The Miami Student Oldest university newspaper in the United States, established 1826
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 2013
VOLUME 141 NO. 22
MIAMI UNIVERSITY OXFORD, OHIO
TODAY IN MIAMI HISTORY In 1990, The Miami Student published an article titled, “Fan attendance to frame football’s future.” In order for the Mid American Conference (MAC) to retain division I-A standing, five of nine schools in the MAC must have an average attendance of 17,000. With the last Miami home game around the corner, and only four other schools having met the requirement, readers were called upon to go out and support the team.
Victim of alleged rape takes Miami to court BY KYLE HAYDEN THE MIAMI STUDENT
A female Miami student who reported being raped in 2011 is taking Miami University to court on charges of negligence by the university to discipline her attacker who had a history of sexual misbehavior. According to court documents filed Oct. 24, attorney Eric Deters is representing the student in this case. In 2009, Oxford Police investigated allegations by a different female student, along with statements by Antonio Charles’ thenfraternity brothers that he was videotaping his sexual encounters with females. In the statements made to OPD by Charles’ fraternity brothers, Charles was “known to film girls while engaging in sexual acts in his room.” Another fraternity brother claimed he “saw clips of the videos on Charles’ computer through PhotoBooth on his computer.” When asked what the videos contained, the student said: “Sexual activity between [Charles] and various girls.” According to Deters’ statement to the Butler County Common Pleas court, Miami did not take action to punish or suspend/expel Charles in 2009. Charges were never filed by any of the females who reported having unwanted contact with Charles. After the alleged rape in late 2011, the victim’s father sent an e-mail to Miami University President David Hodge. This led Former Dean of Students, Susan Mosley-Howard to revisit the previous complaints filed against Charles in 2009. Mosley-
Howard found through OPD’s investigation that “Charles violated Miami’s Code of Student Conduct, Section 103,” and he was “permanently dismissed” from the university. The Student Code of Conduct (2009-10), in section 103 states if a student participates in “acts of voyeurism, including the use of video recording devices” he or she may be subject to sanctions: “Dismissal, suspension, or probation” among other possible punishments. A letter from Hodge to the plaintiff’s father in January of 2012 explained why the university did not sanction Charles upon his first offense. “While a person might suspect the recordings were not consensual, the law and our policies require that there be credible and reliable evidence that a crime or violation of the Code of Student Conduct has been committed before we can impose sanctions.” This is because, according to the letter, “without revealing the identity of the victim and/or the willingness of the victim to participate in the process [of filing charges], our ability to pursue criminal charges or University disciplinary action against the alleged offender is severely constrained.” Now, Deters, representing the female student, is taking the university to court, asserting that the university refused to take action against his client’s attacker in 2009-10, allowing him to remain on campus until 2011, when he allegedly committed rape. In email correspondence with Hodge, the victim’s father repeatedly said that if his daugh-
ter’s attacker had been dealt with on his first offense in 2009, she would not have been raped two years later. This is the driving force behind their case against the school, according to court documents. Deters claimed the university did not take “immediate” action as the university president claims in the letter to the victim’s father, but rather, ignored the activity and allowed the attacker to remain. Miami responded with a statement reading, “Miami University is committed to holding individuals accountable for their behavior, and to providing extensive support for victims of sexual assault. The safety of our students is our highest priority. The claim that the University failed to take appropriate action or was somehow negligent is simply not true. While the University does not believe it is appropriate to publicly discuss the details of the case, the University emphatically denies that it could have prevented the assault of [the female student]. “When a victim reports sexual misconduct, Miami University moves swiftly, offers a vast array of support services to the victim and, with the cooperation of the victim, takes appropriate disciplinary action if the accused is a student. Within days of receiving a report, the university will often summarily suspend the accused student pending resolution of the disciplinary complaint. In [the female student]’s case, Miami responded immediately and gave Antonio Charles, the accused student, the maximum penalty and permanently dismissed Charles from the university.”
Sex talk: Not all students play it safe BY EMILY C. TATE
FOR THE MIAMI STUDENT
College students are having sex, and a lot of it. According to the Guttmacher Institute, as of June 2013, more than 71 percent of 19-year-olds nationwide had engaged in sexual intercourse at least once. Contraception is in high demand for this age bracket, many contraceptive methods on the market. The question being asked is, just how available are they to college students? The Guttmacher Institute reported that, “the male condom is the most commonly used method at first sex and at most recent sex among both teenage men and women.” However, at Miami, condoms are only regularly available at Student Health Services or at off-campus convenience stores and pharmacies. The Office of Student Wellness, located in the Student Health Center, is home to the HAWKS peer health educators, who strive to educate Miami students on many relevant health issues. “We have free contraceptives in the office – male condoms, female condoms and dental dams,” Vice President Rachel Schwarz said. “We give them out when we do one of our programs, like ‘Sex in the Basement’ or ‘Latex League.’” These programs, she said, are often held in first-year residence halls, depending on when Resident Assistants (RAs) set up the meetings.
