"Fairly Normal and Routine": 50 Years of Sexual Violence at Stanford by Stanford Politics

Stanford politics magazine JANUARY 2018 | ISSUE 03 | SPECIAL EDITION

“Fairly Normal and Routine” 50 Years of Sexual Violence at Stanford

+ WHAT HAPPENED? BY KIMBERLY LATTA + THE GLOVES ARE COMING OFF BY GRETCHEN CARLSON

Your weekly rundown of Stanford news and commentary on campus, local, US, and world politics. STANFORDPOLITICS.ORG/MONDAYMEMO

EDITOR’S NOTE It’s hard to believe that the national reckoning with sexual violence and harassment exemplified by the #MeToo and Time’s Up campaigns only seemed to begin garnering widespread attention four months ago, when a flood of accusations against Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein turned up in the pages of the New Yorker and the New York Times. Around the same time, last quarter, Stanford Politics and the Stanford Daily began reporting on multiple accounts of assault and harassment in academia. One of the survivors of such violence, Kimberly Latta, felt empowered by the national moment to share with us her unfortunate, though not unique, experience with former professor Franco Moretti. We’ve decided to republish her powerful November op-ed in this special issue of Stanford Politics Magazine, along with an op-ed by Stanford alum Gretchen Carlson, who helped kick off the #MeToo movement. The attention to sexual violence and harassment may be at a high in our society right now, but it certainly wasn’t nonexistent beforehand. When we decided in December to dedicate this issue to the subject, we believed it would be important to look at how sexual violence and harassment has been covered in the past, with a particular focus on Stanford. Sexual violence is a difficult topic to examine historically for several reasons. First, many records, especially the quasi-legal campus judicial proceedings, are kept confidential. Second, due to a culture of silence often directed at victims and advocates, much has remained unsaid and unknown. Nevertheless, using archives available to us, we constructed a timeline of sexual violence on campus and the response to it by and at Stanford. While the cover story ends on a somber and cynical note, we hope to inform and inspire today’s advocates to work to make it such that if the same story is written 50 years from now, it may have a different ending.

Ruairí Arrieta-Kenna Editor-in-Chief

MASTHEAD EDITOR-IN-CHIEF RUAIRÍ ARRIETA-KENNA

MAGAZINE DIRECTOR DANIELA GONZALEZ

CHIEF OF STAFF MADDIE MCCONKEY

CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER LANDON ELLINGSON

INTERVIEWS EDITOR REBECCA SMALBACH

MANAGING EDITOR JAKE DOW

PHOTO EDITOR AMELIA LELAND

NEWS EDITORS ALLIE DOW AMBER YANG

SENIOR EDITORS JONATHAN FAUST ELLIOT KAUFMAN

ASSISTANT EDITORS RALEIGH BROWNE SEJAL JHAWER SIERRA MACIOROWSKI

DEPUTY EDITORS EMILY KATZ BROOKE TEFERRA JULIAN WATROUS

GRAPHIC DESIGN & LAYOUT NATHALIE KIERSZNOWSKI ASA KOHRMAN TAYLOR SIHAVONG DANIEL WU LEA ZAWADA HANAN YAJOOR Special thanks to Jamie Leonard for copy editing assistance.

CONTENTS

WHAT HAPPENED? KIMBERLY LATTA

COVER STORY: “FAIRLY NORMAL AND ROUTINE” 50 Years of Sexual Violence at Stanford

RUAIRÍ ARRIETA-KENNA & ROXY BONAFONT

“IT’S ABOUT POWER”

A Conversation with Patti Solis Doyle STANFORD POLITICS PODCAST

THE GLOVES ARE COMING OFF GRETCHEN CARLSON

ABOUT THE CO-AUTHOR OF

“FAIRLY NORMAL AND ROUTINE” Roxy Bonafont ‘21

is a staff writer for Stanford Politics. She primarily reports on campus politics. Roxy previously served as the editor-in-chief of her high school newspaper in her hometown of Austin, Texas, and at Stanford, she is a prospective English and political science double major.

What Happened?

