Threats of violence and rape have been made toward fifteen Dartmouth student activists who protested about unreported rapes (as well as homophobia and racism) at a Dartmouth event for prospective students over the weekend. Specifically, fifteen current students entered a room where 500 prospective students were being wined and dined by Dartmouth, whereupon they shouted “Dartmouth has a problem!” What was that problem? Read on:
As the protesters walked around the prospective students sitting crossed- legged on floor, they yelled, “Three years, 15 reported sexual assaults. But 95 percent go unreported. Only three rapists expelled in 10 years. Dartmouth has a problem!”
The chant went on to allege incidents on campus of homophobic, sexist graffiti and a verbal racist attacks that have occurred over the past couple years. One student carried a sign that read, “I was called fag in my freshman dorm.”
Yes, those activists disrupted an official Dartmouth event to tell a story about one aspect of life at Dartmouth that Dartmouth probably was not going to tell its incoming class of freshman (not that many other colleges or universities reveal the often sordid side of campus life when trying to entice prospective students to attend their institution of higher learning – it’s simply not a topic fit for polite conversation don’t you know). Still what poor manners those activist “scum” displayed. How uncivilized. How boorish old, man.
Yet, the response to the protesters has created, shall we say, a bit of a sticky wicket for good old Dartmouth. You see, a number of “brave” anonymous posters to Facebook and an online forum, “Bored at Baker,” named after the school’s library, decided that these foul-mouthed ruffians deserved a little of their own medicine. Well, more than a little, and not quite the same medicine, if you get my drift:
The comments offered streams of profanity-laced insults about the protesters’ ostensible sexual orientations and appearance, and included calls for physical violence against them involving razor blades and other weapons.
“Why do we even admit minorities if they’re just going to whine?” one commenter asked. “Wish I had a shotgun. Would have blown those [expletive] hippies away,” wrote another.
(cont)
In response the protestors created their own online blog, Real Talk Dartmouth, to post screenshots of some of the worst threats, and to stimulate dialogue regarding the issues of racism, sexual assault and homophobia present at Dartmouth. As one of the activists who participated in the protest stated:
“We were well aware that attempts to speak truth about personal discomfort on campus are socially punished at Dartmouth,” said Karolina Krelinova, a junior who was one of the demonstrators … “But we definitely did not expect anonymous death threats and other very hurtful comments and threats both online and in person from people we keep meeting on the sidewalks and in cafeterias.”
Dartmouth administrators, somewhat to their credit, condemned the threats of violence, and cancelled classes Wednesday. In their place, programs to “address the crisis” were held instead.
The college announced in a letter to students that it will hold “alternative programming… that promotes respect for individuals, civil and engaged discourse, and the value of diverse opinions.” From the programming, it’s not immediately clear that the school plans to discuss Dartmouth’s notoriously pervasive culture of sexual assault, victim-blaming, and policies that continue to fail students (exactly what the protesters, during their initial outburst at a prospective students’ event, had called for). But administrators promise that the programming will address the threats.
One might ask why the protesters chose to take direct action to disrupt an officially sanctioned Dartmouth event to make their points, rather than raising their complaints with Dartmouth’s administration first. Well, it appears that route has been tried before, with little or no success. For example …
Sexual assault is rampant at Dartmouth; some female students say they circulate the names of men considered “dangerous” and fraternity houses viewed as “unsafe.” Between 2008 and 2010, according to the college’s official statistics, Dartmouth averaged about 15 reports of sexual assault each year among its 6,000 students. Brown, a school with 8,500 students, averaged eight assaults; Harvard, with 21,000 students, had 21. And those numbers are likely just a fraction of the actual count: One study showed that 95 percent of all sexual assaults among college students are never reported. In 2006, Dartmouth’s Sexual Abuse Awareness Program estimated that there were actually 109 incidents on campus…
Nearly every woman I speak to on campus complains of the predatory nature of the fraternities and the dangers that go beyond drinking. “There are always a few guys in every house who are known to use date-rape drugs,” says Stewart Towle…
One senior, who I’ll call Lisa, was “curbed” the second night of her freshman year. She’d been invited to a fraternity by one of its members. Thinking it an honor, Lisa enthusiastically accepted, and once she got there, she had two drinks. The next thing she remembers is waking up in the hospital with an IV in her arm. “Apparently, security found me in front of the house. That was my introduction to the frats: passing out from drinking, waking up in the hospital and not having any idea what happened.” What she did notice were bruises that looked like bites on her chest that hadn’t been there before. “To be very honest,” she says, “I didn’t really want to know what actually happened.”
How did Dartmouth’s President respond to these allegations? By setting up a “project” to study “high-risk drinking,” which Dartmouth’s own PR spokesperson admitted did not address the sexual assault issue and the rape culture at Dartmouth. On the contrary, Dartmouth’s President “coddled” the most notorious offenders, the Dartmouth fraternities, even meeting with them to assure the “frat-boys” that he had no intention of investigating the numerous abuses that had been reported regarding their behavior. As Janet Reitman of The Rolling Stone reported, Dartmouth’s Greek culture, which promotes racism, sexism and homophobia, has been around for a very long time.
… Dartmouth, whose unofficial motto is “Lest the Old Traditions Fail,” has resisted that transformation, just as it has stood fast against many other movements for social and political progress. Dartmouth was one of the last of the Ivies to admit women, in 1972, and only in the face of fierce resistance from alumni. In 1986, conservative students armed with sledgehammers attacked a village of symbolic shanties erected on campus to protest South African apartheid. More recently, students assailed members of an Occupy vigil at Dartmouth, heckling them with cries of “Faggots! Occupy my asshole!”
“Dartmouth is a very appearance-oriented place,” sophomore Becca Rothfeld tells me when I visit the campus in February. “As long as everything is all right superficially, no one is willing to inquire as to the reality of the situation. Everyone knows that hazing goes on, but no one wants to discuss it – just like they don’t want to talk about racism, sexism, homophobia, classism.” She shrugs, apparently resigned to the situation. “People don’t really talk about things at Dartmouth, let alone argue or get outraged about them.”
So much for the elite liberal establishment being more progressive about rape than southern colleges such as the University of North Carolina, which has also been recently called out for it’s shoddy reaction to the treatment of rape victims. When it comes to the entitlement shown to rapists, our entire higher education system, from the Ivies to public universities, is an equal opportunity offender. My daughter goes to college this fall as an entering freshman at a school that has a 70:30 ration of men to women. Frankly, the more I learn of this issue ans its widespread nature throughout our universities and colleges, the more worried I become for her safety. In the 21st Century that shouldn’t have to be the case. Unfortunately, in this area, our technological progress has once again exposed our lack of moral progress as a society.