According to junior Elizabeth Cushnie, the office manager and program coordinator for the HAWKS peer educators, residence hall programs are the primary way they make themselves available on campus. “We provide valid information … and try to engage students in these topics, then we allow them to make their own decisions from there,” Cushnie said. “They can use it to move forward, however they decide.” Other offices in the Health Services building, such as the Gynecology department, offer contraceptives as well, according to the Women’s Health Center’s official website. Though students must first set up an appointment through the office, they do offer several types of contraception as well as emergency contraception from the pharmacy. While it is helpful to have the HAWKS team as well as licensed medical personnel in Student Health Services, both are sequestered to a single building on campus. Campus markets, like Spring Street Market in Shriver and Market Street in MacCracken, are centrally located and sell many common drugstore items – but not condoms or any other contraception. “No discussion has ever been held on the matter of selling contraception at markets,” General Manager of Retail Operations in Merchandising Diana Byrd said. “There is no rule against it, it just isn’t sold in our markets. The
topic has never been presented so we’ve never addressed it.” Sophomore Katie Poppe said she believes it is time this topic be presented. “They should definitely be selling condoms in the markets on campus,” Poppe said. “College students are going to have sex – that’s just a fact – so Miami should at least provide a way for them to do it safely.” Sophomore Allie Medler (name changed to protect student’s privacy) said she agrees. “I think more college students would buy condoms and use them if they were sold in the markets,” Medler said. “Guys don’t really know when [condoms] are going to be necessary, so they won’t go all the way to Kroger. Plus, there is an inherent awkwardness in going to the health center to ask for condoms. If it were sold in the markets, though, and students could use their ‘fake money’ [MUlaa], I think people would be more proactive about getting some condoms and having it just in case.” Reports from both CVS and Walgreen pharmacists indicated that students who find condoms inaccessible may be choosing to go without them and resort to emergency contraceptives, such as Plan B (the morning-after pill). “We sell about 31 boxes of Plan B a week. We sell out of the product almost every weekend,” CVS pharmacist Renee Hayes
SEX TALK, SEE PAGE 4
‘What happened to my grandson?’ Miami student searches for an answer
CONTRIBUTED BY ROXANNE ELLIS
Miami Middletown nursing student Roxanne Ellis holds her grandson, Roy, after an unexpected seizure left him with brain damage.
BY REIS THEBAULT CAMPUS EDITOR
Roxanne Ellis has a question. She has a question and nobody seems to have an answer: What happened to her grandson? Ellis, 41, is a Miami University nursing major and has been taking classes at the Middletown campus since 2010. She has taken this semester off to search for the answer to her question. Roy “Roro” Ellis III, Ellis’ grandchild, was three years old when, one night, his body underwent what doctors could only classify as a “catastrophic event.” On May 1, Roro became violently ill: he vomited, his blood sugar dropped and he began running a fever. This lasted through the night, until his other set of grandparents, with whom he was staying at the time, called 9-1-1. That night, Ellis, with whom Roro has lived since birth, knew something was wrong. “When I was getting ready to go to bed, I thought I heard him crying,” Ellis said. “I stopped myself and I was like ‘He’s not here.’ I went to bed and I immediately started crying like I knew there was something wrong with him. I knew.” She was right. Roro was taken to Cincinnati Children’s Hospital’s Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and had a seizure that lasted 48 minutes. Doctors put him in a medically-induced coma for a week to let his brain rest. Then the tests began. Doctors did an MRI and found the low blood sugar and seizures had taken their toll. He was diagnosed with encephalopathy, a broad term that means disorder of the brain. But still doctors could not deduce how or why this happened, what caused it or where it would lead. “We were told that it caused brain damage to his entire brain, not just one area,” Ellis said. “They didn’t know what he would be like when he woke up, or if he would wake up.” He did wake up and, in fact, made a lot of improvement. “Within a week’s time, he was able to sit up by himself,” Ellis said. “He could actually take steps with therapy, he stood up out of his chair by himself.” However, one night something happened. No one knows what, but his health declined again. This time it was worse. “He can’t sit up by himself, he can’t do anything,” Ellis said. “He doesn’t talk, he doesn’t smile.”
That is one of the hardest parts, Ellis said. A smile never used to be far away. “This was the happiest little boy there ever was,” Ellis said. “He smiled every day.” And so the tests continued. Doctors could not figure out what was wrong. They could not answer Ellis’ question. They put Roro through 428 tests and just one came back positive: the rhinovirus, or, in other words, the common cold. Roro now has to spend most of his time in his room, with its walls covered in his favorite Disney movie characters and a television that is always on cartoons. The clutter of toys and games give it the feel of a typical four-year-old’s room. Except for the beeping machine beside his bed. Because he still cannot eat solid foods, it feeds Roro Peptamen Jr. through a tube that is connected directly to his stomach. Ellis is, as she said, Roro’s, “24-hour caregiver.” “I do everything for him,” Ellis said. “Daily life has changed. I don’t have a life; he’s my life. But he’s worth it.” This has changed everyone’s lives, Ellis said. Roro was born when Roy Ellis, Roro’s father, was 16. Roy lets his mother, Ellis, do most of the talking, but it is apparent that he is frustrated as well. “It just gets to me,” Roy said. It only makes circumstances more difficult when Medicaid, a health program that, among other things, gives financial aid to those with disabilities, is reluctant to cover some of the special equipment Roro needs. “They are not wanting to pay for his wheelchair or his car seat because the diagnosis isn’t a good enough diagnosis,” Ellis said. “It doesn’t make sense.” The tests will continue. Roro has an appointment with an eye specialist and follow-up appointments with neurologists and physical therapists. In the meantime, Ellis has hardly had time to think about her future at Miami and what will come after, but when she does, she sees things differently. Ellis got her GED when she was 30 and began working at a nursing home before enrolling at Miami in 2010. She wanted to change career paths, but was not really sure which way to head. She now has a better idea. “I never thought I would want to work with kids,” Ellis said. “But
ROXANNE, SEE PAGE 8