of

men assaulting women in their own rooms? Shall we sweep this issue underneath the rug and

not discuss such “personal matters?” The administration seems to think so.” Glenn outlines the

problems with the way sexual assault is handled at the school, citing, that “the administration

handles sexual assault as a dirty joke….punitive action (if there is any) is not publicized, the

identities of the criminal has been kept secret.” She suggests that the college protects rapists,

by saying, “Do not mar a young man’s record because of some lustful indiscretion.” Glenn

closes her article outlining the Colby’s Women’s Group’s demands of the administration:

“1) We demand the names of those found guilty of sexual assault be publicized; if

sufficient punishment is not meted out, then we will take the case to the Waterville authorities.

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2) We demand that the administration take sexual harassment seriously, that women’s

safety is treated more directly than a vehement letter to The Echo or absurd measures such as

“putting bars on women’s windows.

3) We demand the establishment of a Women’s Center, which would include a hot-line

for women for assault counseling and so that all women would know their options when a

crime has been committed against them.” It is important to note that currently, the names of

students found guilty of sexual assault are not formally published and a Woman’s Center has

yet to be established. However, students and faculty have recently proposed the establishment

of a Sexual and Gender Diversity Resource Center, which would offer many of the same services

that a Women’s Center offers.

In December of 1981 it was mandated that Security start publishing quarterly incidents

reports in The Echo. In the past, statistics of reported crimes on campus were not kept

(Campbell). Student Jennifer Julian illustrates the necessity of publishing these statistics in her

article titled, “Colby Women Should Beware of False Sense of Security,” which lists the sexual

harassment and assault cases that had occurred at Colby that past year, cases that many

students were not aware of.

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Despite the improvement made in making statistics and instances of sexual assault more

transparent, student were still not satisfied with the College’s efforts to become more open ,

and on April 14th, 1983 an article titled, “Campus Crime: Administration Not Honest” appeared

in the Echo. In the article, student Marc Carey accused the administration of “needlessly

endangering students” by “keeping mum on issues like “harassment, assault, and rape.” He

begins the article by depicting how students and Echo staff had to fight to print an article

describing one student’s drunken assault on another student outside of a fraternity house. Even

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though the article was eventually allowed to be printed, the author notes that “many facts,

personal accounts and dorm staff comments originally given were later retracted at the request

of the administration.” The author further explains that that “the administration stayed

completely mum on the issue, only maintaining that ‘they were addressing these problems.’”

Consequently, Echo readers received “an extremely watered-down version of the facts,” which

Carey contends “endangers students” by “forcing them to take needless chances out of

ignorance.”

Carey further illustrates other instances where the administration “endangers students”

by “protect[ing] the image of the school” by pointing out how “in the past four weeks, there

have been four separate reported cases of harassment, sexual harassment, and peeping Toms

on campus….its just that nobody knows about them.” He furthers his argument by depicting

other various attacks, including how a faculty person’s spouse was attacked in an unlighted

parking lot and how two years before, “a Colby woman was attacked and raped in her dorm

room” during final exams. Despite these events “the administration refused to act,” and

concerned students “finally had to go door to door and make people aware of the situation.”

Carey closes his article by reflecting on how this sort of policy encourages “the ancient myth

that a victim’s reputation needs to be protected as if it were somehow his/her fault that the

incident occurred. He asserts that “this attitude is not only condescending, it promotes a

needless feeling of guilt for one who is already under a great deal of emotional stress.”

I include Carey’s article in this chapter not only because he names several instances of

sexual assault but also because his analysis of the administration’s silence and “victim-blaming”

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resembles the trends that other students like Mary Glenn assert, as well as the trends that I

have seen both in my historical research and in my research on current Colby culture.

Shortly after Carey’s article ran in The Echo, student’s frustrations with the administration’s

silencing, specifically in regards to sexually assault, came to a breaking point, and a protest was

organized where students charged the administration with “covering up” instances of assault,

sexual harassment, and rape (Moore). Organizers of the demonstration accused Colby officials

of “not following a set protocol to deal with sexual harassment and rape” and outlined their

complaints in a letter distributed to the student body, which read, “For the second time this

semester, this protocol has not been followed by the administration. This failure endangers the

Colby community. Rape and sexual assault occur everywhere, including at Colby. Our

administration wants to make Colby appear as a haven, and doesn’t take the protection of our

safety seriously.” The students also suggest in their list of demands “an official written protocol,

a security information pamphlet, a victim advocate, yearly training for security personnel in

rape crisis counseling and sexual assault counseling, and a more complete lighting system.”

In response, Director of Security and Safety, Peter Chenevert called the situation “a lack

of communication rather than a cover up” and Dean of Students Janice Seitzinger said that she

was she “disturbed” and “offended” by the accusations made. Seitzinger met with the

demonstration organizers and “agreed to form a standing safety committee to better educate

the campus.” Seitzinger also promised that “a written protocol could be drawn up, bigger

letters would appear on safety advisories, a blue bulletin board would be reserved in every

dorm for official notices, peer sexuality counselors would be available to students, and the

possibility of better lighting would be examined” (Moore). Because these changes came after a

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student protest, one can suggest that Colby’s approach to sexual assault involves addressing

the issue only after receiving pressure from students. This reflects poorly on the college, since

student should not have to fight for what I believe to be basic sexual assault prevention and

support procedures. Moreover, this scenario reveals what I see as central to Colby’s practice of

handling sexual assault, which involves ignoring issues of gender violence until students place

so much pressure on the college that they have to address it.

The first assault reported after the demonstration happened in early October of 1984

when a Colby woman was assaulted by a group of five to seven men during a party in

Grossman. According to a statement released to The Echo by the victim’s friends,” “she went to

the basement to check on the keg and found the men trying to steal it. When she told them to

put down the keg, they backed her into a corner and, holding a brick to her throat, made

explicit sexual suggestions. The woman screamed, but could not be heard upstairs because of

the music. The men continued to threaten her, and began to strip her from the waist down”

(Robbins). The assault stopped when someone banged on the basement door and the attackers

fled. According to reports, no one from Colby was involved, and members of the Union Football

Team, who were playing Colby the next day and staying at a local Howard Johnsons, were

suspects in the case. The woman called security roughly an hour after the assault took place

and within two hours security had put posters up warning the campus of the attack. Dean

Seitzinger, Colby Football Coach Chris Raymond, and Security met that night to discuss the

incident and requested that Union compile photos of the team for the survivor to identify. No

more was said of the case in The Echo, so I do not know how it was settled.

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In a similarly mysterious case, in December of 1985 The Echo reported that “a case of

sexual assault involving two students will go before the dean’s hearing this week”

(Dauphinais).The assault occurred the Saturday before Thanksgiving break when a male student

attacked a woman in one of the resident halls of “Johnson or Chaplin Commons.” The woman

reported the incident to the Dean of Students. Significantly, the case was brought to a dean’s

hearing, rather than the standard judicial board hearing because of “the sensitive nature of the

case.” I could not find any information on the results of the hearing.

Student activism concerning sexual assault continued in early 1989 when students

formed “Colby Against Sexual Assault,” with the goal of “raising awareness of sexual assault”

and providing support to survivors (Breen). The group’s founder, a female senior, expressed

that “the presence of an armed rapist on campus” the January before “shocked them into

action.” CASA consisted of twenty students, mostly women. Projects that the group proposed

include the implementation of outdoor phones, handing out whistles, improving the lighting

around campus, distributing safety pamphlets and maps of safe running routes to first years.

That same year, Professor of English Lisa Low echoed students’ concerns about sexism

and the silencing of sexual assault at Colby in a letter to the Editor. She expresses concern

about the health center, specifically “complaints about inappropriate behavior by a current

male physician,” and the “impending departure of psychotherapist Janet Irgang and

consequent depletion of the women medical staff at Colby.” Low goes on to discuss her

discomfort with a video game in the spa that depicts the assault and implies the rape of a

woman. She points out the sexist and degrading chants that students shout at sporting events

and the “offensive descriptions of women used by students, staff, and faculty members.”

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Significantly, Low says that many students do not come forward with sexual harassment

complaints because “there is a fear that there will be no support….there is a fear about being

harassed by the system as one was harassed originally by the perpetrator.”

Student and faculty activists joined forces in May of 1989 when thirteen faculty

members and seventeen students formed the Task Force on Sexism “after gathering to discuss

recent instances of sexual discrimination” (Jones, Sexism Task Force is Created). The

commission circulated a petition around campus outlining their plans, which included,

“investigat[ing] and act[ing] upon issues of (sexist) mistreatment in the realms of athletics,

academics, health care, and social life at Colby.” The petition also depicts the commission’s

goals, which include the hiring of a coordinator for Women’s services, the appointment of a

tenured woman to the Health Advisory Committee, and working to “ensure that faculty and

staff with record of sexist verbal and physical assault be asked to leave Colby.”

A week after the Task Force on Sexism was formed a group of five women met with

President Cotter to voice their concerns about sexism at Colby. They then held a meeting

together and marched from the Health Center to the library steps, where they “defined

sexism,” “outlined [their] demands,” and “opened up the meeting for people to discuss their

perceptions about sexism at Colby” (Early, Gariepy, Lockwood, Mead, Tranchin). They started

the march at the Health Center because the Health Center, namely the alleged inappropriate

behavior of Dr. Bennet, was one of their main concerns. The group’s five demands are listed

below:

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According to my research, the formation of an ongoing Commission on the Status of

Women at Colby was never formed and the college never appeared to formally acknowledge

that the swimming/rugby coach exhibited unacceptable sexual behavior. Female faculty

members were eventually invited to sit on the Health Advisory Board, and I could not find out

whether or not a female was appointed to a position of power in the administrative structure of

the Health Center.

Eventually the protocol for sexual assault was reviewed, but it was not officially

modified until 8 years later. In 1997 the pamphlet, “Important Information for the Colby College

Community about Sexual Assault” was released by the Sexual Assault Task Force.

Students’ opinions on sexism at Colby continued to pour into The Echo in 1989. In

“Colby Needs Feminists, Men and Women,” student Cinda Jones pointed to several instances of

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sexism on campus, noting that “one of the men’s lacrosse coaches refers to women as

‘cracks,’…we have a doctor who makes women feel uncomfortable with some of his behavior

(she suggests later in the article that the doctor kisses his female patients), and when male

students cheer on women’s sports teams, their shouts are often derogatory sexual references.”

She goes on to explain that “women are so often noted for and judged according to their bodies

that some bathrooms on campus are known to be where women with bulimia go to throw up.”

Upon reflecting on these instances, Jones asserts that “the underlying attitudes behind

these examples certainly contribute to the greater frequency of sexual assault.” In order to

remedy these attitudes, she suggests that “more women should be offered administrative

positions both in the Dean of Student’s office and on the third floor of Eustis.”

1990’s

On November 7th 1990 Matt Chaffee ’93 was “indefinitely suspended for verbal sexual

abuse, physical assault of fellow students, sexual assault of fellow students, and threatening

fellow students” (Morrison). The specific details of the assaults were not revealed, however, it

was mentioned that the incident was settled before a dean’s hearing rather than a judicial

board hearing. During the hearing, several plaintiffs and even Chaffee’s roommate testified

against him. One anonymous woman was quoted saying, “He [Chaffee] needs help. He hits on

various women and doesn’t know how to take no for an answer.” Apart from immediate and

indefinite suspension, Chaffee’s sentence also included alcohol and relationship counseling, and

permanent disciplinary probation in the case he be allowed to return to Colby.

Unlike the previous sexual assault cases I researched, Colby officials chose to inform the

student body of the charges and the sanctions the perpetrator faced, which I think was a huge

Pratt 43

step in the right direction. By making clear both how and why they were disciplining Chaffee,

the administration sent a message to students that sexist and violent behavior like the one

Chaffee exhibited would be punished at Colby, and thus indicated (in this case at least) that

they take verbal, physical, and sexual assault seriously. This is important to the development of

a rape-free school because oftentimes community standards must be set and followed before

the whole community will adhere to them. In this case, by emphasizing the standard that sexual

assault will not be allowed without punishment, the administration made it clear that sexual

assault is against Colby’s community standards, and thus, defied the sweep-it-under-the-rug

rape culture that seemed to characterize Colby’s standards at the time.

In December 1991 an article in The Echo titled, “One in Four Women Attacked” outlines

statistics concerning date rape as they relate to Colby (Colby Echo Staff). According to Dean of

Students Joyce McPhetres, “One in every four female students at Colby will experience date

rape or attempted date rape.” Dr. Cochran, a staff physician at the Health Center and chair of

the Rape Prevention Committee at the University of Maine at Farmington added, “I am not sure

at Colby if it is one in six women, if not a worse figure, like one in four.” Dr. Cochran goes on to

say that “according to national studies, only one in every twenty cases of date rape is

reported.” Significantly, in the article, McPhetres acknowledges that “silence is a real problem,”

which, as I have said before, speaks to the general issue concerning sexual assault at Colby and

in the world.

In mid-December of 1991, Government Professor Chip Hauss sexually assaulted Visiting

Professor of History Rosaleen Salvo at his home in Vassolboro (Wood). According to a letter

sent to the Waterville Police by Dean Earl Smith, Hauss had invited Salvo over to meet him and

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his wife to discuss the possibility of Salvo watching their house for the month of January. When

Salvo arrived, Hauss was alone and drunk. According to The Echo story, which significantly, was

not published until six months after Salvo reported the incident, “Hauss was not in control” and

consequently, “a brief incident” containing “no violence” occurred. Salvo reported the assault

to the Dean of Faculty Robert McArthur three months later, and Hauss later admitted to the

charges of “inappropriate and unwanted sexual touching.” In response, the Waterville Police

Department was notified. Significantly, President Bill Cotter did not punish Hauss, but instead

wrote him a letter outlining what the repercussions would be if a similar incident were to

happen again, which The Echo quoted:

“If there is any recurrence of this sort of behavior toward any Colby employee or Colby

student, your position as a tenured professor of Government will immediately be

terminated. Furthermore because of other allegations (that you deny), I want you also

to be aware that if you engage in sexual relations or sexual touching with any currently

enrolled Colby student, the same sanction will be applied” (Wood).

It is worth noting that President Cotter justified not firing Hauss by saying, “We are taking this

approach, rather than a more severe sanction at this time, because of your long service to the

College and because Ms.__ is satisfied with this outcome.” President Cotter goes on to say in his

letter to Hauss: “Bob and I have full faith that by undergoing psychological therapy you will be

able to control the behavior that resulted in the lamentable incident with Ms.___,” who

decided to refrain from pressing charges (Wood).

As we have established, it is important to position people’s actions in the structural

framework in which they exist and analyze what their choices reveal about such structures,

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rather than place entire blame on the individuals themselves. That being said, rather than

accusing President Cotter of victim blaming, silencing, or excusing sexual harassment, I argue

that his actions reflect the patterns and practices that characterize the way Colby deals with

sexual assault. These practices include silencing the issue of gender violence, blaming victims,

and excusing issues that perpetuate sexual assault such as sexual harassment.

These harmful patterns of handling sexual assault are evident in his letter, which seems

to suggest that Hauss should be excused from committing sexual assault because of his “long

service to the College. Such an assertion which conveys the dangerous idea that if a man has

given enough “service” to his community, he should be able to assault women in that

community without suffering harsh disciplinary repercussion. This suggestion is very concerning

because it justifies sexual assault. Moreover, by asserting that he thinks Hauss will somehow be

able to “control” his behavior through “psychological therapy,” Cotter suggests that Hauss’

assault was a freak accident that was merely a result of Hauss not being in a sound mental

state, which reflects the College’s policy of excusing perpetrators of gender violence. I think

that it is dangerous to reduce instances of sexual assault to moments of mental instability, since

such a reduction suggests that people only commit sexual assault when they are mentally

impaired. This suggestion is dangerous because it promotes the myth that only “crazy” people

commit assault, when in fact, anyone can. Furthermore, Cotter’s suggestion that Hauss could

learn to “control” his behavior with therapy also conveys the idea that sexual assaulters can be

“cured” of their tendency with psychological therapy. While this could be true for some, such

an overarching assertion ignores the structural factors at hand that lead people like Hauss to

believe that sexual assault is okay, and provides a perfect example of the way in which Colby

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reduces instances of sexual violence to individual behavior, rather than considering the

structural forces that perpetuate a sexist and misogynist environment.

On Saturday April 10th 1993 Paul Froio ’93 was acquitted of charges of sexual assault and

forcing female Tufts University Student to perform oral sex on him. I have attached the brief

article on it below:

In a separate article that appeared a month before the attached one, the case was

discussed in more detail. According to the piece, the incident occurred on November 7th, 1992

after a Colby vs. Tufts football game. At the party hosted by a Tufts fraternity, the victim had

three beers and danced with Tufts student Joe Murphy, who she had consensual sex with that

night. Later, the woman woke up with who she assumed was Murphy “push[ing] [her] head

down to his penis and us[ing] moderate force in oral sex (Glockner). She fell back asleep and

awoke again to another man trying to have sex with her. After recalling the events of the night,

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she was eventually able to determine that the man who had forced her to perform oral sex was

Paul Froio of Colby College. The woman filed a complaint with Colby and traveled up to

Waterville for the hearing.

At the hearing, Froio entered a plea of not guilty but waved his right to defend himself

because it would have allowed the victim to accuse him in a state or federal court (she was

intoxicated at the time of the assault and therefore could not identify him). During the case “he

left the room with several others present to preserve his anonymity and did not return.” I was

informed by a professor familiar with the case that many of Froio’s teammates dressed and cut

their hair like Froio so that she would not be able to tell which one was Froio. That same

professor sat on the board during the case and described to me how unfair the board’s

treatment of the survivor was, noting, “it was appalling… the entire football team showed up in

suits in the front row at the hearing…so the young woman, with no support, had to tell her

story in front of the whole football team…there was no discussion amongst the J-Board of

whether or not the football team could ask questions…we allowed them to ask a question...and

they all sat there trying to protect him and scare her…and it was ridiculous.” The victim’s

counsel echoed the professor’s thoughts and called Colby’s Judicial Board “an absolute

kangaroo court.” At the time of the hearing, the victim had already withdrawn from Tufts.

I think this case is very significant because it exemplifies the culture of entitlement,

silence, and protection that protects men who sexually assault. By allowing Froio and his

teammates to confuse and intimidate the woman with their questions and overwhelming

presence, the College protected Froio by tipping the outcome of the case in his favor. In

addition to representing the culture of entitlement, silence, and protection that exists at Colby

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and in the world, this case also shows how the college lack[ed] an unbiased protocol for

hearings concerning sexual assault. Had there been any sort of fair protocol, Froio’s teammates

would not have been allowed into the hearing.

As of April 1994, survivors of sexual assault at Colby and in the Waterville area could

seek help through the Rape Crisis Hotline and Director of Counseling Services Patti

Hopperstead. Two female Colby students worked for the hotline in Waterville. According to an

article titled, “Date Rape at Colby,” Joan Sanzenbacher, Director of Special Programs, was

quoted saying that a similar rape crisis hotline was being established by the Harassment

Advisory Group at Colby, with “trained students offer[ing] peers confidential help” (Duggan).

Six months later, the “Confidential Peer Helpline” opened. It was confidential, on-campus, and

only students who had rape crisis training could work the helpline. Unfortunately, it was only

open for three hours a week—eight to eleven on Sunday nights (Colby Echo Staff, Helpline Set

up on Campus). It was not specified why the hotline was only open on Sunday nights, but I think

this fact is problematic, since there is no way that such a small time slot was sufficient.

Moreover, because many sexual assaults occur on weekend nights, it does not make much

sense to me to have a sexual assault hotline only open on a Sunday, since students would likely

need the hotline more on a Friday or Saturday night.

A year later, The Echo reported that the hotline would be open Sunday through

Thursday between ten and eleven pm, yet not on Friday and Saturday, which again posed a

problem, since many assaults occur on the weekend. In addition to establishing the hotline,

members of the Harassment Advisory Group also distributed pink cards with their names and

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numbers on them and hung the cards in dorms and bathrooms. This served to give students

additional support, specifically in regards to reporting harassment.

In an effort to further educate students on sexual assault, the group, Student Health on

Campus, hosted events during Sexual Assault Awareness Week, including skits, film viewings,

and a self-defense workshop. The group set up a table in the Student Center that had

information and statistics on sexual assault and a tree students could tie a ribbon on for every

survivor of sexual assault that they knew. That same week, the weekly Student Opinion Poll

surveyed students’ experiences with sexual assault and found that seventy percent of women

at Colby have been either physically or verbally assaulted (Cannon). After the “disturbing”

results of the poll were released, SGA President Bryan Raffetto told The Echo that he was

planning on bringing up the issue at the next President’s Council meeting (Colby Echo Staff,

Harassment Poll Results).

After a high-profile date rape case at Brown involving unclear definitions of rape made

national news, Colby put together a task force to “review and revise the current guidelines

involving date rape on campus” (Gerbi, Task Force Formed To Investigate Date Rape on the

Colby Campus). According to The Echo, the Task Force was said to consist of two faculty

members, two administrators, and two students and “the job of the group [was] to recommend

definitions of date rape that are not in the current handbook, and to deal with date rape on

campus.”

The activism concerning sexual assault continued In March of 1997 when Katie

Koestner, a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of William and Mary College, writer, public speaker, and a

date-rape survivor, delivered a lecture in Lorimer Chapel. At the talk, Koestner discussed her

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rape, which occurred during her first month of college, and stressed “the importance of

communication and respect” in preventing sexual assault and rape. At the conclusion of her talk

she informed the audience that she would be “involved in the revising and rewriting of Colby’s

sexual harassment policy” (Multari). She subsequently met with the College’s Sexual Assault

Task Force and gave her input on how Colby could improve its policies (Rothman). While only

twelve men attended Koestner’s first visit, “the room was filled with [them]” when Koestner

returned to Colby for a third time in 1998 (Lajeunesse).