KIMBERLY LATTA

LATTA On Nov. 5, 2017, with a heavy but angry heart, three decades of smoldering, unspoken words poured forth in a letter that I addressed to the University at which I believed the professor who raped me still taught:

Dear Those Who are Concerned about Sexual Abusers at Stanford: I am writing to report that when I was a graduate student at UC Berkeley in 1984-85, my then-professor Franco Moretti sexually stalked, pressured, and raped me. He specifically said to me, “You Americans girls say no when you mean yes.” He raped me in my apartment in Oakland. He also would frequently push me up against the wall in his office, right next to the window that looked out at the library, and push up my shirt and bra and forcibly kiss me, against my will. I reported him to the Title IX officer, who was then Frances Ferguson, Ph.D. She was a friend of his and urged me not to make a report. I insisted, but she persuaded me to leave only his initials in her documents, in case someone else reported that he had abused her. I have no reason to believe that she did not do what she said she would do. I told Franco about my conversation with Ferguson, and he threatened to ruin my career if I pressed charges against him. He said he had powerful friends who were attorneys who would ruin my name. I remained silent for all these years because I was in academia. I have told a number of people about it privately, however. These are upstanding, well-known professors of History and English at other institutions, who would certainly corroborate my story. I am encouraged to report in the wake of the Weinstein and #metoo movements. This man has certainly assaulted many other women over the course of his fabulously successful career. It’s time that the truth came out about this predator. I will take any lie detector and make any affidavits necessary to assure that he is brought to justice. Sincerely, Kimberly Latta, Ph.D., L.S.W. I also published this letter on my Facebook page. On Nov. 5, I got a letter back informing me that I would be hearing more from Stanford soon. On Nov. 15, after numerous articles about this case had appeared in American and Italian newspapers, Stanford’s Title IX Coordinator, Catherine Glaze, got in touch. We talked the afternoon of Nov. 17. Like the reporters with whom I had spoken, Ms. Glaze wanted to know what happened. Here is my account. During the first semester of my first year as a graduate student in Comparative Literature at UC Berkeley, in 1985, I took a class with Franco Moretti, who was then a visiting professor from Italy. He was considered one of the up-and-coming literary critics at the time and there was much excitement about his work. He was cool. He was hip. He hung out with the New Historicist and critical theory professors in the departments of English, German, French, and Hispanic literatures. I was particularly interested in studying with him because I had been told that he had particular expertise in the Frankfurt School of social theory and philosophy. I was 25 and very naïve. I had spent the previous year in Northern Germany as a Fulbright Scholar and was still coping with the shock of beginning graduate school in a country

that felt strange even though it was “home.” Franco demonstrated a great deal of interest in me, and I foolishly believed it was because he found me intelligent. The quotidian details of our relationship — how it began, how many times we saw each other, and where — are difficult for me to recall, but I know that the relationship lasted for the entire semester, about three or four months. It seemed romantic at first. Quickly, it became traumatic. People want me to spin the narrative, run the film, so they can see it, comprehend it, fashion it into a chronology that makes sense to them. But traumatic memory does not work that way. Traumatic memory is fragmentary because trauma — the word derives from the Greek word for wound — injures the body and brain. As trauma experts Judith Herman and Bessel van der Kolk assert, traumatized people commonly report memory loss and dissociation because experiences of helplessness and terror cannot be integrated into normal autobiographical memory. Traumatic memories are jumpy, disjointed, incoherent, indigestible, cut off, separated, split away, like pieces of a puzzle that can never be put together. I remember images, sensations, words, events, but could not say