In late 1997, the brochure “Important Information for the Colby College Community

About Sexual Assault” was created by the Sexual Assault Task Force. The Task Force researched

other schools’ sexual assault policies, looked at Maine State law, and met with attorneys before

making the pamphlet. The pamphlet “defines sexual assault, what constitutes consent, the

differences between Maine State law and Colby policy, how the risks of sexual assault can be

reduced, and steps to take if sexual assault happens to you” (Loyd)). In addition, it also includes,

“hypothetical situations to help clarify the college’s policy.” The pamphlet, which was made in

an effort to educate the Colby community on sexual assault, was said to be distributed to the

student body shortly after copies were made. Currently, students still receive a copy of this

brochure every year in their campus mailbox, but it has been revised over the years.

After the success of speaker Katie Koestner, Colby invited leading anti-sexist male

activist, Jackson Katz, to give a talk on men’s roles in sexual assault during Sexual Assault Week

(Ogutha). He gave the lecture “More Than a Few Good Men” to an audience of men and

women in Lorimer Chapel and stressed that men have the power to stop rape. That same week,

a panel discussion on sexual assault was held on campus. The panel included Jan Munroe, a

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counselor at the Health Center; Lydia Bolduc-Marden, a nurse practitioner at the Health Center;

Janice Kassman, Dean of Students; a staff member from the local sexual assault hotline;

Stephanie Barret, services director of New Growth Sexual Assault Education and Support

Center; and a member of the Distinct Attorney’s Office (Gerbi, Sexual Assault Week Finished,

Issues Remain on Campus).

2000’s:

On September 23rd of 2000, a student was “roofied” or given a “date rape” drug at a campus

party. Although no assault occurred, it was confirmed that the woman had been given

rohyphnol (“roofies”), GHB (“easy lay”), or Ketamine (“Special K”). Colby Security and the

Waterville Police Department conducted an investigation but I could not find any Echo articles

confirming that someone had been charged.

That same night, a sexual assault occurred involving a male and a female student was

reported (Fitzsimmons). According to Dean of Students Janice Kassman, “there was a hearing in

front of a committee of deans that Wednesday to make a ruling on a rape allegation against a

male Colby student” (the assault occurred on a Saturday night). Due to the sensitive nature of

the case, it would not go to a Judicial Board hearing, but instead, would be heard by a

committee from the Dean of Students’ Office. The victim chose not to press criminal charges in

state or federal court (Fitzsimmons).

In November of 2000, the Colby Echo reported that “for the second year, “students have

been training to be volunteers at the Rape Crisis Assistance Center in downtown Waterville”

(Zimmerman). Seven students were participating in the program, including one male student.

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Once the volunteers complete the training they are given the option of volunteering at the

Rape Crisis Assistance Center in Waterville

Not long after weekend of the rape drug incident and the sexual assault, another sexual

assault was reported on campus on December 1st. The Echo reports that the assault“took

place…in a resident hall and involved two students” (Davis). The Security Department and the

Waterville Police were said to be investigating the attack. Unlike a lot of other cases prior, the

woman decided to press charges both on-campus and off-campus. The Echo made it clear that

the assault was a case of date rape, quoting Director of Security Pete Chenevert saying, “It’s

one of those cases where there was a relationship between the individuals.”

Perhaps the most emotionally disturbing piece I read for my research was Olivia

Achtmeyer’s account of her rape at Colby. Actmeyer’s letter not only depicts her attack, but

also details and criticizes the administration’s way of dealing with sexual assault and rape, and

urges students to “please work to change the system.” She points out many problems with the

sexist policy and process, noting that “The School would not find my assailant guilty of the

charges that I brought against him during the Judiciary Hearing. I was told that my pushing him

away at his crotch was in fact a hand job and therefore I initiated sexual contact.” Her letter, as

it appears in The Echo on March 4th, is attached below:

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After Olivia Achtmeyer’s editorial detailing her rape was printed students and the

administration responded to the incident by discussing changes that needed to be made to the

policy and writing to The Echo. Jeffrey Calareso, opinion columnist, praised Achtmeyer for

bravely telling her story but echoed the frustrations of past students by arguing that the College

“victimize[ed]” Achtmeyer with their silence and suppression. He asserts:

“At this school we have an altogether shameful way of dealing with sexual assault, in

which such instances are suppressed so that our reputation as an institution is not

sullied by our reality. I sincerely believe I’d be putting it mildly to posit that sexual

assault occurs weekly at Colby. Yet, if you ask Kassman, she’ll say no such thing….the

effect of this internalizing of illegalities at Colby is that victims of crimes are forced to

either fight what can only be very public tooth-and-nail struggle at so small an

institution, or remain helpless victims…all this for the benefit of the institution as a

whole” (Calareso).

In addition to Calareso, two female students wrote letters to the Editor of The Echo

praising Achtmeyer for her courage in telling her story and encouraged other Colby students to

speak out and discuss issues of sexual assault. They end their piece with “Wake up, Colby, and

rise to the challenge!” (Ogutha, Cole). In response to Calereso, Dean Kassman wrote her own

opinion article two weeks later, attesting that “the Dean’s Board hearing of the case was

scrupulous” and that “the college takes issues of sexual assault very seriously” (Kassman).

However, given the administration’s seemingly unfair and silenced response to the case, it does

not appear as though the Dean’s Board took the case as seriously as they claim. Had college

officials really been taking Achtmeyer’s case seriously, the administration would have made

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sure that her judicial board hearing was fair. Moreover, they would not have justified her rape

by claiming she initiated sexual contact while acting in self defense.

Aside from writing letters to The Echo, students and faculty responded to Achtmeyer’s

letter by forming committees to help combat sexual assault. In April of 2001 SGA organized a

student group called “Sexual Assault Allies,” which consisted of students who would advocate

for students in the case of a sexual assault. Members of the group were trained by the

Waterville Rape Crisis Assistance and Prevention Program. In addition to serving as advocates,

group members also had the job of educating the Colby community on issues of sexual assault.

To provide additional assistance, a counselor from the Rape Crisis Center in Waterville was

hired to be on campus to talk with students every Tuesday from 5pm to 7pm.

Finally, “at the advice of college attorneys, Dean of Student Janice Kassman, in

conjunction with other members of the administration, began to amend the College’s literature

on sexual assault” (McCandless). The Echo reported that “the new literature will further define

consent and include scenarios involving homosexual assault.” A week later, The Echo reported

that the literature had been amended to “include a less ambiguous definition of consent”

(Coughlin). A section detailing a scenario where consent was retracted mid-act was added, as

well a scenario detailing homosexual sexual assault. The new pamphlet was made to

“emphasize the importance of mutual consent, or lack thereof” and more information was

given on reporting and confidentiality. Administrators, attorneys, members of the Women’s

Group, members of the Harassment Advisory Committee, members of the Cultural Affairs

Committee, Director of Special Programs Joan Sanzenbacher, and Director of Counseling

Services Patti Newman all helped with the revision process. This is the same pamphlet, titled,

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“Important Information For the Colby College Community About Sexual Assault” that is handed

out to students every year.

In addition to establishing more support programs for sexual assault survivors,

amending the literature on sexual assault, and making a Rape Crisis Counselor available on

campus each week, the college also looked into the role the annual “Screw Your Roommate

Dance” played into Achtmeyer’s assault, since her assault occurred on the same night of the

dance. After Achtmeyer’s letter was published, several students, including members of the

Women’s Group, organized a petition asking the SGA to ban the event, citing that “those

seeking to ban the dance see the connection with sexual assault that goes on during this

weekend.” (Davis, Students Seek to Ban Screw Your Roommate). In addition to seeing the

connection between sexual assault and the dance, organizers of the petition also claim that the

dance itself “creates an environment that condones this kind of behavior” and the name

“sounds violent” and “encourages violence against women” (Davis, Students Seek to ban Screw

Your Roommate Dance). While only one assault was reported that weekend, Amy Reznitsky of

the Women’s Group said that she “personally knows of numerous cases of sexual assault that

have occurred during the weekend but were never reported.” Nearly four months after the

petition started, on March 12th, 2001 the President’s Council on SGA voted to abolish the

“Screw Your Roommate” Dance, with the “hope that by eradicating the dance [they could]

provide the framework necessary to create a social environment that is no way contributory to

sexual assault” (Bombze, Screw-Your-Roommate Dance Eradicated). While the eradication of

the “Screw Your Roommates Dance” was certainly a step in the right direction, I think Colby still

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needs to look at the ways in which the school’s current dance scene dangerously normalizes

sexual assault in the same ways that the “Screw Your Roommates Dance” seemed to do.

Although I think the school’s strong response in the wake of Achtmeyer’s letter certainly

shows that the college cares about preventing sexual assault, the response also supports my

hypothesis that Colby is a “Barn-Door Closing School," which Carol Bohmer and Andrea Parrot

classify as “a college that attempts to decrease the problems associated with sexual assault

after handling a case poorly themselves” (Bohmer, Parrot). While Colby has not, to my

knowledge, publicly handled a major sexual assault case (as in one where local and national

media are involved) wrongly, the way it handled Achtmeyer’s assault closely resembles the way

a barn-door closing school would deal with a similar case, particularly in its immediate yet

temporary response. According to Bohmer and Parrot, Barn Door Closers

“Create a college task force to continue to work on the issue… and some act as if

bringing in one speaker to present a few programs will alleviate the problem” (Bohmer

and Parrot). However “these types of responses indicate very little understanding of the

complex causes of campus sexual assault. Campus sexual assault is such a complicated

issue that one large community presentation is not likely to make much difference in

changing attitudes and behaviors of students, faculty, or administrators” (Bohmer,

Parrot).

At the beginning of the fall 2001 semester, two volunteer victims advocates, Lisa Hallee,

who worked for the Major Gifts Office, and American Studies Professor Heidi Kim, were

appointed advocates for sexual assault survivors at Colby. Although their work was all

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volunteer, they served to “advise and defend victims of sexual assault” and help victims

“understand their options and the Colby hearing process” (O’Brien).

While I think having two volunteer victim advocates on campus was definitely an

improvement in support for sexual assault survivors, I think it is problematic that the two

advocates both had other paid jobs and were therefore, not able to dedicate as much time

volunteering, making themselves visible to students , and helping survivors. Women’s Health

Nurse Lydia-Marden pointed this issue out to me when she discussed Lisa’s position, noting that

because Lisa had to travel often for her job in the major gifts office, she was oftentimes not on

campus, and was therefore, not easily accessible and available to students. Consequently, her

position as volunteer victim advocate has not been very effective and very few students know

who she is. This is proven by the fact that of the 11 sexual assault survivors I interviewed, none

of them had talked to Lisa about their experience. This is not Lisa’s fault—I think it is largely the

administration’s fault for spreading their employees too thin and expecting staff to do the work

of what additional staff members should be hired to do. Instead of asking staff to volunteer as

victims advocates, the College should establish a paid position for a sexual assault advocate.

This job should be the advocate’s only job, in order to ensure that the advocate is able to spend

adequate time getting to know students, making themselves visible to the college community,

and helping survivors. Visibility in this position is key because if students do not know who the

advocate is and feel safe coming to her/him, they will not report to the advocate and thus, the

advocate’s position will be useless.

In May of 2002, Dana Dorm President Peter Brush proposed a motion to form another

task force on sexual assault (Davis, SGA Votes to Examine Room Draw, Honors, and Sexual

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Assault). Four months later the SGA formally created the Sexual Assault Task Force. The group’s

job included “researching ways to prevent sexual assault on campus and presenting the findings

to the administration....looking at the way the administration handles sexual assault and

whether or not they actually adhere to their policies….and examining preventative measures

against sexual assault” (Hamm, SGA Creates Sexual Assault Task Force). Brush, who ran for SGA

President and lost, had voiced that if elected, he would work to get a rape crisis center on

campus. The center has yet to be become a reality; however, a proposal for a Sexual and

Gender Diversity Resource Center was recently submitted to the administration and trustees,

which would contain services similar to that of a rape crisis center (See Appendix).

At the end of the first semester, the Sexual Assault Task Force reported their progress to

The Echo. They spent the semester reading different sexual assault policies from Harvard,

Trinity, University of Connecticut, and the University of Maine and looked at our their policies

compared to Colby’s. They also proposed having a professional come in during COOT and Head

Resident Training to teach student leaders how to deal with student who come to them to

discuss sexual assault. They also discussed the option of making Sexual Assault Advocate

training more available to COOT Leaders and RA’s, since the current training offered during

Janplan took too long for many students to complete. In addition, the committee also looked

into getting the names of people involved in sexual assault cases published in The Echo

(Silverman). Currently, there is very little training for COOT Leaders and Community Advisors on

issues of sexual assault. I was told that this past year that CA’s received an hour-long training on

sexual assault and the school’s policy taught by Dean Johnston. I was a COOT Leader this year

and we did not receive such extensive training, however, a representative from counseling

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services talked about sexual assault with us. The Echo still does not publish the names of

students involved in sexual assault cases.

After lying dormant for the spring of 2003, the Sexual Assault Task Force was reinstated

in October of 2003 with the goal of continuing there the task force at left off. In March of 2004,

the Sexual Assault Task Force became a student organization, Student Against Sexual Assault

(SASA). The group transitioned from an SGA Task Force to a campus club because it was easier

to get funds as a club. Also, the Task Force, consisting of about half seniors, worried that if the

organization did not turn into a club, it would dissolve once they left Colby (Hamm, Sexual

Assault Task Force Turns Organization). As of 2004, the group continued to raise awareness of

sexual assault by hosting form events, designing educational programs on sexual assault for

COOT Leaders and orientation leaders, educating athletic teams on issues of sexual assault, and

working as advocates for sexual assault survivors. From what I understand, most athletic teams

are not formally educated on issues of sexual assault and there are no official student sexual

assault advocates on campus.

In the early morning hours of August 17th 2002, just after COOT Leaders had arrived on

campus, Security Officer Doug Mathew responded to a call from a female student who had

been sexually assaulted (Silberstein-Loeb, Sexual Assault Complaint Filed During COOT

Training).The female victim chose to press charges against her alleged male attacker with the

police as well as school authorities. Significantly, The Echo publicly supported the victim, writing

in its Editorial section “that The Echo supports the female student seeking justice and hopes it is

duly dealt to both parties” (Colby Echo Staff, Pressing Charges Sets Justice in Motion).

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Interestingly, there was no word of the case until January 23rd, 2003, when the

convicted assailant, Kevin Millien ’03, filed a lawsuit against Colby College for “not affording him

due process and not following proper procedure” (Silberstein-Loeb, Lawsuit Challenges Sexual

Assault Policy). According to the paper, a “Dean’s Hearing Board had originally found Millien

not responsible in September of 2002.” However, “the female student appealed the decision

because the board was not properly constructed…although the Student Handbook requires the

hearing board to be composed of three deans and one faculty member, there were no faculty

members that heard her case.” When the retrial was granted, the Appeals Board found Millien

guilty in October. Millien claims that due process was not followed because “The Appeals Board

neglected to consult him before granting the appeal.” In August of 2003 The Superior Court of

Maine decided against Kevin Millien (Russo, Millien ’03 Loses Lawsuit Against Colby Over

Contract Breach). However, in 2005, Millien appealed the case to the Maine Supreme Court,

but no information was given on whether or not he won the appeal (Kasnet).

Over fall Loudness Weekend of 2003, a woman was sexually assaulted in a dorm. At the

time of the report, “the victim had not yet decided whether or not to press charges” and no

information was available on the specifics of the case (Kate Russo, Multiplicity of Assaults Yields

Confusion: Two Independent Incidents Occur Over Loudness Weekend).

During the first week in November of 2003 the Health Center and Student Health on

Campus sponsored a self-defense workshop as a part of Sexual Assault Awareness Week (Fuller,

Self Defense Workshop Held at Annual Sexual Assault Awareness Week). Local Rape Aggression

Defense System instructor Karen Grotton and Colby Director of Security Pete Chenevert taught

the course, which also included a discussion on safety and alcohol. Several students attended.

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In addition to the workshop, the week also included a presentation on “Pornography and the

Media” by Wheelock College professor Gail Dines. The Sexual Assault Task Force had a table in

Cotter Union all week where they handed out information on sexual assault and gave away

ribbons in memory of sexual assault victims (Hamm, Sexual Assault Awareness Week Aims to

Make a Statement on a Painful Issue).

On Valentine’s Day of 2003, Meaghan Boeing from Deana’s Fund performed her one-

woman show “The Yellow Dress” to a female-only crowd in Lorimer Chapel. The show dealt

with dating violence and concluded with a discussion of relationship and domestic violence.

While organizers were happy that the event was well attended, some were disappointed that

no men came to the show. SGA President Jill Gutekunst observed, “It’s like preaching to the

choir in the chapel” (Grant, Newcomb). That same week, the Sexual Assault Task Force handed

out white ribbons for students to wear in memory of sexual assault victims (Fuller, Sexual

Assault Task Force Informs Campus).

In mid-November of 2004, SASA held a week full of events dedicated to raising

awareness about sexual assault. The events included “a film about rape, a dinner conference,

and a fundraising campaign called the Clothesline Project” (Frederick). SASA organized a similar

week in April of 2006, which again included the Clothesline Project, a Panel Discussion co-

sponsored by the Goldfarb Center on Sexual Assault, a talk on how male athletes can stop

violence against women, and a movie showing (Shaffer).

Now, seven years later, instances of sexual assault at Colby and in the world persist, but

the Colby community’s efforts to prevent sexual assault continue now more than ever before.

This spring, the college organized a committee to review the sexual assault and harassment

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policies and we will report changes and recommendations at the end of the year. This winter,

“Male Athletes Against Violence,” a student group dedicated to educating men on issues of

sexual assault, was established and is growing every day. Additionally, community forums and

talks have been held throughout the year discussing issues of sexual harassment and sexual

assault, one of which was specifically titled, “Gender, Power, and Community.” Currently,

students and staff are planning what I foresee to be a very well organized and well-attended

campus-wide Take Back the Night. These efforts prove that the Colby community cares very

much about preventing sexual assault and wants to make Colby a safe place for everyone.

While it is evident that improvements in policy and education have been made

throughout the years, Colby, like most institutions, still has a lot of work to do in becoming a

rape-free community. Thankfully, with the help of Colby’s dedicated students and staff, we will

be able to make this a reality someday.

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Informal Practices: How Is Sexual Assault Perpetuated in the Current Colby Culture?

“A few cried, but most of my interviewees were angry and frustrated.”

This section is based on my interviews with Colby students during the fall of 2011.

These interviews are a product of the five months I spent talking to students, friends, faculty,

and community members about their thoughts on sexual assault and Colby culture. In addition

to formally interviewing 11 students, I also informally interviewed approximately 25 other

students and community members, and many of the quotes used in this chapter are taken from

those conversations as well. Additionally, some of the information gathered for this section of

my project is based on my experiences as a Colby student for the past four years, as well as the

experiences of some of my friends. I use newspaper articles and first-hand accounts of

scenarios to both supplement my interviewees’ statements and to further illustrate Colby

culture as I see it.

After putting all of my interviews I was able to target two themes that were consistently

prevalent in almost every testimony. These themes include:

1) Male Entitlement and Female Disempowerment

2) Ineffective Policies and Inadequate/Ineffective Support Systems.

I analyze the two themes in separate chapters. The theme of “Male Entitlement and

Female Disempowerment” is discussed in the chapter, “Informal Practices,” while the theme of

“Inadequate Policies and Ineffective Support Systems” is analyzed in the chapter, “Formal

Structures.” I chose to focus on these themes not only because they were consistently

prevalent in all of my interviews but because they provide a framework for analyzing Colby’s

structural practices towards sexual assault.

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It is important to note that I promised anonymity to each survivor that I interviewed for

my thesis. I was asked by some to frame their story in such a way that other Colby students and

community members would not be able to identify them as the survivor. Some survivors were

also concerned with the readers’ ability to identify their perpetrator because they feared that if

their perpetrator found out that they had talked to me, they would suffer retaliation. Because

Colby is a small, close-knit community where everyone seems to know everything about

everyone, some of the people I interviewed were very concerned that readers would be able to

use the smallest detail to trace back their identity as a sexual assault survivor. Because of these

concerns, I chose to give every sexual assault survivor I interviewed a pseudonym and

intentionally left out the survivor’s name, class year, major, age, or any other characteristic that

would enable a reader to identify them. I also refrain from detailing the specifics of certain

cases in order to prevent revealing peoples’ identities. By refraining from giving details on the

survivors and the specifics of their cases, I am able to discuss their experiences and give voice to

their stories without outing them and their perpetrators, which was a top priority for me as I

was writing this section.

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Section One: Male Entitlement and the Perpetuation of Female Disempowerment

“I feel like the college protected him more than he deserved–I know he is really rich and I think the college protected him for that reason. They did not want to lose someone who is loaded.” -Student Sexual Assault Survivor (referring to the Judicial Board case she lost).

“Men choose to act this way. And they choose to act this way because they believe it to be justified …they choose to act because of ideology—the beliefs they have about what they should or shouldn’t do, what they can or can’t do, and why. In other words, what enables men to choose to commit rape and call it something else are…the culture of entitlement, silence, and protection” --Kimmel, 2008

Leading sociologist, professor, and feminist Michael Kimmel defines male entitlement as

the “culture of entitlement” that leads privileged men to think that “they can do whatever they

want and get away with it…and oftentimes they do” (Kimmel, 2010). Kimmel discusses this

culture of entitlement in his exploration of masculinity in America, Guyland, a book that is

based on over 400 interviews he conducted with men ages 16-26. Kimmel asserts that such a

culture of entitlement is allowed to exist because of the all-pervasive “culture of silence” that

works to protect privileged men, particularly at elite college institutions. In his article, “Lacrosse

and the Entitled Elite Male Athlete,” Kimmel analyzes the tragic murder University of Virginia

Lacrosse player, Yeardley Love, who died at the hands of her ex-boyfriend, another UVA

lacrosse player who had a history of threatening and beating her. In his analysis, Kimmel looks

at the ways in which male entitlement and the culture of silence that accompanies it, allowed

Love’s boyfriend, George Wesley Huguely and continues to allow other men, to act in violent

ways towards women. He explains:

“[It happens] because they are surrounded by a culture of silence among their intimate

friends and associates, a culture of passive bystanders who might find their friend's out-

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of-control behavior unpalatable but who would never think of confronting or

challenging him (Kimmel, 2010).”

In expanding on his discussion of the culture of privilege and silence, Kimmel asserts

that the silence is allowed to exist because of “a culture of protection” that “shields men from

the consequences of their actions” (Kimmel, 2010). Kimmel discusses:

“The culture of silence is itself surrounded by a culture of protection -- a bubble of class

privilege, athletic status and a fraternal wagon-circling when things go wrong. If things

go terribly wrong, the culture of protection -- including parents, coaches and alumni

boosters -- hire high-priced lawyers who manage to get records expunged and witnesses

to forget what they saw” (Kimmel, 2010).

Thus, while the mass media and college officials have managed to reduce Yeardley

Love’s murder up to love-gone-wrong or an isolated outburst of a dormant psychopath, what is

important to look at in cases like this, and in all instances of gender violence and sexual assault,

is the ways in which cultures of privilege, silence, and protection, which involve the structural

practice of protecting privileged men who commit sexual assault by covering up or refusing to

talk about their crimes, work to perpetuate, ignore, and allow gender violence. In addition, it is

important to look at the ways in which these cultures of privilege, silence, and protection,

disempowers survivors by rendering sexual assault and thus, their stories of survival, invisible.

The link between these two facts explain, in part, why sexual assault is so hard to address—if

the same culture that perpetuates sexual assault is the same culture that silences survivors of

it, then the same system that allows sexual assault to occur is the same system that maintains

it. This creates a vicious cycle, where the culture of privilege, silence, and protection, which

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exists at Colby in the form of favoritism towards male athletes, the tolerance of underground

fraternities, the failure to adequately punish students convicted of committing gender violence,

and reinforcement of the dismissive attitude that “boy will be boys”, both perpetuates and

maintains an environment where gender violence occurs. This makes sexual assault incredibly

difficult to prevent, because in order to stop sexual assault we must eradicate the very system

that silences it and prevent people from speaking out about it (Kimmel, 2010).

I use Kimmel’s analysis of Yeardley Love’s murder to provide a foundation for explaining

the ways in which cultures of privilege, silence, and protection work in similar ways at Colby, a

school that attracts a student body that can be characterized by affluence and privilege. The

culture of privilege, silence, and protection at UVA that enabled and allowed George Wesley

Hughley to consistently hurt and eventually kill his girlfriend, is, in many ways, the same type of

privilege, silence, and protection that enables Colby students to sexually assault Colby other

students. While it would not be entirely accurate to equate sexual assault at Colby with the

brutal murder of Love, since sexual assault and murder are two very different crimes, one can

still suggest that sexual assault at Colby and Love’s murder are similar in that Hughley’s killing of

Love was the culmination of a very abusive relationship—an abusive relationship that people,

including Hughley’s teammates, knew about and chose not to talk about. The fact that people

knew about his abuse of Love and still did not confront him about it or report it to authorities

suggests that Hughley’s crime was in part enabled by the culture of privilege, silence, and

protection that shielded him from the consequences of his actions. By shielding Hughley from

the consequences of his abusive behavior, Hughley’s teammates, friends, and coaches, all

participated in the system of privilege, silence, and protection that lead Hughly to believe that

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he was entitled to kill his girlfriend. Michael Kimmel support this claim in his commentary on

the case, noting,

“My guess is that someone -- a roommate, fraternity brother, a teammate -- knew that

George was freaking out, knew he was distressed. But he said nothing, did nothing, told

no one. No coaches seem to have seen even a hint of his obvious distress. No residence

hall advisers noticed anything odd…this is a guy who had been sending threatening

emails to Yeardley Love for some time and who had, two months earlier, according to

the Washington Post, assaulted Love at a party where two North Carolina lacrosse

players had to intervene to stop him. And where were his UVA teammates then? …

Suddenly this doesn't seem like the isolated incident committed by one lone deranged

guy. It was that, of course, but it was also much more than that” (Kimmel, 2010).

By “much more than that,” Kimmel means the “culture of silence...surrounded by the

culture of protection” that “made it hard” for Hughley “to grant anyone else autonomy

(Kimmel, 2010). Because Hughley’s murder of love and sexual assault at Colby are both enabled

by the culture of privilege, silence, and protection that keeps perpetrators of gender violence

from suffering the consequences of their crimes and thus, creates a culture where perpetrators

feel entitled to be violent, it is fair to link the two.

The system of protection that characterizes male entitlement, and exists at communities

like Colby, UVA, and other elite institutions, is inextricably linked to issues of female

disempowerment. I found this to be especially true in my study, when I came to realize that lack

of female empowerment oftentimes comes as a direct result of the enactment of male

entitlement on the Colby campus. This is specifically seen in cases where women who reported

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their assault to the dean lost (in part because of the culture of privilege, silence, and protection

that characterizes the judicial process and protects assaulters. These survivors, who were

understandably disappointed, hurt, and angry, felt disempowered by both the verdict and the

process by which school officials arrived at the verdict, since the outcome invalidated the

survivors’ experiences in favor of protecting their perpetrators. Many women I talked to

expressed these intense feelings of disempowerment by saying that they were made to feel like

their “story was not real” or “did not happen” and that “they had no control” over their lives

and bodies.

It is important to recognize that this sexist culture of male privilege, silence, and

protection exists in the greater world and at Colby, and therefore, we cannot place the entire

blame on Colby itself. Colby is a microcosm of the greater misogynist world, and we are all

products of that world. Consequently, it would be unfair to single Colby out as a sexist and

misogynist place without recognizing that the systems of structural sexism that exist at Colby

and everywhere else. Because sexism exists everywhere, and therefore, affects everyone, I do

not believe students come to Colby and learn sexism and male entitlement—I think they learn it

long before they get to college. However, the problem at Colby is that the culture here

maintains the culture of privilege, silence, and protection, that student have internalized and

reinforces the misogynist beliefs that accompany such a culture. Thus, I think it is important for

us to reflect on how our current culture, which is supposed to be a culture of education and

intellectual growth, not only fails to teach against oppressive structures that contribute to

sexual assault (like male entitlement, sexism, and misogyny), but also reinforces these systems

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in cultural practice. The following pages are my own such reflections—I hope they inspire you

to do some of your own.

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Male Entitlement and Female Disempowerment: Dangerous Silences

“Everyone knows who the predators are but they get away with it.” –Sexual Assault Survivor

“Despite the remarkable volume of words spoken about and images shown of domestic violence, rape, child abuse, and the murder of women, silencing comes from the complex ways in which those who claim authority and expertise about the issue authorize what can be said about sexual violence. –Kristin Bumiller

“Where language and naming are power, Silence is oppression, is violence.”-Adrienne Rich

I want to return to Kimmel’s theory of the “culture of entitlement” that leads privileged

men to think that “they can do whatever they want and get away with it…”(Kimmel, 2010). I

have found in my research that overwhelming, most men at Colby do get away sexual assault.

Of all the women I interviewed and talked to, only one was successfully able to get her attacker

punished for his crime. While some could argue that since very few women report, it makes

sense that very few perpetrators are punished, I see this statistic in a more nuanced way. While

this theory is certainly complex, I think that the culture of “privilege, silence, and protection”

discourages survivors from reporting and protects those reported rapists from punishment,

thus keeping women disempowered and silent (Kimmel, 2010).

To be clear, the culture of privilege, silence, and protection that exists at Colby is seen in

the college’s refusal to publicly acknowledge when cases of gender violence have occurred, the

college’s failure to adequately punish those who commit gender violence, the practice of using

vague language to define sexual assault in order to make it look like the perpetrator did not

actually commit a crime, and the enactment of excessively soft sentence to students who

commit both physical and verbal forms of gender violence (for example, in one case I studied,

the perpetrator was convicted of committing “unwanted sexual relations” but not of actual

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sexual assault. This vague language protected him from being labeled “a rapist,” and the

conviction resulted in merely a slap on the wrist. I see this specifically in the fact that almost all

of the survivors I interviewed who did not report their assaulters to the Dean or police chose

not to because they felt like “nothing would come of it.”One survivor named Beth* said, “I did

not think it would be best for my health to have to recount the story over and over again, and I

had heard from other women that that is what they make you do. I also did not feel like I would

have been completely supported by the administration, so I just did not think reporting would

be worth it.” Another woman named Brianna* claimed that one of the reasons why she chose

not to report is because she too had heard from other women that “it would not be worth her

time to report.” Each of these women’s comments suggests that they feared they would be

further victimized by the administration and the reporting process. Professor of Women’s

Studies and Political Science at Amherst College, Kristin Bumiller, discusses the reality of this

fear in her book, In an Abusive State. In discussing the relationship between the state and

victims of sexual violence, Bumiller asserts that “Despite feminist-inspired reforms, many of

which were explicitly designed to empower ‘victims’ to exercise more ‘choice’ or protect

against retraumatization, the voices and desires of women are often muted by the more

dominant discourse of the state” (Bumiller 96); Consequently, “women often find that they

experience brutalities that mimic the violence they hoped to leave behind” (Bumiller 97).

Although Bumiller’s book primarily discusses the relationship rape victim and battered women

have with the state, I think her theories can be applied to Colby College, since Colby itself is a

state that is also inhabited by survivors of sexual violence. Just as Bumiller’s interviewees’

“expression of injustice is centered on indignities perpetrated by the system rather than the

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individual men who battered them,” the females I interviewed expressed similar feelings of

injustice perpetrated by the administration and the reporting process (Bumiller 109).

This is specifically seen the few cases I studied where women at Colby did report. Those

who reported include Penny*, who was told that she was “not mentally stable” enough to

stand a hearing (due to the eating disorder she had developed as a result of her sexual assault),

and consequently, was instructed to leave campus and enter residential treatment. She

suggested to me that due to the fact that her assaulter was a prominent football senior football

player, she thought that the college figured if they sent her away for the semester, he could

graduate without punishment and they would not have to deal with the issue. Upon her return

to campus after her semester off she “was given the impression that she could not talk about it

because it was in the past.” The survivors summed up her reporting ordeal to “The college

definitely protected him…he got his diploma and I got food prison.” In looking at this case, one

can suggest that Penny was victimized by Colby’s process, since her “voice and desires were

muted for the dominant discourse of the state” (Bumiller 96). This is particularly seen in the

administration’s refusal to let her bring her case to a hearing, which provides a perfect example

of the Colby-state forfeiting the victim’s needs in favor of its own policies of silencing victims

and protecting perpetrators. This is further proven when one considers that more often than

not, Colby’s “dominant discourse” is one of privilege, silence, and protection (Bumiller 96).

Colby’s victimization of sexual assault survivors is further evident in the case of

Isabelle*, who also reported her case to the Dean and lost. During our interview, she depicted

the five hour hearing and the way in which the culture of privilege, silence, and protection

factored into the case, noting,

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“I had to write up this really long statement and he had to too—my roommates came

because they were witnesses. Apparently before he assaulted me he told his roommate:

“Don’t come back, I have a girl with me,” so his roommate came too as a witness. It (the

hearing) involved a lot of preparation--my parents came up and his parents came up for

the hearing--it was a lot going on, stressful for myself and for my parents. It got really

ugly--I felt like it was an extreme Law and order Episode. He (her assaulter) clearly had

watched too many courtroom TV shows. He kept refuting everything I said and

interrogating me. We were in separate rooms but there was speaker phone so we could

hear each other’s testimony. The hearing was taped so Dean Johnston could go listen to

it after and determine the outcome of the case. It was hard for me because I was really

uncomfortable talking about something really personal and embarrassing. I did not want

to have to talk about how I was forced to give a blow job in front of deans. Anyways, a

week later I got the decision back: they didn’t have enough evidence to say that it had

happened, so he could not get in trouble for sexual assault. Instead it was considered

‘unwanted sexual contact’ and he was prohibited from being near me(from my

understanding, the college generally takes this ruling when there is not enough evidence

to prove that sexual assault did occur) .

After I lost the case I just started convincing myself that it didn’t happen. I tried

thinking the administration was right. Hearing them say that made me think Dean

Johnson didn’t believe my word. I tried to put it behind me, but I couldn’t get over

thinking everyone knew about it. People called me crazy. I stopped seeing someone at

the health center because I just wanted to be done with it. I felt stupid for bringing up

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the charges, I probably shouldn’t have. I think my life would have been a lot easier had I

not pressed charges.”

In looking back on the assault and the hearing process the woman commented on the

culture of silence and protection that affected the case, noting,

“I just felt like because I wasn’t raped and I said something about it, it was almost a

strike against me, like I was breaking the silence, like I should have kept it a secret. I feel

like the people who have real problems don’t say anything about them. I feel like my

case got brushed off because there were not photo documents that proved I was raped

and bruised…what really confuses me is the college sends out these pamphlets telling us

to report stuff and when we do they dismiss it. Unless there is concrete evidence it

didn’t happen. Why does the college make such a big deal explicitly defining sexual

assault if they aren’t going to take it seriously when it happens?! It was so much work to

get told that it didn’t happen.”

After learning firsthand how pervasive the culture of privilege, silence, and protection is

at Colby and how the system protects perpetrators of sexual assault, the survivor claimed that

if she could go back, she would not bother reporting:

“I wish I wouldn’t have said anything because I spoke out against the culture

normalizes sexual assault…I was only a first year at the time; I literally had been at this

school for only a few months. I didn’t know that was considered normal here….if it were

to happen to me again, I don’t think I would say anything; I would save myself the pain

of having to explain it 50 times to the administration and being shamed by others. I

think in the real world it would have been taken more seriously, but here, I shouldn’t

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have said anything because sexual assault is considered normal…my mistake was that I

hadn’t been exposed to the Colby culture long enough to know that it isn’t seen as big

deal here.”

Like Penny’s* case, Isabelle’s* case illustrates how the Colby-state stifles the voices of

sexual assault survivors in favor of its own “dominant discourse” of privilege, silence, and

protection (Bumiller 96). Consequently, both Penny and Isabelle “experience[d] brutalities” that

arguably “mimic the violence they hoped to leave behind,” which is seen in how traumatic both

of their reporting processes were (Bumiller 97).

Based on my interviews, I came to understand that there exists a sort of network of

women on campus who had either been sexually assaulted or who knew someone who had

been sexually assaulted. While some of these women were friends or acquaintances who had

talked about their experiences with each other, and therefore, may have played into each

other’s decisions to not report, they all adhered to the unsaid rule that reporting was a

complete waste of time and oftentimes, did more harm than good. This suggests to me that it is

somewhat common knowledge amongst this group of survivors that those who choose to

report will be victimized by the Colby-state in the same ways that Penny* and Isabelle* were.

In order to “protect” its students the school does not talk about sexual assault cases, or

inform students about the reality of gender violence on campus, which is seen in the school’s

refusal to tell students the truth about Phil Brown. The college’s silencing then “becomes a way

of disappearing people in the false hope of disappearing the underlying social problem they

represent” (Davis 41). Thus, as a consequence of the college’s need to “protect” the privileged

rapist/perpetrator and the reputation of the privileged institution, they silence the issue of

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sexual assault and in turn, silence those who are survivors of assault, and perpetuate the myth

that rape at Colby does not exist. Survivors, who become aware of these modes of institutional

silencing after hearing the stories of other victimized survivors at Colby, and conscious that

their existence as survivors of sexual assault will be erased by the State, choose to cut their

losses and not report. In this sense, the system of privilege, silence, and protection protects

rapists by keeping women quiet and disempowered--not because they want to be quiet and

disempowered-- but because they do not have any other choice.

In addition to seeing the culture of privilege, silence, and protection at work in the

experiences of my interviewees, I also see it in the way the college handled the case of Phil

Brown. Instead of informing the community exactly what happened, they somewhat covered

up his blatant misogynist act by ambiguously claiming it was “a violation of student privacy”

(Important Announcement). Reducing his behavior to “a violation of student privacy” misleads

people to think that what he did was not all that bad. When I read it I guessed that he probably

released a student’s grades to someone who was not supposed to see them, or committed

some other minor academic transgression—but not for once did I think that he took naked

pictures of a female student. The misleading nature of the language used to described what he

did suggests that the college was somewhat trying to cover it up, or at least, cover it up for as

long as they could. While I know that the college has the responsibility to abide by the law and

protect the affected students’ privacy, there is a way to go about informing a community of

gender violence without outing victims or infringing on their wish for privacy. Although victims

could potentially be scrutinized in situations like these, especially on a campus as small as

Colby’s, I think the benefits of making a community more aware of gender violence far

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outweigh the costs. While silencing may protect the victims, such silencing perpetuates a

system that oftentimes renders victim’s experiences invisible, and consequently, protects

perpetrators of violence while simultaneously keeping the community uninformed on how

frequent acts of gender violence occur. As a result, communities do not address issues of issues

of sexual assault or make more efforts to prevent it, because they do not know how large of a

problem it is. This cycle of silencing keeps the culture of privilege, silence, and protection in

place at the expense of the entire community. While college officials claim that by remaining

vague and silent, they are protecting victims’ privacy, their silence really only serves to protect

Phil Brown and the institution by employing the same type of privilege, silence, and protection

that has protected and continues to protect men who sexually assault.

Just as a community’s discourse plays a major part in shaping the knowledge and ideals

of the community, a community’s silence and the things it chooses to be silent about, similarly

determines its knowledge and values. As Foucault says, “Silence itself—the thing one declines

to say, or is forbidden to name, the discretion that is required between different speakers—is

less the absolute limit of discourse, the other side from which it is separated by a strict

boundary, than an element that functions alongside the things said” (Foucault 27). I see

Foucault’s quote relating to Colby in a few ways—just as our misogynist discourse fosters a

community that dehumanizes women and queer people to the degree that harassment and

violence against them is allowed and ignored, our silencing of topics like Phil Brown produces

an environment that erases the existence of issues like sexual exploitation, sexual harassment,

and sexual assault. This silencing does not protect community members or the victims of Phil

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Brown—it just feeds into the system of privilege, silence, and protection that continues to

disempower women and enable their abusers.

The college’s silencing of the Phil Brown, which is seen in the ambiguous and misleading

language they used to describe and consequently cover up the case, their failure to notify

students of the crime, and their refusal to discuss the case with the Colby community, is made

further evident by the fact that nearly all of the information my friends, professors, and I

received about the case came directly from news sources, not the college itself. I was told by

several faculty members that the only information they received was the same email that was

sent to students. From what I was told, faculty chairs were called into a meeting to discuss the

matter, but even they were given very little information. After the administration failed to

publicly address the issue or discuss the event with the community for several weeks, The

Multicultural Affairs Committee and the Committee on Race and Racism organized a forum

titled, “Gender, Power, and Community” and invited the administration in the hopes that such

an event would generate discussion on the Phil Brown situation.

However, such discussion was stunted by the administration’s refusal to address the

case, citing that they legally could not comment on what had happened. A frustrated audience

of students and faculty pushed to get their questions answered, but to no avail, the situation

was yet again silenced. Again, this silencing does not protect us, it just becomes a way of trying

to erase people in the hope that by erasing their existence, the problems they represent will be

extinguished too. Thus, by trying to make Phil Brown and his exploitative crime disappear, we

are also trying to make the underlying problem of misogyny, sexism, and the culture of elite

male entitlement disappear. Again, this does not help us—it just supports and further

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perpetuates the system of oppression that enabled him and men like him to commit misogynist

acts.

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Male Entitlement and Female Disempowerment: Phil Brown

To the Colby Community, I am writing to inform you that following notice from the College of its intent to dismiss him,

Associate Professor of Economics Philip H. Brown has resigned. The resignation at Colby's request is related to violation of student privacy. .. -President Bro Adams (email sent to the Colby Community)

“Guys believe that they are entitled to women’s bodies…unfortunately for them, a significant amount of women do not see it that way” –Kimmel, 2008

On January 28th 2011, Colby students and employees received an email from President

Bro Adams informing them that economics professor, Phil Brown, “had resigned after college

officials had indicated they were prepared to fire him over ‘violation of student privacy’”

(Monroe). It was late revealed through the Huffington Post and Kennebec Journal that that Phil

Brown was forced to resign “after allegations surfaced that he set up a hidden surveillance

camera to take photos of female students in a bathroom while chaperoning an international

student trip” (Monroe).

According to the local paper, “the allegations surfaced on Jan. 22 when two students

were writing a blog post and accidentally deleted the entry. The students attempted to retrieve

the blog post from the computer's trash bin ‘and found disturbing images of a fellow student’

(Monroe). The student in the photo, a female, was ‘nude from the waist down.”’ Once the

students saw the picture and were able to identify the woman in the photo as a female on their

trip, they contacted school authorities, who then contacted Detective Dave Armstrong of the

Computer Crimes Unit. On January 25th “the student in the photo spoke with Armstrong by

phone and said that Brown -- prior to the trip and after a class at Colby -- had asked if she

would agree to be in charge of the medicine box’ during the trip” (Monroe). The woman agreed

to help Brown, and on the first night of the trip, he placed the “medicine box,” which included a

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first aid kit, medicine, and a strange black box, in the bathroom and told the students not to

move it. Upon inspecting the bathroom, the students “found a surveillance camera inside the

black box” (Monroe). Students then “reported the discovery to college officials and sent the

image to Armstrong, who was able to confirm the image had come from a surveillance-type

camera” (Monroe). That same day, Vice President of Academic Affairs and Dean of Faculty, Lori

Kleitzer, “confronted” Brown on the phone, “relieved him of his duties, and placed him on

administrative leave” (Monroe). Brown subsequently called Kleitzer back, apologized, and

promised that "this was the first time he had ever done this (invasion of privacy) and was very

remorseful” (Monroe). The next day, January 26th, Brown met with college officials to discuss

his termination. At the meeting, Brown confessed that he had committed the same crime

before “on the 2009 China trip,” and another time in his campus apartment but “not with a

Colby College student” (Monroe). According to an affidavit, Brown returned to his apartment

(which is in a building that houses both students and faculty) to move out his belongings but

left all electronic devices, which were seized by police the next day for investigation. Allegedly,

detectives are still trying to gather evidence from China. Currently, the case is still under

investigation.