LATTA Maybe he meant that he gave me an A for exactly in what order they took place. I final paper I struggled to birth, that remember meeting with him during of“I remember leaving my body the document of wretchedness. We did not refice hours — his light coming in from the window behind him on the other side and hovering somewhere main on good terms. I saw him once, on an airplane on the way to the MLA. I think it of his desk. He commented on my indiaround the ceiling, looking was 1998. He came over with a big smile on go-stained fingers. I apologized (!) and face and said, “Hello, hello! Do you resaid I used a fountain pen. I remember down and telling myself ‘This his member me?” I was sitting with a friend, a him telling me, later, that he wasn’t attremendous supporter, and we were both on tracted to me at first because he thought is not happening to me.’” our way to our first interviews. My friend’s I had fat legs. Why? Because he had only presence gave me courage. “Of course I remember you,” I said, “and seen me wearing those loose boots from the 1980s, the ones I got from I will never forgive you for what you did to me.” He turned away, ran my mother. They were real leather, and I thought they were cool. The back to his seat, and never contacted me again. weather must have warmed up because, he said, he later saw me in Towards the end of the semester, in 1985, I was unable to focus on shorts. It was then, when he pruriently gazed at me as though I were my studies. I was constantly ill and nervous and frazzled, distressed, some Suzanna in the garden, that he decided to come after me. and ashamed. I didn’t know what to do. One of my friends must have He told me I was beautiful like Mathilde in The Red and the Black suggested I go to the Title IX officer. I don’t remember. I have forgot— not exactly a compliment. He said he had told “everyone” in the ten — repressed? — so many things about that period in my life. The English department that he was in love with me. I remember feeling difference between ordinary forgetfulness and traumatic amnesia is vulnerable, exposed, ashamed. I remember him inviting me to dinner that, in the latter case, although many moments are gone, the particin his apartment with other faculty friends. I remember being excitularly grisly scenes remain permanently burned in. As van der Kolk ed about the opportunity to socialize with the women and men I adputs it, “traumatized people simultaneously remember too little and mired so much. I remember the dingy white walls in my apartment too much. ” Some memories are too much to bear. in Oakland. I remember him pushing me down onto my futon, going I would never have gone to the Title IX office had I known who held too fast, too far. I remember I said, “no.” I remember I said, “I’m not it. It took all my courage to get myself there. With dismay and the facomfortable with this.” “I don’t want to.” I remember him saying, “Oh, miliar sensations of despairing helplessness, I discovered that the peryou American women, when you say no, you mean yes.” I remember son responsible for protecting me was a not a neutral party, but rather, leaving my body and hovering somewhere around the ceiling, looking one of his colleagues, someone I was pretty sure he knew well. She was down and telling myself, “This is not happening to me. It is happening to her, to that body, not to me, not to me, not to me.” I will never forget the bleak, blank despair of that moment, the collapse of consciousness, the escape into nothingness, the fall into disgust and shame. I remember him telling me that professors in Italy routinely slept with their graduate students, so why was I being such a prude? I remember the yellowish late afternoon light in his office, the window just opposite to the windows in the library. I remember panicking and feeling paralyzed, terrified that someone would witness my defilement, would see him pushing me against the wall, unbuttoning my blouse, putting his hands on my breasts, his tongue in my mouth. I remember the cold against my back, my clenched and churning gut. I remember being stricken, immobilized, and ashamed. Ashamed of my degradation, my helplessness, my passivity. I remember feeling dirty. I remember another time when he pushed me against the wall in his apartment. It was dark in there; the sunlight was outside. I didn’t protest when he undressed me. I stood there, allowed it to happen. And what came next? I was a doll, a puppet, a thing. “This isn’t happening to me,” I told myself. I absented my flesh, myself. My mind seemed to disintegrate, to become turgid and stupid. And for days and weeks and months it was impossible to think. I felt dead, utterly alone, separated, alienated, cast adrift, cut off from care, from concern, from love, from life. In class I felt such a sordid lurching in my belly and dizziness that I had to leave the room. Finally I stopped going. I took an incomplete. I read in the news that Moretti said we remained on good terms.

LATTA CATALONIA on his side. Or so I thought, reading her dispassionate expression and them. I didn’t want anything around me that was linked to him. My body language. She was not warm. She did not want to hear about it. interest in the Frankfurt school evaporated, and I turned to Simone I was so ragged that I blurted out my story anyways. I told her that I de Beauvoir and other French feminists. It was difficult to go on, but was being harassed, sexually pursued. It’s possible I didn’t tell her that I resolved not to let him destroy me completely. I avoided courses he had already raped me. I was so ashamed, ashamed of having been with people who I believed where close to him, but never really knew violated, of being unable to protect myself. I remember her adamantly whom I could trust. A few good guys, especially Jeffrey Knapp in Encommanding me, “Don’t tell me his name.” This confused me. I had al- glish and Michael Rogin in political science, were tremendous teachready told her enough about him — he was Italian, a visiting professor, ers and mentors for me at Berkeley. But I didn’t tell them. I wanted to, in the English department — for her to know who he was. Of course but couldn’t. As soon as I passed the qualifying exams for the Master’s Degree in comparative literature — then a she knew who he was. She discouraged me grueling four hours a day for five days in a from filing a formal report by describing the “My throat constricts; my row answering written and oral questions in process as involving a scrutiny that sounded more traumatizing than what I was already heart, thudding furiously, three languages — I fled. Writing about this takes a toll. Speakundergoing. I remember insisting that she jumps into my mouth; my ing about it, telling the story over and over at least write down his initials, in case he again, has been far more stressful than I did this to anyone else. She said she would. stomach aches; my forehead could have imagined. My throat constricts; She also said there was nothing she could or throbs. It hurts, physically, my heart, thudding furiously, jumps into would do for me unless I was willing to file my mouth; my stomach aches; my forehead to remember and to tell the formal charges. I do not remember her ofthrobs. It hurts, physically, to remember fering me the option to have the university truth.” and to tell the truth. My body knows what administration write something like a cease my consciousness refuses to acknowledge. and desist letter. Perhaps she did. I doubt I would have agreed to take such a path — it would only have led to I don’t go here often. I had buried all this deep down in the darkness, and now that I am bringing it back to the surface, I am flooded with retaliation and further abuse. When I told Franco Moretti I had told Frances Ferguson that he unbearable discomfort. I had not expected this. Folks want to know what prompted me to speak out now. Because it was sexually harassing me, he said that if I pressed charges, he would ruin my career. He said he would hire the powerful attorney-wife of a is the right thing to do. Because I wanted to speak out long ago but was colleague in the English department (whose name I have forgotten, of afraid. He threatened me, after all. Now, 30-odd years later, I know he course) and shred me. No one would believe me, he said. I believed can’t hurt me. Too many people can corroborate my story. As I have him. The relationship ended there. I left the course, avoided him and told my story to various friends in the academy over the years, many told me that they had heard that he had abused and harassed other his cronies, and wrote what I’m sure was a shitty seminar paper. After he left Berkeley, Franco sent me two chatty letters, which I graduate students. I was not the only one. Of course he denies it. Of have not saved. I remember feeling flabbergasted by them. Why would course he is lying. Would you expect otherwise? The hundreds of brave women who have spoken out — including he write to me? Did he think we were friends? Was he so narcissistically deranged that he actually believed that he hadn’t hurt me? After I Anita Hill, and all the women who exposed Bill Cosby, Harvey Weinhad told him how devastated I felt? How I couldn’t even sit in his class stein, Louis C.K., and others — inspired me to tell my story. Women any more, could not be around him or his faculty friends? I destroyed writing about what feminine beings endure, such as Rebecca Solnit and Laurie Penny, give me courage. We are warriors. I speak because I respect myself and because silence almost always helps the oppressors, rarely the oppressed. This story is not just about Moretti and Ferguson. It is also about the unacknowledged power to intimidate and abuse that professors wield over students. It is about the men who harass female graduate students and the women who cover up for them or look the other way. Ever since patriarchy became the dominant mode of reproduction — Gerda Lerner traces its origins in emergence of Mesopotamian temple-towns 3,000 years before the current era — women have cooperated with misogynist power structures to advance their own social and political capital. I think most academics start out with good intentions, but too many are perverted by the institutions in which they achieve fame and fortune. I can forgive but not excuse their corruption. Why don’t more women speak out about their abuse? Rape survivors very often doubt themselves because our point of view differs