I depict the details of the Phil Brown case because I think his actions and the college’s

response to his actions reflect a set of institutional practices that point to the larger structures

of silencing that exist at Colby. While the case of Phil Brown is different from instances of

student to student sexual assault because the crime was committed by a faculty member, I see

Colby’s response, which is based on the practice of silencing, to be consistent with their

responses to instances of sexual assault committed by students. Such consistencies are seen in

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the way Colby refused to inform the Colby community of his crime and their decision to use

ambiguous language to misleadingly cover up the fact he sexually assaulted a student. As we

have established, both of these methods have been deployed by the school to sweep student

sexual assault cases underthe rug, and therefore, I think it is fair to draw a parallel between the

two.

Although from what I understand, Phil Brown did not touch the student, his invasive

crime should still be considered sexual assault because he sexually violated a woman’s body

without her consent. What some consider to be “less severe” offenses on the “continuum of

gender violence,” offenses like peeping into women’s windows, taking naked photos of girls,

and harassing females on the street, all work to create a culture that condones rape by

supporting the myth that women’s bodies are not their own, but sources of sexual pleasure for

men. This sort of thinking strips women of their sexual autonomy and justifies rape by

perpetuating the notion that men should be able to do whatever they want to females’ bodies.

In order to eradicate sexual assault from Colby College, it is imperative that we

acknowledge that sexual assault and other forms of gender violence, including the type of

violence that Phil Brown committed, “are a continuous series of events that pass into one

another” and “are united by a basic common character (Sheffield 115). Carole Sheffield argues

that “viewing sexual violence in this way furthers an understanding of both the ordinary and

extraordinary forms of sexual terrorism and the range of abuse that women experience in their

lifetime” (Sheffield 115). Gaining such an understanding will help us better deconstruct and

combat the structural sexism that is rooted in all forms of gender violence.

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Male Entitlement and Female Disempowerment: Misogynist Discourse:

“Throughout history, linguistic violence has occurred alongside physical violence, often preceding, facilitating, and rationalizing physical violence.” –William Gay

“You fag!” –Boy in the Spa

“Oppressive language does more than represent violence; it is violence; does more than represent the limits of knowledge; it limits knowledge.”

-Toni Morrison, Nobel Lecture, Dec. 7, 1993

“Aw Cunt!”-Boy at a party my friend was at—apparently he was shouting it every time he made a mistake in a drinking game.

French philosopher Michel Foucault discusses the way in which a community’s discourse

shapes its knowledge of certain topics and determines the subjectivity of its individuals in his

famous work, The History of Sexuality. In the book, Foucault asserts that “it is in discourse that

power and knowledge are joined together” (100). He expands upon this argument by theorizing

the ways in which discourse and power are joined, citing that discourse constructs and

reinforces power: “We must make allowance for the complex and unstable process whereby

discourse can be both an instrument and an effect of power…discourse transmits and produces

power; it reinforces it (101). In short, Foucault is pointing to the ways in which what we say

about certain issues, specifically issues of sexuality, both construct and reinforce what we, and

those around us, think about said issues. Therefore, if I say that “all women who wear tube tops

are whores” my discourse both projects the idea onto my community and reinforces the

already existing idea that all women who wear tube tops are whores. This discourse grows,

with people agreeing and repeating the discourse. Others who hear it repeat the discourse until

it becomes common knowledge amongst members of that community that in fact “all women

who wear tube tops are whores.” In this sense, what people say is both “an instrument and an

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effect of power,” because such discourse promotes the unequal ideals that grants people the

power to say such degrading remarks, and in part, determine the values of the community

(101). Consequently, what we say within our communities and what we allow others

(particularly others in position of power) to say in our communities produces and perpetuates

the systems of knowledge, beliefs, and principles that our communities adhere to.

I preface my discussion of “Male Entitlement and Female Disempowerment: Misogynist

Discourse” with Foucault to emphasize the degree to which the misogynist discourse of

members of the Colby community contributes to producing and perpetuating misogynist

thinking that in part causes, allows, and ignores the abuse of women. The perpetuating and

condoning of these verbal abuses are linked to higher instances of sexual assault because they

promote the idea that women are “less human” than others (namely, those in power) and

therefore, somehow “deserve” these abuses, which makes it easier for community members to

justify harassing and assaulting these minority groups. I will discuss the prevalence of these

discourses and how they contribute to a culture that allows and ignores sexual assault by

analyzing misogynist discourse at Colby in the following paragraphs.

Misogynist language exists at Colby in many ways. I hear it at parties when I hear

women calling other women “sluts.” I heard it the time a man called me a “bitch” after I stood

up for my friend who he had intentionally poured beer on. I heard it at a party when a man

called his girlfriend a “whore.” I hear it in the music we listen to-- Colby is paying $80,000 for

Wiz Kalifa, a rapper whose lyrics include, “bitches love me” and “I got the cars, got the clothes,

got the money and the hoes,” to come to Colby for our spring concert. I hear it when people

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laugh at rape jokes. In fact, one survivor told me that her friends, who do not know about her

assault, tell rape jokes to her face.

Beyond just name-calling, I hear misogynist discourse in the way people describe sexual

acts. Such descriptions serve to degrade female sexuality to something that is “dirty” or

nonexistent and valorize male sexuality as something that is “studly” and noble. This is evident

in the various ways men depict having sex with women, saying that they “fucked her,” “railed

her,” “rode her,” “boned her,” “banged her,” or “laid her.” This is also seen in the way men

depict women having sex with them, saying that “the bitch rode me,” “that freak boned me

hard,” or “that crazy girl got me off.” Such depictions not-so-ironically resemble scenes of rape

(when I hear the phrase, “I railed her,” I do not think of mutual sex--I think of rape), render

women either invisible or “crazy,” and emphasize a discourse of one-sided sex that does not

include mutual respect and egalitarian intimacy.

Not only does this discourse hurt women, but it also “conveys denigrating or demeaning

attitudes”—attitudes that contribute to the greater discourse that reduces women to sexual

objects (Gay 436). Anytime a group of people is reduced to an object, it is easier to

dehumanize them, which could potentially lead to higher rates of violence enacted against

them. CJ Pascoe discusses how this sort of discourse emphasizes men’s control over women’s

bodies and asserts their power and sense of entitlement, noting,

“As they do with invoking fag discourse, boys talking about heterosexuality are and are

not talking about sex. Their talk about heterosexuality reveals less about sexual

orientation and desire than it does about the centrality of the ability to exercise mastery

and dominance literally or figuratively over women’s bodies…engaging in very public

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practices of heterosexuality, boys affirm much more than just masculinity; they affirm

subjecthood and personhood through sexualized interactions in which indicate to

themselves and others that they have the ability to work their will upon the world

around them” (Pascoe 86).

She further comments on the implications of this discourse by explaining that the

discourse emphasizes gender inequalities, citing from her research, “looking at boys’ ritualistic

sex talk...indicates how this gender inequality is reinforced through everyday interactions”

(Pascoe 87). Because men’s discourse regarding heterosexual sex serves to reinforce gender

inequalities, assert men’s control over women’s bodies, and maintain a dangerous sense of

power and entitlement amongst men, one can suggest that the misogynist discourse

contributes to sexual assault by reinforcing the very same systems of oppression (male

entitlement, gender inequality) that perpetuate sexual assault.

Seeing how misogynist language seeks to reinforce oppressive systems such as male

entitlement, gender inequality, and men’s control over women’s bodies, which,

noncoincidentally, also perpetuate sexual assault, it is no wonder that those who rape incite the

discourse that condones their very acts. This is a huge problem for Colby, since our current

discourse, which in many spaces is one of misogyny, has contributed to what I see as the

complicit acceptance of gender inequalities and male control amongst Colby students. This is

not to say that every person and every space at Colby is misogynist (because that is too

reductive), but it is to say that many of the socially powerful spaces (Page, the Spa, the

Apartments, the party scene) and many of the powerful people who have the most authority to

generate discourse and thus shape the ideals of the Colby community (for example, male

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athletes), are using misogynist discourse to the degree that it has adversely affected our

community.

Colby is a microcosm of the larger misogynist and homophobic world, and its students

are products of that world—this is not their fault; it is just a consequence of living in the

culture that they live in. As Judith Butler points out, “Those who commit acts of violence are

surely responsible for them; they are not dupes or mechanisms of an impersonal social force,

but agents with responsibility. On the other hand, these individuals are formed, and we would

be making a mistake if we reduced their actions to purely self-generated acts of will or

symptoms of pathology of ‘evil.’” (Butler 17). Furthermore, misogyny has been a part of our

culture for very a long time and consequently, such ideals have been perpetuated in the greater

world and at Colby for generations. Therefore, it would be unfair to place blame on any set

group of people or generation of students. However, I think it is important to look at the ways

in which our community’s discourse, which is both created by and reinforced by members of

our community, produces an environment that allows and condones rape.

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Male Entitlement and Female Disempowerment: Drinking, Parties, and “Hooking Up:”

“The social scene is created here by men, so females are very much on their own when it comes to the party and hook-up scene” –Sexual Assault Survivor

“He forced me to give him a blowjob and said ‘I just wanna put it in you’”-Sexual Assault Survivor

Hooking up seems disadvantageous to women in so many ways, and not only because the sex isn’t so great. In fact the disincentives appear so numerous that one eventually might wonder why women bother. The hookup culture appears to present a kind of lose-lose situation. If they don’t participate, they risk social isolation—not to mention that they also forego sex itself, as well as any emotional connection they may be able to squeeze out of the occasion. If they do participate, they face the potentially greater risk of ‘loss of value,’ and there’s a good chance they won’t have any fun” --Kimmel, 2008

While the term “hooking-up” seems like any old slang word for my peers and I, the word

itself did not come into existence until pretty recently. While admitting that the word “hook up”

is incredibly hard to define because “young men and women experience it in so many different

ways,” Michael Kimmel cites that,

“To ‘hook up’ means to engage in any sort of sexual activity with someone you are not a

in a relationship with. Hooking up is used to describe casual sexual encounters on a

continuum of ‘one night stands’ (a hookup that takes place once and only once with

someone who may or may not be a stranger) to ‘friends with benefits’ (friends who do

not care to be romantic partners, but may include sex among the activities they enjoy

together)” (Kimmel, 2008).

Significantly, “virtually all hooking up is lubricated with copious amounts of alcohol,”

which connects the act directly to the social scene at Colby, since the social scene at Colby

largely revolves around alcohol (Kimmel, 2008).

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I think most Colby students would agree that the social scene, drinking, and hooking up,

are all intricately connected to each other. People “go out” and drink oftentimes to hook up

with people. One of my interviewees, Emily*, reinforced this claim, noting,

“The drinking culture and the hook-up culture feed off of and inform each other. One

wouldn't exist to such a degree that it does without the other. People get drunk to

hook-up; people hook-up because they are drunk… at a place like Colby where we have

a very limited and strange dating culture, people seek intimate/physical contact through

alcohol.”

Another one of my interviewees, Mary*, echoed this claim, commenting, “It is scary how closely

linked drinking and hookup culture are.” This is not to say that hooking up is the only reason

why people participate in the party scene—some people just like to socialize and hang out with

friends. However, I believe that for many people, if they are going out the assumption is that

they are going to go find someone to hook up with.

Although both men and women at Colby participate in the hookup culture, males and

females experience the hookup culture very differently. This is largely due to the sexual double

standards inherent in the hookup culture. Michael Kimmel discusses these double standards

and how these double standards perpetuates a sex culture that favors men at the expense of

women, noting,

“In a sense, hooking up retains certain features of older dating patterns: male

domination, female compliance, and double standards. Though hooking up may seem to

be mutually desired by both guys and girls, our research indicates that guys initiate

sexual behavior most of the time (less than a third of respondents said this was mutual).

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Hookups are twice as likely to take place in his room as in hers. And, most importantly,

hooking up enhances his reputation whereas it damages hers. Guys who hook up a lot

are seen by their peers as stud; women who hook up a lot are seen as sluts who ‘give it

up.’ According to Duke’s study of campus sexual behavior, ‘Men and women agreed the

sexual double standard persists: men gain status through sexual activity while women

lost status” (Kimmel, 2008).

I argue that the sexual double standard inherent to hookup culture, make hookup

culture dangerous because it perpetuates the idea that “guys who hook up a lot are studs,

while women who hook up a lot are sluts who ‘give it up’” (Kimmel, 2008). This double standard

degrades female sexuality to something that is “dirty” and shameful, and valorizes male

sexuality as something that is admirable. This hurts both men and women and contributes to a

culture that perpetuates and allows rape by justifying sexual assault. I see this specifically in

some of the cases I studied at Colby where women were blamed for “letting their rape happen

to them” by wearing short skirts or having multiple sexual partners prior to their rape. I also see

it in the way some rapists’ actions are excused, justified, and even celebrated by members of

the Colby community because having multiple sexual partners, even if those partners did not

consent to sex, is seen as “studly.” While many people will claim that they do not believe these

myths, I believe that many of us subconsciously adhere to this thinking without even knowing

it, which is why prejudices like sexism are so pervasive in the world and at Colby.

Moreover, a male dominated sex culture is dangerous because it disempowers women.

When (heterosexual) women are forced to choose between forgoing all heterosexual

relationships with men or settling for what, according to my research, is most often a

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demeaning hookup, they always lose. In the end, there is very little room for heterosexual

women to feel sexually satisfied and respected in their relationships with men within the

hookup culture because the system makes it very hard for such an option to exist. For me and

for many other women, this is incredibly disempowering. One woman I talked to expressed this

disempowerment very eloquently, saying,

“I feel like I have had a lot of identity crisis issues at Colby…I have been having so much

anxiety about my gender. I was so involved in the hookup culture all of sophomore year.

I kind of thought it was fun and it had the potential to be fun, so I was really into it and I

liked being able to tell the story the next day, but it is weird and awkward. I felt gross

after…then I went abroad and had a boyfriend there and sex with him was so bad. I

felt undervalued because it was all about him. I removed myself from the hookup

culture because it made me feel bad about myself but now I feel bad about myself for

not partaking in hook up culture (sigh). I think hookup culture is entirely unfulfilling and

very drunken…it’s a bunch of people trying to find intimacy the wrong way, trying to

find validation.”

Female disempowerment directly relates to sexual assault because the more

disempowered a female is, the less confident and self-assured she is, and the more likely it is

that she will condone sexist behaviors. I see this play out in so many different ways at Colby. I

see it in the way women just “accept” the fact that their butt will inevitably be grabbed at a

Colby dance. I see it in the way women just accept the fact that they will be expected to

perform oral sex on their male “hookup “partner but the majority of the time, the act will not

be reciprocated. I see it in the way one woman’s friends blamed her assault on her, saying that

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“she should not have put herself in that situation.” I see it in the way one survivor confessed

that she “lost her voice” and could not scream “no” as she was being raped. In the end, a male

dominated sex culture like the one that exists at Colby disempowers females and contributes to

an environment that perpetuates rape by brain-washing women into thinking that misogynist,

violent, and unacceptable behavior is okay.

Although I do not think the hookup culture that exists at Colby is conducive to creating a

rape-free community because it degrades female sexuality and disempowers females, I do not

think hookup culture itself is bad. As a Third Wave feminist, I adhere to the ideas of sex

positivity and believe that sexual expression can be found in many forms and does not

necessarily have to be located in a traditional monogamous relationship. That being said, my

problem with hookup culture at Colby is not the hookup culture itself, but rather, the sexual

double standards that exist within the hookup culture which perpetuate sexual assault by

making men think “that if you are drunk enough they can do whatever they want”(Brianna*).

This is seen in the way the sexual double standards justify sexual assault and brainwash women

into accepting sexist behaviors, which both contribute to an environment where sexual assault

occurs.

Significantly, it became clear to me fairly early on in my research that hookup culture is

very much connected to instances of sexual assault. Of the eleven survivors I interviewed,

seven were sexually assaulted in a “hookup gone wrong” situation, where they consented to

every act up to a certain. In these scenarios, the man refused to listen to the survivor say no

(oftentimes, this situation occurred when the two people were consensually kissing or touching

each other, and the man forced the woman to perform oral sex or have intercourse with him).

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The high frequency of “hookups gone wrong” suggests to me that men do not seem to care if

the woman they are being intimate with does not grant or retracts consent—if she is there and

he can overpower her, his needs take precedence over her sexual and bodily autonomy.

Other types of sexual assault that occur within the hookup scene include the sexual

assault of women who are either too drunk to give consent or are so drunk, they are

unconscious. This happened to one woman I interviewed named Jenny* who was raped while

she was passed out drunk and her rapist was sober:

“Freshman year I was hanging out with my two girlfriends…I met a guy that night, a

friend of a friend…I was very drunk…I blacked out …he ended up having sex with me…he

was dead sober, never drank, has not drank in years..I was a freshman and he was a

junior...I remember not knowing that to do…I got really fucked up from it…I confronted

him a year later….I told him that I knew what happened…I remember I had seen him

one other time and he came up and apologized…I didn’t tell him it was rape and I didn’t

tell myself rape…saying I got raped is hard.”

Similar to “hookups gone wrong,” the sexual assault of an unconscious woman, suggests

to me that the perpetrators do not care if the person is incapable of giving consent—his sexual

needs are more important than her own bodily integrity.

While the high instances of rape and sexual assault in the hookup culture is certainly a

huge issue that the administration must address, I think that it would be wrong to place all of

the responsibility on the administration. Because the majority of sexual assaults at Colby occur

within the hookup culture, in order to control sexual assault, the administration would have to

control the hookup culture. This is impossible because in order to control the hookup culture,

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the administration would have to police students’ sexuality, which they cannot do. Therefore, I

argue that students need to take more or an active role in changing the campus social culture

to one that is less rooted in sexist double standards. Because we are the only ones who have

access to this culture, and therefore, are the only ones able to change it, I think it is primarily

the job of students to work to change the misogynist hookup culture, so that women and men

can have a sex culture that is equalitarian, safe, and does not perpetuate instances sexual

assault. In order to achieve this, it is imperative that we eradicate the sexist double standards

that exist within the hookup culture

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Male Entitlement and Female Disempowerment: Male Athlete Culture:

“I do not understand how Colby boasts itself as an elite institution when its own students slap and violate other students and then cheer for them on the sports field.” –Student Sexual Assault Survivor.

“Assailants are not limited to athletes and fraternity members, and the vast majority of frat men and athletes do not rape. However, the rate is higher among these groups because of their position of privilege on campus and because of their involvement with alcohol.” –Carol Bohmer and Andrea Parrot

In referring to male entitlement within athlete culture, Michael Kimmel says that one of

“the reasons why the risk of sexual assault is high among these high-prestige all-male groups”

is because “nowhere is the brotherhood more intense, the bonding more intimate and

powerful, or the culture of protection more evident than among athletes and fraternity

members’ (Kimmel, 2008). Significantly, Kimmel points out that a survey of twenty universities

with Division I athletic programs found that male athletes made up 3.7% of the student

population, but also comprised 19% of sexual assault reported by the Judicial Affairs Office

(Kimmel, 2008). Massachusetts Superior Court Judge Robert Barton further illustrates the

culture of male entitlement in athletics in referring to the alleged rape of a woman by a Boston

Celtics player, saying,

“The athletes are spoiled. They’re pampered…They’ve been spoiled everywhere they’ve

gone. Everybody has covered for them. The coach has covered for them. The professors

have covered for them. The police cover for them…to make sure that the star

quarterback or basketball player or baseball player is going to be able to play next

week” (Kimmel, 2008).

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The same sort of culture of entitlement and protection is evident at Colby College,

where many male athletes who commit sexual assault do not suffer any form of punishment.

Three women I interviewed were either sexually assaulted by a male athlete at Colby or knew

someone who had been sexually assaulted by a male athlete at Colby. Like I said in my history

section, it is important look at the information I was able to find, as well as consider the

information that I was not able to find. This is not to say that you should just make up false

stories of sexual assault in your head, but it is to say that you should take into account the

degree of silencing that occurs in the culture of protection, take note of the ways in which this

may have affected survivors’ ability to report, and imagine the number of other stories that

exist that were not reported to me. That being said, while one may look at the statistic of “only

three” women who were sexually assaulted by male athletes as a fairly small number, the

actual statistic itself is probably much larger than three, especially when you consider that

according to the National Statistics about Sexual Violence on College Campuses, “one in four

college-aged women report experiences that meet the legal definitions of rape or attempted

rape,” yet “fewer than 5% of rapes are reported to law.” Staggeringly, only 4 of the 11 survivors

I interviewed attempted to report their assault to school authorities, which illustrates the

degree to which survivors do not report.

One woman I talked to named Penny* described her attempted rape by a football

player in detail: During winter loudness of her freshman year she attended a party where she

met an older football player. He approached her, they talked for a while, and he invited her

back to his dorm room. Once she followed him into his room and they were alone, he locked

the door and forced her to kiss him. He proceeded to slap her twice in the face and sexually

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assaulted her by forcing her to perform oral sex twice. Penny described the scene to me by

saying, “His hands were everywhere and I was crying and yelling…I felt like I was not in my own

body.” After forcing her to perform oral sex for the second time, he continued to sexually

assault her by attempting to force his penis inside of her vagina. She kept hollering no and

pleaded with him to stop. When she told him that she was a virgin, he got off of her, told her to

get dressed, and left the room. The survivor got dressed and walked herself home, crying

hysterically. She “took a shower but couldn’t feel clean,” and “could not stop crying.”