LATTA

Photos courtesy of Kimberly Latta.

dramatically from commonly held beliefs about sexual assault. As Herman observes, returning veterans who have been traumatized are at least recognized for having been to war, but the terrorizing violence that rape survivors experience is rarely acknowledged: â&#x20AC;&#x153;Women learn that in rape they are not only violated but dishonored. They are treated with greater contempt than defeated soldiers, for there is no acknowledgement that they have lost an unfair fight.â&#x20AC;? Sexist viewpoints, shared by women as well as men, too often dismiss what survivors experienced as terrorizing violations. Sometimes even close relations refuse to understand, forcing victims to choose between expressing their point of view and remaining part of the masculinist community â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a community that routinely blames the violated for their violation. Masculinism privileges the masculine over the feminine in all aspects of being and in all body-minds and defines the masculine over and against the not-masculine, the not-strong, the weak, the helpless, the shameful. I want people to know what happened to me and to all those who fight for dignity in an academic system riddled with institutionalized masculinism. In my letter to Stanford, I wrote that I wanted to bring Moretti to justice. I mean that people should know about what he did and decide for themselves what consequences he should suffer. It is not my place to say what would be fair, what would be just. It is my place to demand that all people in the world start paying closer attention to the suffering of graduate students who are tremendously vulnerable to the kind of

abuse that I experienced at the hands of men and women. The University of California has had a problem with professors harassing students verbally and physically for a long time, as William Kidder shows in his essay, A Systematic Look at a Serial Problem: Sexual Harassment of Students by University Faculty. Moreover, as researcher, theorist, and media maker Ali Colleen Neff suggests in a piece about academic precarity, the cut-throat academy enables, even encourages, people to do terrible things to others in order to get a job, tenure, full professorship, endowed chair, distinguished emeritus status. Does the university regard this behavior as distinguished? As I said, it hurts to talk and write about it. The truth hurts whether we utter it or not, and I feel compassion for and solidarity with those who cannot. Too many still suffer. Too many will continue to suffer until we change. I want our society to transform by rejecting masculinism and embracing the worth and dignity of feminine beings as equal to (not the same as) masculine beings in every way. We start by believing the individuals who have had the courage to speak up, to talk back to the powers that have demeaned and abused them for so long. #MeToo. Kimberly Latta is a former English professor at the University of Pittsburgh and a current writer and private practice psychotherapist. This op-ed was originally published at stanfordpolitics.org on Nov. 17, 2017.

“FAIRLY NORMAL AND ROUTINE” 50 Years of Sexual Violence at Stanford RUAIRÍ ARRIETA-KENNA & ROXY BONAFONT

US SA NA

1968

Air

Forc

has been described as the year that shaped a generation. From the Tet Offensive in Vietnam to the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy to the first manned orbit around the moon — the tumultuous events of a mere 12 months would offer America’s youth a new, at once jaded and revolutionary, perspective on the world. It’s no surprise that college campuses, including Stanford, were home to anti-war sit-ins and civil rights protests. In many ways, 1968 marked a break from the past and a beginning of the future. It was against this backdrop that a 21-year-old female undergraduate was riding her bicycle east on Serra Street, the road that runs along the picturesque front of the university, toward Escondido Village. When she was on the stretch near where the Graduate School of Business now lies, sometime around midnight, a man forced her into his car at gunpoint, took her to the Sharon Heights area on the other side of campus, and raped her. Stanford had no crimes of violence before this incident, the Stanford Daily reported that year. The police captain at the time described being “shook” by the rape, and he declared that it could either be an isolated case or the start of a new trend. Only time would tell, he assumed. It did. Just two years later, a different female student would be raped one Friday night while walking up Palm Drive from the railroad station. But it was 1970 now, and this kind of thing no longer came as a shock. In fact, the number of reported rapes on campus had begun to climb from one in 1968 to three in 1969 to five in 1970. One police officer at the time dispassion-

ies

Stanford Librar

ately described the weekend of crimes that included that particular 1970 rape as “fairly normal and routine.” According to the officer, it was not a particularly unusual weekend in any respect. Whether the 1968 case was actually the first reported sexual assault on campus or not, it certainly wasn’t the first incident of sexual violence. Just seven years earlier, Bill Griffin ’62 penned an op-ed in the Stanford Daily after the 1961 Full Moon on the Quad event. He decried the behavior of a mob of freshmen who he claims harassed and assaulted multiple female passersby, including surrounding one woman and repeatedly shouting “Rape her!” Sexual violence definitely existed on campus in the eighty-something years before that, even if it went largely unreported. As for the 50 years since the supposed first reported rape on Stanford’s campus, reports of sexual violence have become more and more prevalent, a few of which this article explores. The following stories told are not meant to convey exhaustiveness. The complete picture of sexual violence on campus cannot possibly be given due to the culture of silence and shame that has historically been directed at victims and advocates. Most sexual violence goes unreported, and even what is reported is often shrouded in secrecy due to its sensitive nature. Nevertheless, through reading thousands of relevant articles in the Stanford Daily archives, consulting academic work on the topic, requesting university and police records, and interviewing former and current students, administrators, and professors, we were able to put together a partial picture that shows how, over the past half-century, the public’s understanding of sexual violence has evolved, the cultural narrative surrounding its framing has changed, and the attention given to it has ebbed and flowed.

1970

at 2 a.m. on a Tuesday morning in May, a student walking to her car in the Tresidder parking lot is stopped by two men. One of them has a gun. After surrendering the $48 in her purse, she is directed to get in her car and drive with the armed man to another parking lot. When he rapes her, he reportedly keeps the gun in his hand. Then he directs her to drop him off at the corner of University and El Camino and to drive away. This assault was the third of its kind in six months; only 24 hours earlier, another girl was raped in her dorm room in Wilbur Hall. The Stanford Daily, whose coverage of the Wilbur incident was limited to a single cursory paragraph, reported that the rape had occurred “while her roommate was taking a shower,” demonstrating that, even in her own room, a woman alone is vulnerable to attack. As the number of disturbing reports on and around campus grew in the 1970s, the previously unacknowledged spectre of rape began to emerge from dark corners and shadowy bushes with an increasingly distinct personality and form. The Rapist was a lurking criminal element, a usually non-white stranger who attacked lone women late at night. As awareness of rape steadily permeated the campus consciousness, it was primarily perceived as a crime problem, not a culture problem. The perpetrators of rape were also believed to be entirely distinct from the student body; popular dialogue at the time suggested that Stanford was being preyed upon by external, often racialized menaces. Santa Clara County Sheriff ’s Investigations Sgt. Ken Bush, assigned to the local sex crime unit in 1978, told the Stanford Daily, “There’s no real problem right on the [Stanford] campus, but rather off campus in the community … the concern comes from off campus. In East Palo for instance, there is a problem.” “In those days, I thought about sexual assault firstly in terms of the vulnerability I felt when returning home late at night,” said

Courtesy of Debra Herman.