Overwhelmed by the assault and stressed about her upcoming finals, Penny* put herself

to bed and “remained in denial” about the assault for the next two years, until she collapsed in

her shower from exhaustion caused by an eating disorder she reports she developed as a direct

result of the assault. Significantly, the survivor was able to pin-point the moment when her

eating disorder began and how the moment was connected to her assault, which illustrates the

way in which her assault “triggered” her eating disorder. She described, “One time after the

attack, he (her assaulter) winked at me in Dana” and affirmed that “that is how my eating

disorder started—I was eating cheerios in Dana when he winked at me, and I immediately

stopped eating and started hating my body—Calorie counting became my way of disassociating

from the assault in order to gain control.”

Penny’s* eating disorder also included crying uncontrollably for hours at a time and

compulsively working out. After she collapsed she met with a counselor at the Health Center

where she discussed both her eating disorder and the assault, the college recommended that

she take a medical leave for the spring semester, calling her a “liability.” According to Penny*,

she felt like “the college thought that if I left and he graduated, everything would be okay.” She

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left Colby and entered residential treatment for her eating disorder for two and a half months.

Upon returning from treatment, she relapsed, and “only then did she deal with the pain of her

attempted rape.” In the end, “the college did not do anything to her perpetrator because they

felt that she was not mentally capable of correctly recalling the events.” Currently, the survivor

continues to attend counseling outside of Colby to work through the pain the assault caused.

In reflecting on how her assault has affected her outside of her eating disorder, Penny*

expressed more anger than anything, saying, “Frankly, I am just so angry and upset that I spent

time at Colby being depressed for something the college could have prevented….I beat myself

up for two and a half years for what he did to me…and no one should have to go through that.”

In this quote, Penny suggested that she sees the ways in which the college could have

prevented her assault, and elaborated on this later in our interview, when said that she believes

Colby’s tendency to not punish perpetrators, paired with the college’s insufficient method of

educating students on issues of sexual assault, created an environment that allowed her assault

to happen. She therefore suggests that her assault could have been prevented had the

administration sent the message that it would not tolerate sexual assault by punishing more

perpetrators. Moreover, her quote suggests that she believes her assault could have been

prevented had the college made more efforts to educate students on the issue.

Additionally, Penny* reflected on the lack of safety she feels on campus, saying, “Colby

is not a safe place for me anymore—I do not feel safe. “ She does not attend school dances

because “they scare and frustrate her.” Penny* also mentioned how the assault has affected

her relationships, admitting that that it is hard for her to trust men, and that “it will be a long

time before she is able to be intimate with someone again.”

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Mary*, who had a friend who transferred her freshman year after she was sexually

assaulted by a football player. He forced her to perform oral sex on him. When the survivor

reported the assault to her Community Advisor, her Community Advisor notified Campus Life,

who dismissed the case and told the CA to inform the survivor that “pursuing the case would

not be worth it.” The survivor, frustrated at the lack of disciplinary action, angry that college

officials did not seem to believe her, and concerned for her own safety, decided to leave and

transferred to another institution. Mary* also described an instance where she was at a party

and a football player lifted her dress up, humiliating and objectifying her in front of a large

group of men. While this instance seems to be more an instance of sexual harassment than

sexual assault, it is important to look both at the difference and the at the similarities between

the two, particularly in how sexual harassment and sexual assault are both bound up in issues

of power inequalities that are rooted in structural sexism and misogyny. Moreover, while one

must recognize the important difference between sexual harassment and sexual assault, one

cannot examine sexual harassment without looking at how sexual harassment oftentimes

precedes and leads to sexual assault, since; again, both sexual harassment and sexual assault

are perpetuated by the same institutions of gender oppression, and therefore, exist on a

continuum of sexual violence that blend into one another.

Carol Bohmer and Andrea Parrot illustrate the difference between sexual harassment

and sexual assault, noting that “people sometimes confuse sexual assault and sexual

harassment, or use the terms interchangeably. They are, however, different. Sexual harassment

is related more to the abuse of power, whereas sexual assault is related to force” (Bohmer,

Parrot 4). Bohmer and Parrot cite that “despite the differences between sexual harassment

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and sexual assault, many college policies use them interchangeably. They argue that such a

conflation is “inappropriate” (Bohmer, Parrot 5) and ineffective because “if they are treated

together, there is a good chance that many people—especially students—will not see the issues

separately and will not treat sexual assault with appropriate seriousness” (Bohmer, Parrot 77).

This could potentially lead to too-soft sentences for perpetrators of sexual assault, too-harsh

sentences for sexual harassers, and confusion and apathy amongst students.

Although it would be too reductive to equate sexual harassment with sexual assault, as I

said before, it is imperative that we examine the similarities between sexual harassment and

sexual assault, since both are generated from structural sexism. Carole Sheffield discusses the

similarities in her article, “Sexual Terrorism,” where she describes the ways in which “rape,

wife battery, incest, pornography, harassment, and all forms of sexual violence are all” what

she calls, “sexual terrorism,” since all are perpetuated by “a system by which males frighten

and, by frightening, control and dominate females” (Shefffield 111). She goes on to explain that

this system of fear is rooted in the institution of patriarchy, which is “the ideological foundation

of sexism in our country” (Sheffield 113). Because sexual harassment and sexual assault are

both forms of sexual terrorism, and because sexual terrorism is perpetuated by systems of

sexism, one can suggest that sexual harassment and sexual assault are related in that they both

are caused by the same institutions of structural sexism.

Sheffield further illustrates the similarities between sexual harassment and sexual

assault, by quoting author of Surviving Sexual Violence, Liz Kelly, asserting, “sexual violence

must be understood as a continuum—that is ‘a continuous series of events that pass into one

another’ united by a basic common character’” (Sheffield 115). By viewing sexual violence on a

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continuum, we are able to see the ways in which sexual harassment and sexual assault merged,

particularly the way in which “the dynamic that underscores all manifestations of sexual

terrorism,” including sexual harassment and sexual assault, “is misogyny—the hatred of

women” (Sheffield 128).

Educational researcher Nan Stein points out the merging of sexual harassment and

sexual assault in her discussion of the way in which educator’s refusal to address sexual assault

amongst students in K-12 schools contributes to an environment where other forms of gender

violence occur, arguing that more severe instances of gender violence in the world “may in fact

be fueled in our schools as sexual harassment,” noting,

“Listening to the stories of young women’s experiences of sexual harassment in schools

has led me to see that schools may in fact be training grounds for the insidious cycle of

domestic violence: girls learn that they are on their own, that the adults and others

around them will not believe them when they report sexual harassment or assault. The

school’s hidden curriculum teaches young women to suffer abuse privately, that to

resist is futile. When they witness harassment of other and fail to response they absorb

a different kind of powerlessness—that they are incapable of standing up to injustice or

acting in solidarity with their peers. Similarly, boys receive permission in schools, even

training, to become batterers through the practice of sexual harassment. Indeed, if

school authorities do not intervene and challenge boys who sexually harass, the schools

may be encouraging a continued pattern of violence in relationships. (Stein 317).

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By pointing out the ways in which sexual harassment can lead to other forms of gender

violence, ones including force, Stein illustrates how issues like sexual harassment can precede

sexual assault, since both perpetuated and allowed by an environment of misogyny and sexism.

Thus, while it would be wrong to define Mary’s* case as sexual assault, since the

football player did not seem to use physical force when lifting up her skirt, it was still an abuse

of power, and therefore, must be considered sexual harassment. Although sexual harassment

and sexual assault are by definition, different, it is imperative that we look at the ways in which

both exist on a continuum of gender violence, and are therefore, very much the same.

In a similar case involving a male athlete sexually assaulting a female student, a woman

was sexually assaulted by a men’s hockey player. Diana*, an alumni of Colby, who graduated in

2004, shared the story with me. Although she is not the survivor in the case, she had knowledge

of it, since it occurred during her time here and she was informed of it by those involved. Diana

said that after a night of partying at the hockey house, one of the men’s hockey players

attempted to rape a girl who was extremely drunk and had passed out at the house. While he

was trying to rape her, she puked on him, and ended the attack. The next morning, she woke up

“naked with her own puke on her.” When she approached some of the members of the team

the next morning to ask them what had happened the night before, “the hockey boys berated

her and threw her clothes at her.” Feeling ashamed and blaming herself for causing the assault,

the woman left the hockey house that morning and “minimized the attack,” and chose not to

report it to campus authorities. Because she did not report, nothing was done of the case,

although a small group of students did know about it. Diana said that she suspects the woman

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did not report because she “blamed herself,” noting that “the survivor knew she had been

raped…but minimized it in order to survive at Colby and live with herself.”

All of these instances of assault by a male athlete illustrate the degree to which the

system of privilege, silence, and protection both allows and ignores sexual assault by

perpetuating a system that not only creates an environment where sexual assault occurs, but

also keep the occurrence of it silent by making victims feel as though their attacks were

somehow their fault, which deters them from reporting. This creates a system that

disempowers survivors by making their stories invisible, which is specifically seen in the way all

three of the victims were forced to deny or minimize their stories by either the administration

or the college community.

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Male Entitlement and Female Disempowerment: Fraternity Culture

“There is no doubt in my mind that frats exist - they sponsor Doghead, off campus dances and parties, one of which is invitation only in the Fall -- its exclusionary and you hear a lot of scary stories of things that happen during these events. The administration is not doing anyone any favors by pretending they don't exist - everyone knows -- students, faculty, and even the taxi drivers in Waterville know.” –Sexual Assault Survivor

“The Board of Trustees of Colby voted in January 1984, to abolish fraternities and sororities because they were inconsistent with so many of the fundamental values to which the community subscribes. As mandated by the trustees, rushing, pledging, perpetuating, and initiating activities by fraternities and social organizations are strictly prohibited. Anyone engaging in these activities on or off campus, either as a member, recruiter, or potential pledge, will be suspended for a minimum of one year and may be subject to additional penalties that could include expulsion.” –“Fraternity Activity:” Colby College Student Handbook

I actually considered not including a section on the “underground fraternities” at Colby

in my thesis for several reasons: I initially thought that the frats themselves were harmless--I

have been to Doghead and exclusive frat parties before and nothing bad has ever happened to

me. I will admit that at times I felt uncomfortable and objectified at these events, but did not

feel any more objectified than I would any other Colby party. Furthermore, I have always

considered the frats a sort of joke, since they operate around a shroud of secrecy that really is

not a secret at all. In fact, I would say that the majority of Colby students know about the

fraternities and oftentimes joke about their existence. As Mary* noted, “everyone knows frats

exist here.” Moreover, while the frats certainly have high social status on campus, I have always

thought the whole idea of a “secret frat” at such a small campus is funny because it is so

unnecessary, considering that regardless of whether or not you are in a fraternity, chances are,

you see many of the same people in class and at parties anyways, so it is not like fraternities

give you the opportunity to interact with and meet people who you would not see otherwise. If

the point of a fraternity is to provide a group of boys a place to party and give them a sense of

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belonging to a group, I argue that people can have that without being in a fraternity,

particularly given Colby’s small size and lenient rules concerning students partying.

Because I did not take the frat entirely seriously throughout my four years at Colby and

therefore, did not take the time to learn about them before conducting research for my thesis, I

figured that I would not have to write about them. I was wrong. Finally, I almost did not write

about the frats because I was afraid to –I was told by several people that “calling out” such a

powerful institution would be risky, dangerous, and potentially socially ostracizing. One person

noted that if I “messed with the fraternity,” I would be “messing with the institution itself,”

since it is rumored that several trustees were in fraternities during their time at Colby, and even

continue to fund some of their activities. I think these comments shed light on the control

students perceive the fraternity to have on the social scene, as well as the culture of fear that

results in the protection of fraternities. Although many people poke fun at the fraternities,

many of these same students are hesitant to report them because they fear being socially

ostracized. While I do not believe that the fraternities have the social power to completely ruin

someone’s social life, I do think that there are a lot of students who are not in the frats who are

very much invested in protecting them, including women. Therefore, I think that it is the

combination of both the fraternities themselves and the large population of Colby students

who protect the fraternities that deters people from reporting, since students are afraid of

being socially excluded by this large group if they do report.

Given what I now know about the frats after conducting research, and given the fact

that my whole thesis is about ending the silence and empowering those who have been

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rendered invisible by silence, I think it would be hypocritical of me to NOT write about what I

know. Therefore, I have chosen to write about the frats.

The culture of privilege, silence, and protection that is seen in groups of male athletes is

similarly seen in fraternities. As quoted above, “nowhere is the brotherhood more intense, the

bonding more intimate and powerful, and the culture of protection more evident than among

athletes and fraternity members’ (Kimmel, 2008). Kimmel further discusses the way in which

fraternities operate as bastions of male entitlement by explaining, “just like among athletes,

higher-prestige fraternities promote a higher level of sexual entitlement,” which leads to higher

instances of sexual assault (Kimmel, 2008).

Chris O’Sullivan expands upon Kimmel’s discussion of fraternities and the culture of

privilege, silence, and protection that exist within them in his essay, “Fraternities and Rape

Culture.” He notes that fraternities “give group members a sense of invulnerability and

entitlement, as well as disdain for nonmembers that makes it easier to victimize them”

(O’Sullivan 26). Moreover, “people are often more aggressive in groups than they would be

individually,” since “strong identification with a group replaces individual ethics with group

ethics,” particularly in fraternities (O’Sullivan 26). Based on his research, O’Sullivan found that

“a majority of gang rapes were perpetuated by fraternity men” (O’Sullivan 27). O’Sullivan

explains why he believes fraternity men are the most common gang –rapists by discussing the

ways in which the fraternity culture degrades and objectifies females. This is specifically seen in

the pledge process, which in some frats involves “the sexual humiliation of women” (O’Sullivan

29). Even beyond pledging, many members are expected to adhere to a code that degrades

women, which is evident in ”many of the common practices of fraternity men,” which include,

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“videotaping, photographing, or merely observing through peepholes or windows a brother

having sex with a woman,” as well as common practice of conducting “sexual contests” to see

who can have sex with the most women (O’Sullivan 29). While one could argue that this

information does not apply to my research because a) “There are no frats at Colby” or b) Even if

there were, there is no way I could fully know if they are misogynist or not because they are so

“secret” or c)I did not interview any woman who was victim of a gang-rape, I think it is

important to look at both the ways in which fraternities threaten and could potentially threaten

the well-being of people in the Colby community, regardless of whether such potential has

been met (which, as we know, is hard to determine due to the culture of silencing that

accompanies sexual assault). Regardless of whether or not we are discussing gang rape or rape,

sexual assault is sexual assault and it is a fact that “fraternity men are more likely to commit

acquaintance rape”… “and gang rape…than other college men” (O’Sullivan 28).

So how does all of this information relate to Colby? Well, in many ways. For one, we

have frats and two, two women I interviewed were sexually assaulted by fraternity brothers.

These two women’s names are Brianna* and Rachel*. While I cannot elaborate on either case

due to privacy concerns, I can say that both cases were instances of acquaintance rape. While

Brianna* did not report her case, citing “that she had no interest in bringing about charges,”

Rachel* did and significantly, was the only person I interviewed who reported and was satisfied

with the outcome of reporting. Brianna* blamed, in part, “this culture that allows girls to get

sexually assaulted” on perpetuating an environment that allowed her rape. Rachel* expressed

similar sentiments regarding the misogynist Colby culture.

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While Brianna* definitely had the right to decide for herself to not press charges or

bring her cases to the Dean’s Office, I cannot help but wonder how the culture of silence,

privilege, and protection affected her decision not to report. She expressed in our interview

that she was friends with her rapists’ friends, which I believe may have also played into her

decision to not report , since she mostly likely did not want to “make waves” with the group

(which again circles back to the culture of privilege, protection, and silence).

In addition to looking at the ways in which the culture of privilege, silence, and

protection perpetuated and allowed the sexual assault of these two women, we again must

look at the way in which such a culture of male entitlement disempowers survivors by silencing

their experiences. This is particularly evident in the case of Brianna*, who in part, avoided

reporting her rapist for fear of suffering scrutiny by her and her rapist’s mutual friends. This fear

is part of the larger system of privilege, silence, and protection, which is proven by the fact that

her fear was motivated by the worry that her experience would be invalidated (and therefore

silenced) by her group of friends. In the end, her story was never reported, so her rapist was

protected from punishment. Consequently, in the eyes of the college and the law, her rape

never happened.

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Formal Structures: What Sorts of Policies Do We Have in Place to Prevent Sexual Assault? What Types of Support Systems Do We Have For Sexual Assault Survivors?

In their study, Sexual Assault on Campus,” Carole Bohmer and Andrea Parrot divide

colleges into eight categories “in terms of their management of sexual assault.” These

categories range from schools that are “proactive and attempting to create a fair and safe

environment for their students” to schools that “ignore the problem and blame the victims for

being raped” (123). These eight categories include the following:

1) Victim’s Rights Advocates: Colleges where primary prevention is the focus, with

mandated extreme penalties for offenders found guilt by the campus judicial system.

2) Ethical Colleges: Colleges where sexual assault is not tolerated.

3) Concerned Colleges: Colleges that are primarily concerned about the quality of life of

their students.

4) There-but-for-the-grace-of-God Colleges: Colleges that respond only after observing a

messy legal case from another campus.

5) Barn-Door Closers: Colleges that attempt to decrease the problems associated with

sexual assault after handling a case poorly themselves.

6) Don’t Rock the Boat Colleges: Colleges that make their decisions regarding sexual

assault on a case-by-case basis, rather than based on policy.

7) Ostrich Colleges: Colleges that do not believe that sexual assault is a problem on their

campus, because no cases have been reported there.

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8) Victim Blamers: Colleges that blame the victims for the sexual assaults perpetrated

against them.

Through my research, I have come to see Colby as a “Barn-Door Closers” college. While

Colby has not, to my knowledge, publicly handled a major sexual assault case (as in one where

local and national media are involved) wrongly, it does resemble a barn-door closing college in

its silencing of issues of sexual assault and survivors. Bohmer and Parrot note that many barn-

door schools

“Create a college task force to continue to work on the issue… and some act as if

bringing in one speaker to present a few programs will alleviate the problem. These

types of responses indicate very little understanding of the complex causes of

campus sexual assault. Campus sexual assault is such a complicated issue that one large

community presentation is not likely to make much difference in changing attitudes and

behaviors of students, faculty, or administrators” (Sexual Assault on Campus 130).

I see this sort of behavior at Colby and throughout Colby’s history—after the story of

Phil Brown was released, the college created a task force to review its sexual harassment and

sexual assault policies—I currently serve on this task force. While I definitely see the formation

of the committee as a step in the right direction, I think it only serves as a short-term band-aid

to cover deeper institutional issues that enabled Phil Brown to violate women. In this sense, by

forming short term task forces and paying for speakers, but failing to provide resources that

address the problem in the long term, the college “attempt[s]” to decrease the problems

associated with sexual assault (or in this case sexual harassment) after handling a case poorly

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themselves”—by proposing a short term solution to a complicated, multifaceted, and deep

institutional problem.

Bohmer and Parrot analyze what the implications of these short term solutions are what

these choices say about the college themselves, citing,

“This often means that the institution is interested only minimizing liability by stating

that it has done something to educate its community about sexual assault prevention. If

the college was really serious, it would it would also be interested in developing long-

term, ongoing programs, policies, and procedures that could honestly make a difference

in the way assault is viewed on campus” (Sexual Assault on Campus 131).

Thus, we have a case where Colby, being a “Barn-door closer” institution, silences sexual

assault and sexual harassment while simultaneously addressing the problem in an ineffective,

misleading way.

I preface this section with a discussion of Colby as a “Barn-door closer” institution

because I think that many of the policies and programs Colby has in place to support survivors

of sexual assault are part of a greater “Barn-door closing” system that looks like it adequately

addresses issues of sexual assault, but really only minimizes the school’s liability by producing

the facade that the school has sufficient policies and programs in place (when it really does

not).

For the purposes of this section, I will discuss Colby’s sexual assault policies and Colby’s

support programs for survivors of sexual assault separately. The critiques I pose in both

sections reflect the results of my interviews with survivors and my own academic research.

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Ineffective Policies:

“I feel like the college is turning a blind eye to this perverse, degrading, and misogynist behavior and their condoning it and lack of action makes women feel unsafe and violated.” –Sexual Assault Survivor

“If you look at the Colby stats in comparison to Bates and Bowdoin, we do not report as often.”-Professor Lyn Mikel Brown

“There is a relationship between the way cases are handled on campus and the willingness of victims to report either to campus authorities or to the police” –Carol Bohmer and Andrea Parrot

I want to begin this section on policy by making note that the Colby Sexual Assault

Policy, which is located online and is handed out to students in the form of a little yellow

pamphlet at the beginning of every year, looks like a very thorough policy—and to a certain

degree is a very good policy. It defines words like sexual assault and consent, outlines victims’

options for reporting and seeking resolution, and even includes a section of hypothetical

situations that analyze sexual assault. When I read through it for the first time, I saw very few

problems with it. However, after interviewing survivors and conducting research, I have found

that not only are many of these procedures ineffective, but the policy itself lacks substantial

protocols that should be a part of the policy. In the case that these protocols do exist, they are

not visible and survivors are not told about them, which renders them ineffective. In this

section, I will analyze some ineffective protocols and in “Solutions,” I will discuss which

protocols need to be added to the policy. These are not the only ineffective protocols; these are

just the major deficiencies in policy that I found to be most prevalent in my interviews.

1) No Known Visible Direct Source for Reporting: All of the survivors I interviewed said that

after they were assaulted, they had no idea who to call. Many of them contacted their

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Community Advisors (RA’s), some of them eventually called the Dean on call, but most of them

turned to their friends for support. There was a lot of confusion surrounding which people on

campus were mandated reporters and which ones were not. Some women avoided telling

certain sources for fear that they the source would be mandated to tell the administration

(some women feared that if the administration knew, the police would get involved, which is

not what they wanted). This often led to a lot of unnecessary frustration and confusion, and

made the whole reporting process more complicated and exhausting than it had to be. The

thing is, the College outlines who these sources in the handbook—it students to go to a dean, a

counselor, or a Volunteer Victim Advocate, and says that “all campus officials”(deans, faculty,

coaches, hall staff, security) are mandated reporters, excluding “clergy, counseling center staff,

and health center professionals.” What this tells me is that students are not being educated on

what their resources are.

Therefore, I think it imperative that the school make more efforts to educate students

on who they can call in the event that they are sexually assaulted. This information is located in

the back of the student sexual assault manual student are given at the beginning of every year,

but most students quickly throw this in the trash, and therefore, do not have access to the

information when they need it.

While I think making students more informed on who they can call in the event that

sexual assault happens to them is a step in the right direction, I think it would be even more

helpful and effective if there was one known and visible person on campus who students knew

they could call in the event that they are sexually assaulted. As the current protocol stands, a

variety of different people can respond to instances of sexual assault. While it can be beneficial

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to have a large number of contacts available to respond to sexual assault, I think in the case of

Colby, this had led to a lot of confusion amongst students. I think this is in part because all of

the contacts listed in the sexual assault policy manual have other job titles, including clergy,

Dean, Community Advisor, etc. Because of this, students do know who is trained, and

therefore, do not know who is best to call, since all of the contacts have various job titles other

than sexual assault advocate. Furthermore having a variety of different people from a variety of

different fields respond to sexually assault can oftentimes lead to a fragmented response, since

there is not one set person whose sole job is to coordinate services for sexual assault victims.

Patricia Yancey Martin argues in her essay “Coordinated Community Services for Victims of

Violence” that such a fragmented response “can deprive victims of services, and in extreme

cases, place them at risk” (Yancey Martin 444). She argues that “Since coordination of service

takes time, energy and skill” it is “a mistake” to “give workers this duty on top of a ‘regular

job”” (Yancey Martin 445). She argues that communities should hire staff whose specific role is

to coordinate services for sexual assault victims. This means that the hired person would be in

charge of communicating with the survivor and connecting the survivor with the multiple

people and organization on campus and in the community that can help the survivor. These

organization include the Dean of Student’s Office, the Heath Center, Waterville Police, etc.

Andrea Parrot and echos the necessity of this in her article, “Recommendations for College

Policies and Procedures to Deal with Acquaintance Rape,” asserting, “Unless one person is

responsible for all of these functions, they are likely t be carried out in piecemeal fashion”

(Parrot, 1991).

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Therefore, I think it would be better to have one person, known as the sexual assault

advocate, be listed as the first responder to sexual assault cases. I will discuss the specifics of

this person’s job in my “Solutions” section.

2) No known protocol for disciplining perpetrators who do not go to Colby but sexually

assaulted a Colby student on the Colby campus: If a Colby student who has been sexually

assaulted on the Colby campus chooses to seek resolution inside of the college (meaning that

they do not take their case to the Waterville Police Department, but instead choose to file a

complaint with the Dean of Students) there does not appear to be any sort of protocol for

dealing with the case if their perpetrator is not also a Colby student . I found this to be true in a

few of the cases I studied. One survivor, who was able to fight her attacker off before he forced

her to have intercourse but not after he made her to perform oral sex, said that the

administration informed her that “because he (her attacker, who was a friend of a Colby

student) didn’t go to Colby they couldn’t do much…and could make made no promises.” The

college filed a restraining order against him, which banned him from ever visiting Colby again,

but he still wrote her a letter after the restraining order was filed, explaining that he did not

know that what he did was wrong. This frustrated and hurt the survivor, because the

restraining order had prohibited him from contacting her. The letter further frustrated her

because it “proved that no one in the administration had tried to help him understand that

what he did to me was wrong…and it was important to me that they did that.” In looking back

the ordeal, the survivor commented, “I just felt like the administration did not know what to do

with themselves in a case like this.”

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One other woman I talked to had been sexually assaulted by a student who did not go

to Colby (this was a similar case, where the perpetrator was visiting another Colby student).

While she did not attempt to bring charges against him to the dean or to Waterville Police, she

told me that while she did not report for a variety of reasons, one of the reasons was because

she knew how hard it would be to press charges against a non-Colby student, since no protocol

for those cases exist (or if it does, it is not made readily available to students).

3) No visible and apparent protocol that addresses the option of changing rooms or residence

halls: Currently, there is no official protocol that concerns informing survivors that they can

change their dorm or residence if they feel unsafe. Although “The Sexual Assault Policies and

Procedures” on the Colby website state that “after an alleged sexual assault occurs, the victim

may be interested in seeking changes in academic or living situations and the College will make

reasonable efforts to accommodate such requests,” none of the survivors I talked to were told

they had such an option and it was not listed in the pamphlet. All of the women I interviewed

were under the assumption that this option did not exist, and nearly all of them expressed to

me that having the option of changing their room or residence hall would have helped them.

One survivor, who was afraid that her attacker would come back, had her friends keep guard as

she showered and bought a night-light to keep on as she slept. She notes, “going back to my

room was the hardest thing, since that was where it happened…I had people tuck me in…I did

not sleep in my room on the weekend for the rest of the semester because I just could not

stand to be there.” Looking back at her fear of her room, the survivor stated, “the college

should allow people to change their room if they wish—and students should not have to ask--it

should be offered to them. I was so messed up I did not even think to ask to move out of my

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room, but I think it would have helped me a lot.” Many of the other women I interviewed

expressed similar sentiments. Almost all of them had nightmares and flashbacks after their

assault, in part from sleeping in the same room where they had been assaulted. Almost all of

them either had friends sleep over so they would not have to be alone, or slept on their friends’

futons so that they would not have to stay in their own rooms.

4) No visible and apparent protocol outlining the rules of a Dean’s Hearing: In the event that a

survivor chooses to file a complaint in the institution, the survivor is usually given four options:

1) The survivor can describe the assault and the report would go on the perpetrator’s record

anonymously.

2) The survivor can report the assault and allow the administration to let the perpetrator know

that there was a complaint issued, but that the survivor chose not to move forward with the

complaint.

3) The survivor can agree to an informal mediation session with her survivor (which the dean

would lead).

4) The survivor can file a complaint and request a full blown hearing by the Dean’s Hearing

Board, with formal sanctions involved if the perpetrator is convicted. The Dean’s Hearing Board

is “empanelled by the Dean of Students and usually consists of three members from the Office

of the Dean of Students, a faculty member, and the chief or vice chief of the Judicial Board”

(Important Information for the Colby College Community About Sexual Assault). According to

the “Colby College Sexual Assault Policy Brochure,” “the procedures followed by the Dean’s

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Hearing Board are described in the student handbook…and the Dean’s Hearing Board follows

the procedures of the Judicial Board when applicable.”

I did some detective work and the protocol for Dean’s Hearing is outlined on the

college’s website (Go to “Colby College Student Handbook”—it is under “Student Disciplinary

Procedures: Hearing Format). What is troubling to me then is that none of my interviewees

knew that such a protocol existed because no one had informed them of it. This is problematic

because the few survivors I talked to who did go through with a hearing had no clue what to

expect and were not educated on what their rights in the process were. This lack of knowledge

only served to disempower the survivors by making the hearing process scarier and more

confusing than it had to be.

Isabelle*, who went through with the hearing said that she was upset with the process

for various reasons. For one, she was forced to testify over a speaker phone (which is not what

she wanted), and was not told that her perpetrator could hear what she was saying. When she

began to speak into the phone, she was surprised to find that he was on the other end and

could hear her. Her attacker proceeded to interrupt her and pick apart her testimony over the

speaker phone, and no one on the hearing board stopped him (she told me that it felt like she

“was talking to an angry telephone”). Before the hearing even started she was intimidated by

“his rich parents who flew in all dressed up.” While they did not speak to her, their presence

made her feel intimated and scared, “like the hearing was going to be some sort of show.” Days

before the hearing, her perpetrator was apparently telling people in his dorm that “some girl

was trying to falsely accuse him” of assault, causing her to feel further intimidation. The

survivor was also frustrated by the fact that the Hearing Board was made up of deans and

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faculty, with no students serving on the board, saying, “I would have liked to have a student sit

on the hearing…I think I would have been more comfortable.” When the hearing finally ended,

she was sent a letter five weeks later that said that the board did not have enough evidence to

convict him of sexual assault, but that they could ban him from coming near her. This pseudo

restraining order of sorts never worked and she still runs into him. They were even in a cold war

class together—and during a discussion he inappropriately raised his hand and not-so-subtly

claimed “I know what it is like to have false charges brought against me!” This only served to

further intimidate the survivor.

I depict this case in order to illustrate the way in which not making one’s protocol visible

to survivors and not explain the protocol to survivors makes the Dean’s Hearing process much

more traumatic than it has to be. Had the survivor known what the protocol was, she may have

been able to challenge some of the events that occurred during and after the hearing (for

instance had she known that according to the hearing format (and Dean Johnston), she has the

right to choose whether or not there is a speaker phone, she may have spoken up and asserted

that she did not want one). This may have made her feel more in control and empowered, thus

making the hearing process easier and more comfortable for her.

I also illustrate the woman’s story in order to suggest the ways in which the protocol is

not followed. According to the school handbook (under “Student Disciplinary Procedures”),

“proceeding are strictly confidential”—therefore, it was against school policy for survivor’s

perpetrator to tell his dorm mates that charges were being filed against him, or to tell their

class that he had been accused.

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5) Within the policy, there exists a protocol that mandates that anyone who reports their or

someone else’s sexual assault would automatically have their information, their perpetrator’s

information, etc. handed over to the police:

According to the “Important Information for the Colby College Community About Sexual

Assault,”

“All incidents reported to campus officials (excluding clergy, counseling center staff, and

health center professionals), will result in immediate notification by local police. In the

interest of protecting the well being of students and other members of the Colby

community, the College will report details of the case, including the name of the victim,

the person suspected of misconduct, and the names of the persons with information.”

This rule was brought to my attention by a graduate student at Brandeis who did a

comparative analysis of ten higher education sexual assault policies and found that Colby had a

pretty bad policy. One of her main concerns was this clause, since it “discouraged reporting of

sexual assault, as many people do not want the police involved at all” (Sexual Assault Thesis).

She informed me that the requirement “seemed to be a local law enforcement mandate that

had been required at Colby…which seemed bizarre.” Significantly, one of the survivors I

interviewed decided not to go forward with reporting the incident to Colby, in part because she

said she was “made to feel like [she] had to go to the Waterville police, which was not

something that [she] wanted to do.” From what I understand, this is mandated by local police,

and therefore, cannot be changed.

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Inadequate Support Systems:

“I was really just told that I could go see a counselor” –Sexual Assault Survivor

“I felt like I was a burden to my friends…I almost did not come back to Colby the next year.” –Sexual Assault Survivor

This section is short because according to my interviews and research, there are few

support systems in place for survivors of sexual assault at Colby. The overwhelming response I

received was that beyond counseling services, the college does not offer much help for

survivors. As one survivor exasperatingly claimed, “the level of support here is inadequate.”

Aside from counseling and the health center, many of the survivors were left to deal with their

assault alone. This is very problematic, particularly given the fact that many survivors, and many

of the survivors I interviewed, developed eating disorders, depression, anxiety, and/or post-

traumatic stress disorder after their attack. As one woman stated, “I felt like I had to support

myself all on my own…” I will discuss the types of support systems that I think need to be put in

place in the following chapter, “Suggestions.”

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Suggestions: What Can We Do To End Sexual Assault at Colby?

I think that it is very telling that I feel safe leaving my laptop unattended in Miller Library all day, yet I do not feel safe going to certain parties on campus…there seems to be certain unsaid community rules on this campus that people follow and then there are community rules that do not exist but definitely should…” –Sexual Assault Survivor

“Schools with a sexual assault policy do not necessarily have higher reporting rates than those with no policy. Even if a policy exists, it may well not be publicized, and students may be unaware that it exists. If the policy is known to students but is not carried out in the event of a violation, victims may be less likely to report cases of acquaintance rape or sexual assault. On the other hand, if a policy has been in effect and serious sanctions have been carried out, students learn that acquaintance rape and sexual assault behaviors will not be tolerated on campus.”—Carol Bohmer and Andrea Parrot

Suggestions for Revisions to Formal Structures and Policies

1) More Prevention Efforts: The Qualities of the Best Sexual Assault Prevention Programs (Taken from the manual Change Happens: A Guide to Reforming Your Campus Sexual Assault Policy, which is published by the nonprofit organization, “Students Active for Ending Rape”).

*The prevention efforts must be adequately funded and fully staffed.

*The prevention efforts must be universal—they must reach all students of the college, not just first years.

*The prevention efforts must be continuous—programs should be given throughout the year, not just during one event or one time of the year.

*The prevention efforts must be multi-faceted—programs should use many approaches, and must not be limited to one class or one speaker. Effective prevention efforts will incorporate a variety of approaches, including presentations, speakers, classes, poster campaigns, etc..

*Prevention efforts must challenge all forms of oppression in meaningful ways—this means that in addition to challenging sexism and misogyny, they must also challenge heterosexism, ableism, racism, homophobia, etc.

*Prevention efforts must be relevant to all student populations, including marginalized communities such as ethnic or religious minorities and the queer community—this is to say

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that all programs aimed at preventing sexual assault must be broad enough in scope to reach minority groups within the student population.

*Prevention efforts must be generationally relevant to students—this means that the prevention efforts must be up-to-date to ensure that the efforts are interesting and entertaining to the student population.

*▪Prevention efforts must be properly written and executed in a written policy--there needs to exist some sort of document outlining what the College’s specific prevention efforts are. In addition, there must be some student oversight to make sure that College is following through on its prevention efforts.

*Prevention efforts must educate students on the societal causes of sexual assault, rather than focusing on what women can do to avoid being attacked.

*Prevention efforts must not rely on scare tactics.

Sexual Assault Prevention and Advocacy Center:

The College needs to provide, fund, and staff more efforts to prevent sexual assault. Before I list

what these specific prevention efforts should be, I want to briefly propose the development of

a “Sexual Assault Prevention and Advocacy Center,” which would house staff, resources, and

space for sexual assault prevention programs, and would help the Colby community implement

and carry out an effective sexual assault prevention program.

This center should be a visible and safe space for students and student sexual assault

survivors to go. While it could be a separate space all on its own, I think that it should be part of

what hopefully will become the “Colby Sexual and Gender Diversity Resource Center.” A group

of students, faculty, and alumni have just composed a proposal for this center, which will be

presented to the administration and hopefully the Board of Trustees soon. While I did not help

write the proposal, I am a part of the group advocating for the center, and I was one of four

students who visited Bowdoin’s Sexual and Gender Diversity Resource Center in March to

gather research for the proposal. Bowdoin’s Sexual and Gender Diversity Resource Center

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houses resources, staff, and meeting rooms for women’s groups, queer groups, and sexual

assault prevention and support programs. Seeing how successful Bowdoin’s program has been,

I think it would be best for Colby to model the same center. Moreover, seeing how sexual

assault is bound up in various issues of gender and sexuality, particularly misogyny,

heterosexism, and homophobia, it makes sense to house women’s resources, queer resources,

and sexual assault prevention and support resources all in the same place.

The “Sexual Assault Prevention and Advocacy Center,” will employ 4 staff people who

would be in charge of implementing, conducting, and overseeing all sexual assault prevention

efforts, such as poster campaigns, speakers, and educational programs such as a campus-wide

“Take Back the Night” and “The Clothesline Project.” They will also be in charge of advocating

and helping survivors of sexual assault on campus. These four staff persons’ titles and jobs will

include:

a) Sexual Assault Prevention Educator:

Nearly all of the women I interviewed suggested that there needs to be a paid

staff person in charge of educating students at Colby on sexual assault. According to my

research, having a sexual assault prevention educator on staff is imperative to creating a

rape-free community, since in order to prevent sexual assault we must first educate

students on what it is.

This person will be in charge of all sexual assault prevention programming. She

or he should have experience working in sexual assault prevention education, relevant

volunteer experience and/or an applicable degree such as women’s, gender, and

sexuality studies, queer studies, etc. It is important that this person’s ONLY job be

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Sexual Assault Prevention Educator because the person must have an active and visible

presence on campus, so students are familiar and feel comfortable approaching

her/him, and having another job would take up time that should be dedicated to

meeting, interacting, and educating students.

b) Sexual Assault Survivor Advocate:

Similarly, almost all of the survivors I interviewed expressed that they did not

know who to call when they were sexual assaulted, and said that they would have

benefited from having one person who is knowledgeable about sexual assault and Colby

advocate for them through the process of reporting, preparing for a hearing, etc.

Similarly, the schools I researched that have the best policies also have Sexual Assault

Survivor Advocates. I also saw this need especially when I advocated for one survivor

this past year when I acted as a liaison between the survivor and the administration.

Significantly, the woman felt much more comfortable reporting her assault to the Deans

after I informed her of her options for reporting and assured her that her case would be

treated fairly, which I gathered from my meeting with Dean Johnson.

I think this helped her feel comfortable in three ways: 1) By having me

essentially represent her to Dean Johnson by telling her story and asking her options,

she did not have to relive the experience again, and therefore, was able to emotionally

focus on taking care of herself and recovering, rather than recounting her traumatic

ordeal over and over. 1) Knowing that I am knowledgeable in the area of sexual assault

and familiar with the schools’ policies, I think talking to me about the policies, her

options for reporting, and what the reporting process would look like, made her feel

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comfortable because she knew what to expect when she decided to report, and

therefore, felt more at-ease going into the reporting process. 3) Knowing that I am both

a peer and knowledgeable in the area of sexual assault and Colby’s policies, I think she

trusted me more than she would a Dean or someone connected to the administration

because she saw me as more on her level and therefore, it was easier for her to relate to

me and talk to me about her assault. Moreover, I think she trusted my opinion on what

she should do because she knew that as a student and a peer unconnected to the deans

or administration, I was looking out for her best interest, rather than the interest of the

institution, reputation, etc.

The person who holds this position should have experience working in sexual assault

survivor advocacy, relevant volunteer experience, and/or an applicable degree. They will serve

as the “go-to” person for reporting and will help survivors throughout the entire reporting

process, informing the survivor of their options, accompanying the survivor to meeting and

hearings, and helping the survivor in any way possible. Like the Sexual Assault Prevention

Educator, it is important that this person’s ONLY job be Sexual Assault Prevention Educator

because the person must have an active and visible presence on campus, so students are

familiar and feel comfortable approaching her/him, and having another job would take up time

that should be dedicated to meeting, interacting, and educating students.

While one could argue the positions of Sexual Assault Prevention Educator and Sexual

Assault Survivor Advocate should be the same person, I think that advocating for sexual assault

survivors and being in charge of implementing sexual assault prevention programs for an

entire College is too large of a task for one person, and therefore, I divide the positions into two

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people. That being said, I think it is imperative that these two staff people work together as a

team to ensure that there is no fragmentation in services. I think both of them should be

involved in each other’s work and work more as a team than as individuals. This would mean

that they help each other with their colleagues’ work, meet together daily to update each

other on any new events, and coordinate programs and services together when possible.

c) Student Sexual Assault Advocates (2):

In addition to expressing the need for a Sexual Assault Prevention Educator and

a Sexual Assault Survivor Advocate, many of the survivors I interviewed suggested that

they would have benefited from having a peer advocate who they could report to and

receive help from. Like the survivor I advocated for, many survivors feel more

comfortable talking to peers, therefore, having peer advocates who report to the head

advocate would be a necessary component of an effective sexual assault prevention

program at Colby. Bowdoin has a similar program that is based in the “Sexual and

Gender Diversity Resource Center,” with a group of students who are known on campus

as the student sexual assault advocates. These students undergo extensive training and

work hard to be visible to students at Bowdoin, so students and survivors are able to

identify them in the case that they need to report or talk to one of the advocates about

an assault. They also assist in sexual assault prevention and education program and help

organize events like “Take Back the Night,” etc. These students report to the head

Sexual Assault Advocate staff person. According to the Bowdoin website, the “Sexual

and Gender Diversity Resource Center” has a student director and two student program

assistants, who assist staff persons at the center. These students are paid through work

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study funds to help educate students on topics of sexual and gender diversity, including

issues of sexual assault.

In somewhat of a similar fashion, I think Colby should develop two work-study

jobs for students to serve as sexual assault advocates and educators. I think these two

students should help with advocating for survivors and should also be very involved in

educating the student body on issues of sexual assault. Therefore, both students would

report to and assist the Sexual Assault Prevention Educator and the Sexual Assault

Advocate. These two students should undergo extensive sensitivity and diversity

training, have relevant volunteer experiences, and should be upperclassmen. In addition

to reporting to the Sexual Assault Prevention Educator and Advocate, these two

students will also oversee a group of student volunteers who will serve as a “Sexual

Assault Education and Prevention Team.” This group of student will also be trained

advocates and in charge of helping planning and implementing sexual assault

prevention programs.

Sexual Assault Prevention Programs and Recommendation:

(My recommendations are in part inspired by the suggestions found in the manual Change

Happens: A Guide to Reforming Your Campus Sexual Assault Policy, which is published by the

nonprofit organization, “Students Active for Ending Rape”)

1) Security Escort Services: Although Colby does provide escorts and safe rides for students late

at night, one weakness is that there does not appear to be an option to request a same-sex

escort or safe-ride driver. Judging by the fact that Colby Security is predominately men, having

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the option to request a same-sex escort may not even be possible. This is problematic because

some women do not feel comfortable walking or riding in a car alone at night with men they do

not know, especially women who have been sexually assaulted by men. Not having this option

may deter them from asking for an escort or a ride. I propose that Colby either make it known

to the student body that they can ask for a same-sex escort, and if that option is not possible,

hire more female security officers so that it can become possible.