Stanford Daily, 18 Oct. 1973

Debra Herman, AM ’73 Ph.D. ’79 MS ’86, in a recent interview with Stanford Politics. Herman, while a graduate student in the history department, joined four other women on campus in assembling the first-ever “Guide for Stanford Women.” The guide, published in 1974, was a comprehensive listing of resources for women that the students felt people weren’t generally aware of, including a rape crisis center, self defense classes, and counseling services in addition to a number of other academic, professional, and health resources. It coincided with a burgeoning national feminist movement that women at Stanford began organizing around the issue of sexual violence on campus, among other concerns, and taking matters into their own hands. “Being a woman student can be difficult here,” reads the introduction to one section of the guide. “There are no women deans, few women in high administrative staff positions, and so few women faculty that it is possible to go through four years of education without taking a course from a woman.” It was that very sense of isolation that unfolded with the 1970s into a central issue on campus, both as a growing association between physical isolation and vulnerability to rape, and as a growing frustration among women who felt their needs weren’t being acknowledged or addressed. The university, for its part, dedicated itself to what it continued to think was the primary issue for its female students: stranger rape. After reports of rape spiked in the early seventies, the Stanford Department of Public Safety, or Stanford Police, began improving lighting and night patrols around campus, measures which targeted the common understanding of what rape was and where it happened. Women should “stay away from deserted areas when walking

by themselves,” Stanford Police Captain Raoul Niemeyer told the Stanford Daily in Feb. of 1977. “They should have some companions or a male friend go with them.” Every sexual assault on campus occurred as a result of the victims’ “stupidity,” Stanford Police Officer Debbie Whittemore said in 1974. From this notion of victim prevention evolved what seemed at the time to be a more empowering strategy of teaching women to literally fight back. Women at Stanford began signing up en masse for self-defense classes, forming lengthy waitlists every quarter. Although they were met with some controversy in later years, women’s self-defense classes were consistently a significant aspect of the growing feminist presence on campus through the 1990s. In the late 1970s, dorms began to organize unofficial escort services to help women get home at night. In 1979, Ron Lepow ’80 founded Students United for Rape Elimination, or SURE, a campus-wide, formalized escort service. Lepow told Stanford Politics in a recent interview that SURE was created following a series of rapes in the late 1970s that he recalls finding shocking and unfamiliar. “It was sort of a new thing, at least as far as I knew,” Lepow said. “And in talking to friends, I learned that there was this vulnerability and this discomfort, at least among females, to be able to go out at night. And it was a surprise to me, frankly. There was not a risk or a concern among guys to go out at night, but there was among females, and I thought it was unfair and scary and awful.” The newly-founded SURE consisted then of a team of about 30 male students, all people Lepow knew and trusted, whom women could call most nights to accompany them home after dark. After some controversy, Lepow began allowing groups of two women to serve as escorts as well. SURE was endorsed strongly by Stanford Police, who Lepow said had been “taking heat” for not doing more to prevent rape and were “relieved” by the club’s presence on campus. Today, a new iteration of SURE exists as 5-SURE, standing for

“Students United for Risk [rather than rape] Elimination.” 5-SURE operates a night-time ride service on campus and provides water and snacks at tables near the fraternity houses on weekends. “After I left,” Lepow said, “I noticed that [SURE] did fade away and then it came back, and it came back in a different way with a different name. ... Over time it’s morphed into something to help with alcohol issues. ... It’s not just about rape, it’s more about campus safety.”

Stanford Daily, 07 Mar. 1979

1984

marked the beginning of a culture change at Stanford. In Oct. of that year, the Rape Education Project (REP) — a student organization founded in 1979 that had since become the pillar of campus activism on the issue — organized a two-week program to raise awareness of “acquaintance rape.” “People don’t realize that two-thirds of all rapes occur between people who know each other,” REP member Doug McKenzie told the Stanford Daily. Where the Rapist was once thought of exclusively as an unknown menace in the bushes, a psychologically unstable sexual psychopath, it was beginning to be seen that a more real danger existed in the interactions between women and the men around them. “There was a sense, not that there was a panic about the extent of sexual violence on campus, but that culturally, we needed to rethink relationships, and we needed to raise consciousness about consent,” said Estelle Freedman — who has taught at Stanford since 1976 and is a co-founder of the Program in Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies — to Stanford Politics in a recent interview. “Rape is at the extreme end of a continuum of behavior and attitudes concerning women — attitudes of power and domination,” REP member Pilar Ossorio told the Stanford Daily. “There is no specific rapist mentality or tendency. Numerous studies have been done on convicted rapists and none uncovered any psychological trait common to being a rapist. That seems to indicate that anyone can be a rapist. It makes the contribution of society in tacitly condoning rapes very important.” The condonation of rape was made more explicit just one month later. After a Beta Theta Pi fraternity party in Nov. 1984, five female students accused a sophomore of sexual battery and charged that 10 to 20 onlookers stood by and even cheered on as the assailant, in turns, forcibly grabbed victims and tried to “rip off [their] clothes in front of a large group of people.” This wasn’t the first time, and it wouldn’t be the last, that the issue of bystanders and the setting of fraternities would come up with regard to sexual violence. In 1988, the Stanford Daily reported the anonymous account of a woman who described being gang-raped by a group, including her friend, at a campus fraternity house in 1986. The article speculates that while fraternities “cannot be assumed