2) Self-Defense Classes: Colby does provide self-defense classes for students; however,

according to my research very few people attend these classes. I am not sure why this is the

case, but from my research, I have gathered that they have not been well advertised and often

occur at random times during the year. I have also heard that some women have been turned

off by the fact that they are taught by male security officers and not a woman. While it is

definitely okay to have male security officers teaching self defense classes, it is important to

also have a woman teaching classes. For many women who have been either attacked or

sexually assaulted by men, learning self defense from a man can be scary and traumatic. I

suggest that Colby hire a female self defense teacher to come in once every two weeks to give a

self defense class separate from the ones taught by security. This class should be well-

advertized, free to all students, and should occur on a consistent basis.

3) Crisis Counseling/Hotline: Crisis counseling, including access to trained sexual assault

advocates must be available on campus 24 hours a day 7 days a week for Colby students.

According to the “Colby Sexual Assault Policy Handbook,” the college usually recommends

Colby students to call Lydia-Bolduc Marden (volunteer victim advocate) the local rape crisis

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hotline, the Waterville Police Department, Security, the counselor on call, or the Dean’s Office

when they need to talk to someone about sexual assault. While these are all very good ,

effective, and helpful options, they are all located in different departments, which I think

sometimes gets confusing for survivors and results in a fragmented response that can

potentially decrease the quality of service that the survivor receives. Moreover, these options

are not well advertised, as most all of the women I interviewed expressed that they did not

know who to contact after their assault.

I think a better option would be to have one hotline on campus that sexual assault

survivors can immediately contact to get connected to whichever services they need (whether

that be Lydia Bolduc-Marden, a counselor, or a Dean). Whoever works this hotline should be a

trained sexual assault advocate, and should be well-informed about Colby’s policies and system

of reporting, so that she/he will know how to best help the survivor and connect them to the

services they need. The person should also be appropriately trained to counsel and help

marginalized populations such as ethnic or religious minorities, members of the queer

community, and disabled people.

4) Health Center Services: In the event that a student is sexually assaulted, the Health Center

should provide emergency contraception free of charge to the survivor. Currently, the Health

Center does have Plan B available to students, but students are charged for the amount the

Health Center pays for the medicine. According to Nurse Practitioner Lydia Marden, if a sexual

assault survivor goes to an emergency room, Plan B and is completely free of charge. However,

in the Health Center, Plan B can be only be administered for free on a case by case basis.

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Rather than administer Plan B on a case by case basis, I suggest that the Health Center make it a

mandate to give sexual assault survivors Plan B free of charge.

In addition to Plan B, antibiotics and prophylaxis should be made available free of

charge to sexual assault survivors in the Health Center. Additionally, a certified Sexual Assault

Nurse Examiner should be available on campus. Currently, antibiotics are totally free in the

Emergency Room but not at Colby. However, pregnancy tests are available for free to Colby

students. Although Lydia Bolduc-Marden is trained as a certified Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner,

she cannot gather a rape kit at Colby due to strict protocol that deems rape kits must go

through a “chain of evidence.” This protocol ensures that in the event that a rape kit is used in

a court of law, none of the evidence has been tampered with. While Bolduc-Marden can

perform a medical exam and give an STD screening to sexual assault survivors, she cannot

perform a rape kit due to these restrictions. Therefore, in order to get a rape kit, students must

go off campus to the emergency room. While this is problematic because it adds another step

to the reporting process and therefore, can potentially cause more stress for the survivor, it

does not seem to be something we can change. However, Colby can change the fact that it does

not seem to have antibiotics available free of charge for sexual assault survivors by mandating

that sexual assault survivors must be able to receive antibiotics for free if they want them.

The availability of these services should be publicized in the student handbook, by

announcements during orientation, on official bulletin boards, and on a poster in the office of

the Health Center. I find it problematic that students do not know about the services that do

exist.

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5) Increased Education on Sexual Assault Currently, Colby offers education on sexual assault

through the “Colby Sexual Assault Policy” brochure, First-Year Supper Seminar Lectures, and

discussions offered by the organization, Student Health on Campus (Letter to Colby Students

from Jim Terhune, located inside the handbook). Although these efforts seem to be sufficient, I

have found in my research that Colby students are largely uninformed on issues of sexuality,

sexual health, and sexual assault. Therefore, while these programs probably raise some

awareness, they are inadequate. This means that Colby needs to implement more educational

programs that raise awareness about sexual assault and issues pertaining gender and sexuality,

since ,as we have established, sexual assault is inextricably linked to issues of gender and

sexuality, particularly heterosexism, homophobia, etc. These educational programs should

come in various forms, should occur consistently all year, and should reach the entire student

body, including juniors and seniors and minority groups.

According to my research, I have found that one weakness in Colby’s sexual assault

education program is that the programs they do have in place seem to only be directed at first

year students. Programs that are directed at older students are not well advertised and are very

inconsistent. Therefore, in addition to adding more programs that are more effective, the

college needs to improve upon the ones it already has by directing programs at the entire study

body and publicizing them effectively in order to make the already existing educational

programs better. The new educational programs that I think the College should adopt include

the following:

a) Sexual Assault Education for First-Years at Orientation: At orientation, first year

students should receive information on the societal causes of sexual assault, sexual

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assault at Colby, and Colby’s sexual assault policy. The education should come in many

forms, including skits, discussions, speakers, pamphlets, etc. The specifics of the sexual

assault policy, including definitions of key terms found in the policy, procedures for

reporting, and resources available to student survivors will be reviewed. The policy itself

should be examined in small groups to ensure each individual’s comprehension of the

policy.

In addition to examining the societal causes of sexual assault, sexual assault at

Colby, and the logistics of Colby’s policy, first-year students should be educated on

topics such as respect for self and others, unimpaired judgment, safer sex practices, how

to ask for consent, ways to say no, and how to make healthy sexual decisions for

yourself.

Sexual assault prevention education for first-year students at orientation should

be addressed by a variety of sources, including the “Sexual Assault Prevention

Educator,” the “Sexual Assault Advocate,” student advocates, Community Advisors, and

COOT Leaders.

b) Sexual Assault Prevention Education for Community Leaders: Community leaders,

including Community Advisors, COOT Leaders, members of Student Government,

sports captains, and club leaders should receive a yearly review of the Colby Sexual

Assault Policy. This overview should include information on the societal causes of sexual

assault, sexual assault at Colby, and Colby’s sexual assault policy. The education should

come in many forms, including skits, discussions, speakers, pamphlets, etc. The specifics

of the sexual assault policy, including definitions of key terms found in the policy,

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procedures for reporting, and resources available to student survivors will be reviewed

from orientation. The policy itself should be examined in small groups to ensure each

individual’s comprehension of the policy.

In addition to examining the societal causes of sexual assault, sexual assault at

Colby, and the logistics of Colby’s policy, community leaders should be reminded of

topics such as respect for self and others, unimpaired judgment, safer sex practices, how

to ask for consent, ways to say no, and how to make healthy sexual decisions for

yourself.

Sexual assault prevention education for community leaders should be conducted

by the “Sexual Assault Prevention Educator,” the “Sexual Assault Survivor Advocate,”

and student advocates.

c) Sexual Assault Prevention Education for Security, Faculty, and Staff: Colby College

faculty and staff should receive a yearly review of the Colby Sexual Assault Policy. This

overview should include information on the societal causes of sexual assault, sexual

assault at Colby, and Colby’s sexual assault policy. The education should come in many

forms, including skits, discussions, speakers, pamphlets, etc. The specifics of the sexual

assault policy, including definitions of key terms found in the policy, procedures for

reporting, and resources available to community survivors will be reviewed. In addition,

security, faculty, and staff will be educated on how to best help student survivors,

connect them to the resource offered at the Sexual Assault Prevention and Education

Center, and advocate for their students if they choose to do so. The policy and the steps

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faculty and staff should take to help survivors should be examined in small groups to

ensure each individual’s comprehension of the policy.

Sexual assault prevention education for security, faculty, and staff should be

conducted by the “Sexual Assault Prevention Educator,” the “Sexual Assault Survivor

Advocate,” and student advocates.

d) Sexual Assault Prevention and Education for Prospective Students, Campus Visitors,

and Guest Performers: Prospective students, campus visitors, and guest performers

should all be informed on what the Colby Sexual Assault Policy is. While the education

they receive does not have to be as extensive as the education students, faculty, and

staff receive, because they are not long-term members of our community, it is

important that they understand Colby’s community standards. I have found in my

research that oftentimes, Colby has a hard time dealing with cases that involve a

perpetrator who does not go to Colby (and survivors that are Colby students).

Therefore, In order to prevent visitors from violating our code of conduct, I think it is

necessary to educate visitors on our policy, so they are aware both aware of our

community standards and the consequences they will face if they violate our community

standards.

Moreover, I think it is a good move of the college to educate prospective

students on our policy, since it emphasizes Colby’s concern for sexual assault survivors

and value in cultivating a respectful community, which definitely looks good (and may

even attract some students). Discussing the policy with prospective students is also a

good idea because it will outline our expectations from the start, so students are aware

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of the community standards before they even matriculate, which may make it likelier

that they will adhere to these standards.

Education for prospective students, campus visitors, and guest performers

should come in the form of a pamphlet outlining the policy and a contract that must be

signed agreeing to follow our community standards before they are allowed in our

community. The pamphlet will be made and distributed by the Sexual Assault

Prevention Educator.

e) Make WGSS Courses a Requirement: Currently, Colby students, in addition to their

major(s) or minor(s), are required to take three semesters of a foreign language, English

115, three Janplans, one arts class, one historical studies class, one literature class, one

quantitative reasoning class, two natural sciences class, one social sciences class, and

two “diversity” classes. However, no one is required to take a Women’s, Gender, and

Sexuality Studies class. While one could argue that a WGSS course would be one of the

few classes that would qualify for the “diversity” requirement and therefore, many

people take them, unfortunately, the diversity requirement at Colby is so broad that

people can take almost anything to fulfill it, and therefore, the vast majority of students

at Colby never take a course on gender or sexuality.

I think this is problematic for a number of reasons, one being that by requiring

students to take two sciences classes and yet no WGSS classes, the school suggests that

learning science is more important than learning about issues of gender and sexuality,

and thus suggests that they value subjects like astronomy more than women’s history

and queer theory. While I do not deny that learning science is important, I think that

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learning about issues of gender and sexuality is just as important (if not more

important) to my life and to the improvement of humanity. Moreover, by not

requiring students to take a WGSS course, Colby misses out on a great opportunity to

educate its students on topics that are at the very core of sexual assault issues, issues

such as gender oppression, female subjectivity, and homophobia.

In fact, exposure to a WGSS course at Colby has been proven to increase

student’s awareness about sexual assault. I saw this especially this year when I

presented the preliminary work of my thesis to Mark Tappan’s popular education class,

“Boys to Men.” The class is popular among seniors who are looking for an interesting

and fun class outside of their major, and Mark requires that the course be composed of

half men and half women. Consequently, there were many men in the class who were

not familiar with issues of sexual assault and had never taken anything close to a WGSS

course. After listening to my presentation on sexual assault at Colby, the men were

visibly upset and gathered outside the classroom to further discuss what they could to

help prevent sexual assault.

The class continued to discuss issues of sexual assault after my presentation,

examining topics like male entitlement and misogyny and the male students became

very interested in figuring out a way they could help raise awareness about sexual

assault. This group of men eventually became Colby’s chapter of “Male Athletes

Against Violence,” a group that is currently working to change campus culture and

make sexual assault a men’s issue. I interviewed one of the founders of MAAV, Cody

McKinny, to discuss his opinions on what the Colby community should do to prevent

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sexual assault and he recommended that students should be required to take WGSS

classes like “Boys to Men,” citing, “I would have never known that sexual assault is such

as big issue had I not taken that class.”

Therefore, I propose that Colby require all students to take one WGSS course

during their four years at Colby. I think this move will be very effective in educating the

student body on issues related to sexual assault, not because each course deals directly

with sexual assault, but because almost all WGSS courses discuss topics that relate to

sexual assault and gender violence. These courses will make students more sensitive to

gender oppression, will get students talking about issues of gender and sexuality, and

will force the Colby community to evaluate systems of oppression and privilege that

contribute to sexual assault. Hopefully by educating more students on issues of gender

and sexuality we will be able to inspire more students like Cody McKinney to become

activists against sexual assault.

f) Provide more Support for Clubs and Student Organizations that Raise Awareness

About Issues of Sexual and Gender Diversity: It is important that organizations like the

Women’s Group and the Bridge—groups that educate the community and raise

awareness about issues of sexual and gender diversity--receive ample financial and

administrative support from the college to ensure that these issues are talked about and

discussed amongst the student body. I am affiliated with both groups, and from what I

know, both organizations receive support from the College, however, some things could

be improved.

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For instance, this year the Bridge was not allowed to drape colored paper

over the columns of miller steps to form a rainbow for pride week. Last year, a group of

students illegally made the rainbow, but they were warned that if they did it this year,

they would be severely punished. From what I understand, the issue was that the

college cannot make overt political statements on the steps. Moreover, Bridge members

were told that the banners would apparently violate some sort of PPD decoration code.

While this may seem like a small and insignificant crack-down on rules by the college,

not allowing the rainbow to go up during pride week suggests that the college does not

value sexual and gender diversity as much as it values institutional aesthetics. Since

sexual assault is inherently linked to issues of sexual and gender diversity, by not

allowing a symbol in support of sexual and gender diversity to go up, the college

inadvertently suggests that they do not want to make sexual assault awareness and the

issues related to it a priority. Although the college argues that letting the flags fly would

make an overt political statement, which is against college policy, what they fail to

realize is that by not allowing the rainbow to fly on the steps, Colby makes what I see to

be an even larger political statement that reveals its investment in maintaining

normative standards of gender and sexuality. This is highly problematic, particularly

because by maintaining normative construction of gender and sexuality, ideas which

again, are inherently linked to issues of sexual assault, the college suggests that they

want to maintain that same oppressive institutions of gender oppression that

perpetuates rape culture.

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g) Offer More Women Positions in the Administration and on the Board of Trustees:

While such a recommendation may seem unrelated to sexual assault, the suggestion

that more women be offered administrative positions at Colby directly relates to

decreasing instances of sexual assault because sexual assault and the male-dominated

hierarchy in Eustis are both are symptoms of structural sexism and patriarchy. If we

were to break down the male-dominated structure of Eustis by hiring more female

Deans, more women would be involved in the major decision-making of the college.

Involving more women in the major-decision making of the college is imperative to

breaking down structural sexism at Colby because a female Dean would have what

feminist theorist Uma Narayan calls an “epistemic advantage.” Narayan illustrates the

meaning of “epistemic advantage” when she asserts that

“A fundamental thesis of feminist epistemology is that our location in the

world as women makes it possible for us to perceive and understand

different aspects of both the world and human activities in ways that

challenge the male bias of existing perspectives” (Narayan 332).

Therefore, because women have an epistemic advantage and therefore, understand the

world in ways that challenge the male patriarchal status quo, it is important to include

women in any decision-making body in order to ensure that the organization is

considering the needs of females and being fair to all women. This rule especially

applies to organizations like the administration of a co-ed college, since the

administration makes decisions that affect the lives of both men and women. Narayan

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contends that the inclusion of women in these groups will help break down structural

sexism inherent in patriarchal structures, noting,

“Feminist epistemology suggests that integrating women’s contribution

into the domain of science and knowledge will not constitute a

mere adding of details; it will not merely widen the canvas but result in

a shift of perspective enabling us to see a very different picture. The

inclusion o f women’s perspectives will not merely amount to women

participating in greater numbers in the existing practice of science

and knowledge, but it will change the very nature of these

activities and their self- understanding” (Narayan 332).

Thus, while my suggestion does not seem to make sense at first, my assertion

that the school should hire more female Deans and trustees in order to reduce sexism

and sexual assault makes perfect sense once one considers how a women’s “epistemic

advantage” contributes to a group’s improved understanding of women.

h) Look Into How We Can Change the Culture of “Colby Dances:” The connection

between Colby dances and sexual assault, a connection that was seen in the College’s

decision to eliminate the “Screw Your Roommate Dance,” is a connection see at almost

all Colby dances. This parallel is evident in the blatant disregard for people’s personal

boundaries and physical autonomy at Colby dances. Many students at these dances

have no problem aggressively grabbing other students or rubbing their genital against

unsuspecting women. I have even heard of men reaching their hands up women’s skirts

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and forcibly fingering their “dancing partner” as they “grind.” While many students

claim that these moves are all a part of “dancing” or “grinding” I see it as blatant sexual

assault. Equating ”dancing” with sexual assault dangerously contributes and supports

rape culture because by justifying sexual assault as an accepted form of dancing,

students normalize sexual assault as something that is an expected component of the

social scene. The integration and normalization of sexual assault in the social scene is

really dangerous because when something is normalized in a culture, people begin to

think that it is “normal” and therefore, acceptable. If the “Screw Your Roommate

Dance” was as bad as The Echo revealed it to be, I agree that abolishing such a

misogynistic tradition was imperative to creating a safer and assault-free culture.

However, rather than abolish Colby dances, I argue that we must look into ways to

create a different dance culture at Colby, one that is characterized by mutual respect

and fun.

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2) Revisions to the Colby Sexual Assault Policy:

1) Define sexual assault more clearly: The Colby College Sexual Assault brochure defines sexual

assault as “sexual activity, or any kind, with a person without the person’s consent. It includes

sexual conduct commonly known as rape, or other sexual misconduct, whether forcible or non-

forcible. When sexual assault occurs in a relationship it is called acquaintance rape. Either males

or females can be aggressors in sexual assault, and sexual assault can occur in same-sex

relationships” (Important Information for the Colby Community About Sexual Assault).

While this is a very thorough and factual definition, I have found in my research that the

most effective sexual assault policies clearly define sexual assault and break the definition up

into categories indicating severity. The reason for this is because breaking sexual assaults down

into degrees of severity allows school officials to form more clearly determined and transparent

disciplinary sanctions that correspond to violations of each degree. For instance, some schools

define “first degree assault” as threats or attempts at sexual assault, such as “threatening to or

attempting to put your genital in someone’s mouth against their will,” and “second degree

assault” as overt nonconsensual sexual contact, such as “forcing your genital into someone’s

mouth.” Violators of second degree sexual assault are punished more severely than violators of

first degree sexual assault and the corresponding punishment are outlined in the student sexual

assault policy. As the current policy stands, sexual assault is defined too broadly to have

transparent mandated disciplinary sanctions, so I suggest that Colby revise its definition of

sexual assault to include different degrees of severity so that they can develop corresponding

degrees of discipline, and thus, make their policies more transparent and accessible to

students.

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2) Clearly define and outline specific disciplinary sanctions that correspond to defined

degrees of sexual assault: See above.

2) Require mandatory counseling for perpetrators who are convicted but not expelled: In

cases that do not involve expulsion, all students found to be in violation of the school’s policy

should be required to attend at least twenty one-hour counseling sessions free of charge from

Colby counseling services, addressing the prevention of future assaults. Failure to attend

counseling sessions should result in expulsion. Currently, Colby does not require perpetrators of

sexual assault to attend mandatory counseling. Dean of Students Dean Johnson explained to

me that the school used to mandate this, but the counseling center has found it to be highly

ineffective “and a complete waste of people’s time” because the perpetrators almost always

refuse to engage with the counselor. Consequently, the school dropped the mandate. While I

see where Dean Johnson and the staff at the counseling center are coming from, I argue that

one way to fix this problem is to expel those who do not fully engage themselves in the

required counseling. This would force perpetrators to participate in the therapy and work

through the issues that led to their attack.

This is extremely important because people who commit sexual assault must address

both why the assault happened and ways they can prevent future assaults in order to ensure

that it does not happen again. This protects both the perpetrator and the Colby community.

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2) Create a system for anonymous reporting:

Currently, there does not exist a system for anonymous reporting of sexual assault that

allows a student to notify the community that a sexual assault has taken place without giving

identifying information of the people involved or initiating campus and police disciplinary

action. Anonymous reporting is particularly important because some survivors do not want

their identities revealed or their perpetrator’s identity revealed, and are afraid that by

reporting, they will automatically involve campus authorities and Waterville Police (I discussed

this in my previous section on “Inadequate and Ineffective Policies”). Therefore, I propose that

Colby create and publicize a system by which students, faculty, and administrators can make an

anonymous report electronically, entering only information necessary to prevent double report

in the same assault. I discussed this with Dean Johnston and he said that the administration is

looking into the possibility of implementing an anonymous system of reporting that would

allow people to report online. This system would also give the anonymous reporter the next

steps they could take in the event that they wanted to report further and would list the support

services available to them.

3) Consult with all faculty and staff and the local police department to collect accurate

statistics regarding the number of sexual assault reported each year (necessary for

compliance with Clery Act).

Orientation for new faculty—Lori Kleitzer and Michael Donahue—find out if they discuss during

faculty orientation.

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4) Ensure that all students and staff receive a report at the beginning of each school year that

lists the number of sexual assaults that have occurred on campus (necessary for compliance

with Clery Act). According to my research, these statistics are made available to students and

staff on the campus website, however, the site is not easy to access (it took me a while to find

it) and students are staff do not seem to be aware that these statistics by law, are made

available to them. I think Colby needs to do a better job publishing these statistics to ensure

that the community is well-informed on the issue of sexual assault on our campus.

5) Revise the “Important Information for the Colby College Community About Sexual Assault”

brochure so students can easily understand exactly what will occur during disciplinary

proceedings by reading the brochure once: As it exists, the brochure only seems to give a

rough overview of what will happen in the reporting and disciplinary process, which is found in

the section “What are you options for resolution inside the college?” While its facts are

accurate and informative, it is not substantial enough to give students a thorough idea of what

will occur in the disciplinary proceedings. Therefore, I propose that the college establish a

committee to both establish and rewrite the disciplinary proceedings in plain language that is

accessible to all students. Moreover, I propose that this same committee work to adequately

publicize the disciplinary procedures so that all students are aware of them.

6) Provide complainants with immunity from disciplinary action for minor offenses such as

underage drinking or recreational drug use at the time of the assault: Currently, Colby does

provide students with immunity from disciplinary sanctions for minor offenses such as drinking

underage or using drugs at the time of the assault. This is extremely important because some

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sexual assault survivors are afraid to report their assault for fear of being punished for drinking

or smoking marijuana. This is especially important given the fact that the majority of sexual

assaults that occur at Colby involve alcohol and drugs. This right to immunity should be well

publicized, so students are aware of the rule and thus, will not be deterred from reporting.

Currently, I do not think this fact is well publicized, since students do not know about it, which

is highly problematic because victims of sexual assault could potentially be deterred from

reporting for fear of being punished for a minor offense at the time of the attack.

7) Disciplinary procedures must include a provision for disciplinary action against the

complainant: As it stands, the ‘Colby Sexual Assault Manual” does not discuss any sort of

disciplinary for a complainant who intentionally falsely accuses a student of assault. In order to

ensure that people do not make false reports against students, Colby should include a provision

in its policy that outlines disciplinary action that is meant for complainants who intentionally

falsely accused other students of sexual assault. This provision could look like, “If, during the

course of the proceedings, it becomes apparent that intentionally false accusations have been

made, the false complainant will be subject to disciplinary sanction up to and including

expulsions.

8) Complainants must be provided immunity from disciplinary action if cases prove to be

inconclusive: Colby’ s Sexual Assault Manual does not discuss what happens to the complainant

if cases are inconclusive. It is important to adopt and outline such a policy in the manual so

students are not deterred from reporting for fear of suffering disciplinary action in the case that

they lose their case. Therefore, the school should adopt something that resembles the

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following policy, “If, upon completion of the disciplinary proceedings, evidence is inconclusive,

neither the complainant nor the accused student(s) will be subject to disciplinary action.”

9) The disciplinary hearing panel should include students: As the policy stands, survivors who

bring their cases to formal hearings report to “The Board for Sexual Misconduct.” The

establishing of this board is fairly recent. Dean Johnston explained to me that they developed

the protocol for the formation and the conduct of the board last year. The board is in fact, so

new, that it has yet to hear any cases. Consequently, none of the survivors I interviewed had

reported to Board of Sexual Misconduct, but rather reported to the “Dean’s Hearing Board.”

Previously, sexual assault survivors who brought their cases to formal hearing reported to the

Dean’s Hearing Board, which was “empanelled by the Dean of Students” and includes three

members from the office of the Dean of Students, a faculty members, and the chief or vice chief

of the Judicial Board (Important Information for the Colby College Community About Sexual

Assault). This board did not include students. However, the new “Board for Sexual Misconduct,”

includes the Conduct Officer, three faculty and administration members (other than deans), and

Vice President and Dean of the Students Representative. The Student Co-Chair of the Conduct

Board can sit on the case, but only if “the victim and the accused student mutually agree”

(Student Disciplinary Procedures: Sexual Misconduct Hearing).

According to my research, it is important that hearing panels include students because

“students are more able to relate to the experience of survivors and accused students than

older adults are” (Burczak). Moreover, the few survivors I interviewed who did bring their case

to a hearing indicated that having a student board member would have made them feel more

comfortable.

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According to Change Happens: A Guide to Reforming Your Campus Sexual Assault Policy,

written by Ashley Burczak and published by the nonprofit, “Students Active for Ending Rape,”

“unless the school is so small that it is impossible to keep the hearing panelists from running

into complainants and accused students, the benefits of having peers involved in the process

outweigh the disadvantages” (46). While it is debatable whether or not Colby is big enough to

ensure that student hearing board members will not run into complainants and accused

students, I think that leaving the option for including students on the hearings of sexual assault

cases is a good move by the school.

10) The disciplinary hearing panel must include a process whereby panelists can be removed

prior to the proceedings due to knowledge of the complainant or the accused or other factors

that may affect their fair judgment of the case: Colby does have a policy whereby panelists can

be removed from the hearing board prior to the proceeding if there is any indication that they

may have a potential bias towards one side of the case. However students do not know about

it. It is important that students know about this policy so that survivors are not deterred from

bringing their case to the Dean’s Hearing Board for fear of being treated unfairly by a member

of the board who is biased.

11) Members of the Hearing Board must represent a diversity of viewpoints and experiences:

To prevent unbiased hearing results that are sensitive to all parties involved, the “Sexual

Misconduct Hearing Board” must consist of half men and half women, and should include one

person of color and a member of the queer community. This will ensure that members of these

populations will be treated fairly. Currently, Colby mandates that “at least one member of the

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Board shall be male and at least one shall be female,” however it does not mandate that the

board be 50% female and 50% male, and include a queer person and a person of color.

According to the women I interviewed who reported to the “Dean’s Hearing Board,” but from

the board is very homogeneous—it was composed almost entirely of men, all of them were

white, and none of them were out in the queer community at Colby.

12) In the event that attorneys are allowed in the reporting process or the Dean’s Hearing,

impartial attorneys must be provided for students who cannot pay or do not wish to tell their

families about the Dean’s Hearing: If attorneys are involved in the proceedings, it is important

that they are available to both parties to ensure that the outcome is fair.

13) Complainants and accused students should be given access to a support person of their

choosing to accompany them during the Dean’s Hearing: According to the writers of SAFER’s

“Change Happens: A Guide to Reforming Your Campus Sexual Assault Policy, “under federal law

complainants and accused students must have the same right to bring others with them for

support during disciplinary proceedings. Neither one can be allowed to include support people

if the other does not. “This support person could be a friend, an advocate, a family member, or

a faculty member, as long as this person is silent and does not interfere with the proceedings

unless they are asked to speak. According to my research, Colby does allow this, but this

provision is not publicized and the survivors I interviewed who did go through with proceedings

were not made aware of this option.

14) All members of panels hearing sexual assault cases should receive sensitivity training on

issues of sexual assault: This will include at least twenty hours of training, including three hours

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in each of the following: evidence evaluation in sexual assault cases, psychological effects of

sexual assault and common manifestations of post-traumatic stress disorder, sexual assault as it

relates to diverse communities, and common stereotypes and misconceptions about sexual

assault (Burczak). This will ensure that cases are heard in an unbiased and fair way. Colby’s

Sexual Assault Prevention Educator and Advocate would be in charge of leading these trainings.

15) There needs to exists a clear appeals process for both parties involved in a Dean’s

Hearing: It is important that an appeals process be set in place to guarantee that the

complainant and the accused can request for a re-trial if they believe that the case was handled

in a biased and unfair way. Currently, the Important Information for the Colby College

Community about Sexual Assault brochure does not discuss the appeals process. However the

“Sexual Misconduct Hearing” protocol, which is available online, says that “the appeal process

available to students is the same as that for the College Standards Hearing. In addition, the

person who believes she/he is a victim of sexual misconduct shall be informed of the final

results of the appeal” (Student Disciplinary Procedures: Sexual Misconduct Hearing). Although

the school makes it a point to the existence of an appeals process, students do not know about

it because it is only available online. Therefore, I suggest that the college make more efforts to

inform students of this fact, so that they are fully aware of the rights within the hearing

process.

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16) Appeals should be overseen by a separate hearing panel, and should be overseen by a

group of individuals—not just one person or a few administrators: See above.

17) Complainants should be given the option of reporting to a hearing panel using close-

circuit television, speakerphone, or other forms of technology rather than making statements

in the same room as the accused: Significantly, Isabelle, who brought her case to a Dean’s

Hearing was not told she could choose to go through the hearing via speaker-phone or not, and

went through with the hearing using a speakerphone (even though she did not want to).

Regardless of whether or not the complainants want to utilize this option, it is important that

they are aware that they have a choice.

18) Both the complainant and the accused must have the opportunity to ask questions of

witnesses and say a final statement to the hearing board: Colby allows this. However, again,

students are not aware of this right before they go into a hearing. It is important that students

know that they will have this right going into the process, so they are not deterred from

reporting sexual assault for fear of not being treated fairly in the hearing.

19) The standards of proof and the burden of proof need to be defined in the Sexual Assault

brochure: Currently, Colby does not outline the standards of proof it adheres to in its Sexual

Assault brochure. According to Ashley Burczack from Students Active for Ending Rape,

“There are two possible standards of proof: ‘a preponderance of evidence’ and ‘clear

and convincing evidence.’ A preponderance of evidence means that more than half of

the evidence supports the complainant’s claim. Clear and convincing evidence means

that the truth of the complainant’s claim is ‘highly probable.’ …the advantage of the

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preponderance of evidence standard is that it is more likely to result in disciplinary

action for the perpetrator. The advantage of the clear and convincing evidence standard

is that innocent students who are wrongfully accused are less likely to be discipline, and

the procedure will be more respected by conservatives as ‘unbiased’ (Burczak 51).

It is imperative the students be made aware of which standards of proof the college

adheres to in hearing of sexual assault cases, therefore, they know what to expect in a hearing.

Therefore, I suggest that the college define the standards and burdens of proof in various

forms, so students are informed on the college’s protocol.

20) Survivors must be given an adequate window of time to report and this window must be

publicized: Currently, Colby does not publicize the window of time that students have for

reporting sexual assault, even though students can report as long as their perpetrator still

attends Colby. Therefore, Colby should state in its Sexual Assault brochure that “reporting can

be initiated by a complainant at any time as long as the accused student is still enrolled at the

college.” Publicizing this is important in order to ensure that survivors are not deterred from

reporting by assuming that it is too late to report.

21) Both parties in a Dean’s Hearing should be notified of the results of the hearing separately

and in person, in a thoughtful manner, and in a way that ensures that the complainant and

the accused will not see each other during the time of notification: From what I have come to

understand in my interviews, Colby usually notifies students the results of hearing via mail. This

is problematic because it is not thoughtful and sensitive to the personal nature of the hearing

and puts both parties in danger of running into each other during the time of notification,

increasing the risk of retaliation for both the complainant and the accused. I suggest that Colby

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adopt a new policy of informing students the result of their hearings that is safer and more

sensitive to student’s needs.

22) Colby must establish timelines for disciplinary proceedings: Currently, there are no

timelines set up for hearings, and if there are, they are not being followed. One woman I

interviewed was frustrated that the process from initial report to final resolution was

unnecessarily long, even though she was told that it would only take a few weeks. To fix this

problem, I propose that Colby establish timelines for disciplinary proceedings and publish this

timeline in the Important Information for the Colby College Community about Sexual Assault

brochure.

23) Oversight of hearing board must exist to prevent the unfair handling of cases: The

handbook does not outline if there is any oversight of the Deans Hearings, however, I think it is

important that there be an organization to check the effectiveness of the Sexual Misconduct

Hearing Board. Dean Johnston informed me that he oversees the board. While I think it is good

that the board has some oversight, I think that it is problematic that the person overseeing the

board is not specially trained in issues of gender and sexual diversity and sexual assault.

Therefore, I propose the Sexual Assault Prevention Educator oversee all Sexual Misconduct

Hearings in order to ensure that the procedure is carried out correctly.

24) A policy must be established that ensures that professors will extend deadlines and help

sexual assault survivors manage their academics following a sexual assault: According to the

Important Information for the Colby College Community about Sexual Assault, “After an alleged

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sexual assault occurs, the victims may be interested in seeking changes in academic or living

situations and the College will make reasonable efforts to accommodate such requests,”

however it does not outline what these specific requests for changes can be (6). One of the

women I interviewed, Beth, was very upset that her professor would not extend her paper

deadline after she was sexually assaulted. Even though she tried to explain to him that it was a

personal matter, he would not listen to her. Eventually she became desperate and started

crying in front of him, and admitted that the reason why she was asking for an extension was

because she has been sexually assaulted that weekend and was having trouble doing work. Her

situation should have never gotten to this point and only contributed to making her feel worse

and more helpless than she already felt. After talking to Dean Johnston about this issue, he

informed me that the college does have a protocol for situations likes these. Students are

supposed to go to their advising Dean to discuss the matter, and the advising Dean will ask

Dean Johnston to inform the faculty member that the student needs more time. Dean Johnston

says that in cases like these, he crafts an email to a professor asking for an extension for the

student without revealing any information about the case to the professor.

Because Beth did not know she had this option, she was unable to ask her professor for

an extension without painfully reliving her attack all over again. Therefore, I suggest that the

college look into ways they can educate and inform the student body on their rights and

options for support in instances of sexual assault. While it is good that the provision exists,

provisions are ineffective if people do not know about them.

25) Colby must establish support groups for sexual assault survivors on campus:

Unfortunately, according to Patti Newman, Director of Counseling Services, support groups for

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sexual assault survivors have always been an option at Colby for the past 20 or so years, but

recently, there has been limited interest, and therefore, a support group for sexual assault

survivors has not been able to form. Therefore, I suggest that the college make more efforts to

publicize that this option exists for students in order to gather more membership and interest

so a group can exist.

26) There needs to exist a visible and apparent protocol outlining what the disciplinary

process looks in the case of a non-Colby student sexually assaulting a Colby student on

campus: As I discussed in my previous chapter, this became an issue for one of the survivors I

interviewed who indicated to me that she thought the college did not know what to do in her

situation. To avoid instances like her’s and to ensure that all Colby students are protected and

treated fairly, the college needs to develop a plan for dealing with perpetrators who do no go

to Colby but who assault a Colby student.

27) There needs to exist a visible and apparent protocol outlining survivor’s options to change

rooms or dorm residences if they choose to: As I discussed in my previous chapter, this also

became an issue for several of the survivors I interviewed, who told me that it was very

traumatic for them to have to sleep alone in what for many of them was the same room they

had been assaulted in. To avoid situations like theirs and to ensure that sexual assault survivors

are safe and comfortable in their living spaces, it is essential that Colby adopt and policy that

allows students to change rooms or residence halls and publicize this policy so that students are

aware of it.

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Suggestions for Revisions to Informal Structures and Policies:

1) What the Administration Can Do:

While instances of rape and sexual assault at Colby is definitely a huge issue that the

administration must work to prevent, as I have said before, I think that it would be wrong to

place all of the responsibility on the administration. Because the majority of sexual assaults at

Colby occur within the hookup culture, in order to control sexual assault, the administration

would have to control the hookup culture. This is impossible because in order to control the

hookup culture, the administration would have to police students’ sexuality and possibly ban

hooking up, which they cannot do. Therefore, the administration is fairly limited in what they

can do to directly control and prevent sexually assault. While they cannot directly prevent

sexual assault, the administration can indirectly prevent sexual assault by helping us combat

the institutions of structural sexism and male entitlement that perpetuate rape culture on the

Colby campus. The deconstruction and eradicating of structural sexism and male entitlement is

crucial to ending rape at Colby, because sexual assault is inherently linked to these oppressive

systems. Therefore, many of suggestions for the administration focus mainly on how they can

help the Colby community end these forms of oppression on our campus.

a) Make it clear to students that sexual assault, sexual harassment, sexism, and misogyny will

not be tolerated on campus by imposing serious sanctions for those who do commit such

acts: According to Andrea Parrot and Carole Bohmer,

“Schools with a sexual assault policy do not necessarily have higher reporting rates than

those with no policy. Even if a policy exists, it may well not be publicized, and students

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may be unaware that it exists. If the policy is known to students but is not carried out in

the event of a violation, victims may be less likely to report cases of acquaintance rape

or sexual assault. On the other hand, if a policy has been in effect and serious sanctions

have been carried out, students learn that acquaintance rape and sexual assault

behaviors will not be tolerated on campus” (Bohmer, Parrot 184-185).

Therefore, I argue that it is imperative that the administration punish those who commit

acts that are on the “continuum of gender violence,” including sexual harassment and sexual

assault (Carole Sheffield: Sexual Terrorism). By punishing these acts, which are rooted in

systems of male entitlement and structural sexism, the administration will convey that they are

both against rape and the systems of oppression that perpetuate rape, and will, consequently,

teach students that gender violence “will not be tolerated on campus.”

b) Empower Women to Feel Confident and Make Healthy Sexual Choices for Themselves:

Professor of Women’s Studies and Human Development Lyn Mikel Brown says that

“women’s psychological development within patriarchal societies and male-voiced cultures is

inherently traumatic.” (Mikel Brown, Gilligan 216). Growing up in patriarchal societies, where

structural sexism and male entitlement permeate nearly every aspect of life, oftentimes hurts

girls self-esteem and causes them to lose their voice. This was evident in my interview with

Brianna, who said that she could not scream out “NO!” as she was being raped because she had

“lost her voice.” Isabelle expressed similar sentiments in her interview, noting “girls need to

have the confidence to say no, and a lot of women here don’t” Mary echoed with “Girls are

afraid of speaking out.”Lyn Mikel Brown asserts that despite the gains of feminism, “We have

not moved on from female repression and that “young women are confused about what is

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empowered sexuality because of the culture we grow up in.” She goes on to explain that “Every

girl should be able to own their sexuality....but also be able to determine and assert the line

between yes and no. That is a different line for every girl and she should be able to say what

that is.” Due to the trauma caused by living in a patriarchal and misogynist culture, many

women like Brianna cannot find their voice and are not empowered enough to assert their line

between yes and no.

Therefore, I argue that Colby should make more efforts to make women feel confident

and empowered so that they are able to make healthy choices for themselves. In her article,

“Raising Girls for the 21st Century,” Emilie Buchwald outlines how we can create an

environment that empowers women, stressing the necessity of teaching women to “connect

personal traumas to societal patterns,” especially when discussing issues of sexual assault and

rape (Buchwald 187). In order to create a community that empowers women, Buchwald says

the environment must be one in which:

1) Women feel valued for their individual and unique strengths, and are taught that

their lives and history are as important as men’s.

2) There are many female role models and mentors, particularly in male-dominated

fields, such as the sciences and math.

3) Women feel empowered by their peers, and feel a comradeship with other women,

which serves as a relief from the social-sexual competition that is so prevalent at schools

like Colby.

4) There is more sexual education—Buchwald asserts that “we’ve simply got to

recognize that protecting girls means giving them the knowledge that will allow them to

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make intelligent, principled decisions about sexuality” (Buchwald 194). I think Colby

assumes that all females had informative and effective sexual education programs in

high school , but this is not true for many women (including myself). Recognizing this

and incorporating more sex education programs at Colby could definitely promote

female sexual empowerment and in turn, would give women the knowledge and the

confidence to say no/recognize and report rape/help their friends.

5) Women are taught the history of the women’s movement: This could serve as

motivation for deconstructing the social systems that perpetuate patriarchy and rape.

6) Women are taught to be media-critical, and are encouraged to seek alternative forms

of media.

7) Encourage girls to be ecstatic, passionate, joyful, etc…

c) Empower Men to Stand Up Against Sexual Violence:

In his article, “Becoming Anti-Rapist,” Haki Madhubuti emphasizes the importance of

men fighting rape through education and political activism. He discusses how an effective way

to prevent sexual assault is to teach men to “view all women (no matter who they are—race,

culture, religion, or nationality state) as extended family” (Madhubuti 174). Jackson Katz

argues that effectively approaching gender violence means that we must see “gender violence

as a men’s issue involving men of all ages and socioeconomic, racial, and ethnic background”

and that men must learn to view themselves “ as empowered bystanders who can confront

abusive peers” (Katz 465). Given these facts, I think it imperative that the administration

mandate that every male on campus be educated on issues of gender and sexuality, particularly

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as they pertain to gender violence, and their responsibility as citizens of the Colby community

to stand up to violent behavior.

2) What Students Can Do:

As I have said before, because sexual assault at Colby most often occurs within the hookup

culture and the administration cannot control the hookup culture, I argue that students need to

take more or an active role in changing the campus social culture to one that is less rooted in

structural sexism, make sexism, male entitlement, sexist double standards. Because we are the

only ones who have access to the culture in which sexual assault most often occurs at Colby, we

are the only ones able to change it. I think it is primarily the job of students to work to change

the misogynist hookup culture, so that women and men can have a sex culture that is

equalitarian, safe, and does not perpetuate instances of sexual assault. In order to achieve this,

it is imperative that we eradicate the structural sexism inherent in the Colby community and

the social scene. Therefore, my suggestions will focus on how students can help deconstruct

and stop sexism at Colby.

a) Educate yourself on issues of gender and sexuality: Students should take a WGGSS course,

talk to a friend who is well-informed on topics of gender and/or sexuality, or attend a Bridge

meeting. When students are more educated on issues of sexual and gender diversity, they are

more able to see the way structural sexism operate in their daily lives, which enables them to

break it down and fight against the structures of oppression that perpetuate rape culture.

b) Be an ally and speak out against sexual assault: Students should speak out against sexual

assault and support survivors, participate in sexual assault education and awareness programs,

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and attend rallies such as “Take Back the Night,” etc. By speaking out and talking about sexual

assault, students will become more aware of the issue, thus ending the silence and making the

culture of privilege, silence, and protection less pervasive at Colby.

c) Call people out for being sexist or misogynist:

As I discussed before, gender violence is seen both in physical forms of violence and

verbal forms of violence. Misogynist discourse reinforces institutions of structural sexism and

perpetuates rape culture by dehumanizing women. Just as misogynist discourse can lead to the

literal dehumanization of women, such discourse oftentimes precedes and leads to the physical

dehumanization of women through gender violence. Therefore, in addition to holding our peers

accountable for their actions of physical violence, we must also hold them accountable for acts

of verbal violence.

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Colby Take Back the Night: April 28 th , 2011

TAKE BACK THE NIGHT  Student rally at night to unite against sexual harassment. Photo: Dhokela Yzeiraj '13

“I worked so hard to change things at Colby because I loved it.” –Charles Terrell, 1970 Colby Grad and College Trustee

Works Cited

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Achtmeyer, Olivia. "Colby Rape Victim Speaks Out." Editorial. The Colby Echo [Waterville, ME] 1 Mar. 2001: 5. Web. Jan. 2011.

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