Stanford Daily, 28 June 1990

Stanford Daily, 16 May 1989

to be singularly responsible for such incidents. ... [F]ew deny that factors more prevalent in fraternities have played an important role in date and gang rape incidents.” The woman, whose name was anonymized, did not report her rape. Most victims of acquaintance rape don’t. “If it’s your boyfriend that raped you, there’s an issue of trust or loyalty that comes into play, a fear about being believed or [a fear of] being blamed for what happened,” Palo Alto YWCA rape crisis director Teresa Rodriguez said to the Stanford Daily at the time. In May 1989, in response to a campus survey that showed one in four undergraduate women experienced sexual coercion, Dean of Student Affairs James Lyons called for a Task Force on Sexual Assault to investigate the problem and make the reporting process more victim-friendly. The task force would convene and deliberate, but it came under heavy criticism. In one story, a student member of the task force told the Stanford Daily that among some university officials, “there is definitely an idea that rape doesn’t happen here.” There was still no official university policy condemning sexual assault, and it would be over a year before the task force came to any conclusions. In the meantime, sexual violence would persist. In Oct. 1989, a 13-year-old friend of a student was visiting campus. The girl attended a party at the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity house, where she reported that she was assaulted in the bathroom (by a non-Stanford student) as four or five other men watched without intervening.

1992

was the first year in Stanford history that an individual accused of sexual assault received formal charges from the university. Stuart Thomas had the credits to graduate, but the university wouldn’t let him. The Stanford Judicial Council, an annually-appointed body of students and faculty who investigate violations of the Honor Code and Fundamental Standard, had found him responsible for “exploitative, manipulative conduct,” and resolved to withhold his degree for two years. In Sept. 1991, Thomas was accused of rape by a 17-year-old freshman. She alleged that he provided her and several other students with a substantial amount of alcohol in his Casa Zapata dorm room, and then coerced her into sex once the two were alone. In court, Thomas was found guilty of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor and providing alcohol to a minor. The Judicial Council’s unprecedented ruling on Thomas’s case symbolized a transition in university handling of sexual assault that was already several years in the making. In early 1990, the University Task Force on Sexual Assault released Stanford’s first official procedure for assault victims to follow when reporting or seeking support. Later that year, then-President Donald Kennedy made his first official statement on rape, during Rape Awareness Week. The statement focused on acquaintance rape and consent, but was criticized by some for being weak and failing to confront the culture rape emerges from. As dissent grew within a student body increasingly frustrated by the university’s judicial system and bureaucracy, the task

Stanford Daily Archives

force at last made its recommendations: among them, the hiring of a full-time Coordinator of Sexual Assault Response Services, sweeping reforms to the Judicial Charter of 1968 to make the judicial system more victim-friendly, and the drafting of an official university policy on unacceptable sexual conduct. The recommendations were well-received, but the university proved that sexual assault resources were not a budget priority and cited financial limitations while taking minimal action. Susan Epstein ’91, a leading advocate at the time for greater attention and resources toward sexual assault, told Stanford Politics in a recent interview that she had met with Kennedy and ultimately got him to agree to fund the task force’s recommendations. However, she said that Kennedy was soon afterward embroiled in a scandal and later denied the agreement. Frustrated with university inaction, the Associated Students of Stanford University (ASSU) determined in 1991 that they would pay for the position of Coordinator of Sexual Assault Response Services for one year, to prove its need, with the expectation that the university would fund it thereafter. Epstein, who graduated that year, was hired and began work on a New Student Orientation program that summer. The program, called “Sex in the ‘90s,” introduced topics like body image, consent, and sexual assault. “We cast drama students, and they role-played different situations to show what it looks like if there’s consent and what it looks like if there’s not consent, and how you would go about a positive relationship with consent,” Epstein said. “And I think we had a couple survivors of sexual assault speak about their experiences, which was really powerful. And then some people came out and talked about what resources there are and how you can help a friend.” Students then went back to their dorms, where two trained upperclassmen would lead a follow-up conversation. The program doesn’t sound all that different from “The Real World” performance that freshmen are exposed to during New Student Orientation today, but before Epstein created it, there had

been nothing like it at Stanford — or, as far as she knew, at any college in the country. For the rest of the academic year, Epstein was stationed in the health center, now known as Vaden but then called Cowell. “I must have counseled hundreds of survivors who would just call or come into the office,” Epstein said. “A lot of it was triage, like helping people know where they could go to for what resources on campus, but being the first place they go and being supportive.” Offering survivors one single centralized place to go was “huge,” Epstein added. Before her position was created, it was rarely clear to survivors whom they should talk to, and as they were redirected to various resources around campus, they were often forced to repeat their sometimes-traumatizing stories numerous times. During Epstein’s one year as Stanford’s Coordinator of Sexual Assault Resources, she also helped organize weekend self-defense classes and draft the university policy on sexual harassment,

Stanford Daily, 19 Sept. 1991

Stanford Daily, 03 Oct. 1991

which for the first time included a discouragement of “unequal” relationships. At the end of the academic year, the university agreed to fund the position, and a new coordinator was hired as Epstein had only planned to serve for the pilot year. The university was still drawing criticism, however, for having disorganized resources. In Oct. of 1991, the Stanford Daily reported that calls to Cowell weren’t always consistently handled, and that survivors could still have to relate their experiences to multiple new people. An updated policy on sexual assault, which the university task force had called for two years previously, was released in Dec. of 1991, after being mandated by a 1990 California education law. This new policy stated that students found responsible for sexual assault could face expulsion and that faculty and staff could be fired. It also included that “sexual assault by force or coercion, including deliberate coercion with drugs or alcohol, is absolutely unacceptable at Stanford University.” This policy represented a dramatic change in official treatment of sexual assault, and it clearly demonstrated the shift in conversation toward acquaintance rape as a defining cultural concern. Some, however, as evidenced by Stanford Daily op-eds and reports, still disparaged the policy as falling short of a broad defi-

nition of sexual misconduct, while others found it overly harsh. The policy, and university treatment of sexual assault in general, came under fire again in 1994 when a law student accused the university of failing to provide adequate information about sexual assault resources as required to by law. That same year, the Sexual Assault Resource Center was temporarily closed and the full-time coordinator position Epstein created was eliminated due to budgetary issues. Students had failed to approve a special fees request from the Coalition Against Sexual Assault, a group which funded a number of resources on campus. Many argued that it was the university’s responsibility to provide such services, not the students’. The university responded to the situation by forming yet another task force. In an interview with the Stanford Daily in 1994, Epstein called such committees “delay tactics.” In 1994, Stanford still required proof “beyond a reasonable doubt” when prosecuting sexual assault cases. Harvard had lowered its burden of proof two years earlier, leaving Stanford as the only university in the nation with such a stringent policy in place. Critics claimed that it was almost impossible for sexual assault cases to meet that standard, making determinations of responsibility extremely unlikely.

2000

did, however, see such a determination, and the resulting sanction was even said to be the university’s most serious punishment to date, though it wasn’t made public at the time. Stanford suspended English professor Jay Fliegelman and banned him from the department for two years, but few other than the faculty and students who were close to him seemed to know or care why. His graduate student advisee, Seo-Young Chu, had formally accused him of rape. The matter was handled quietly, and the university ultimately behaved as if the rape had never happened, allowing Fliegelman to continue to meet with students during his suspension. After he died in 2007, a glowing memorial resolution was published the next year which described a triumphant career and offered no mention of his censure, let alone the accusation against him. Chu’s memory wasn’t quite so short. In 2017, she published a widely-discussed creative nonfiction piece on the blog Entropy relating her experiences and finally making Fliegelman’s behavior public knowledge. At her request, Stanford also finally published a summary of their 2000 investigation. But for 17 years, that story went untold. The secrecy with which the Fliegelman case was handled raises the question of how many more sexual assault allegations have been adjudicated behind closed doors. How those proceedings operate has been an ongoing source of controversy at Stanford. A judicial charter approved in 1997 was being used to guide all Judicial Affairs investigations, including sexual assault cases, although it had not been designed with the specific challenges of such cases in mind. The university still required that guilt be proven “beyond a reasonable doubt” in sexual assault investigations until 2011.

The Department of Education Office of Civil Rights issued a directive to publicly-funded universities in Apr. 2011, commonly referred to as the “Dear Colleague” letter, which required they use a lower burden of proof in sexual assault cases. Within days, Hennessey approved a change in Stanford policy that lowered the standard in such investigations from “beyond a reasonable doubt” to “a preponderance of evidence.” The Stanford Daily reported in 2013 that, between 1997 and 2010, only four allegations of sexual assault went to hearing and only two students were found responsible. Those low figures were at odds with the number of rapes reported on campus, which continued to grow throughout the decade. Ten years ago, in 2008, there were ten sexual assaults reported at Stanford, three of which were classified as rape. In May of 2009, the Board on Judicial Affairs (BJA) began meetings to design a pilot program called the Alternate Misconduct Review Process, later called the Alternative Review Process (ARP). The judicial system at the time, it was reportedly stated in a BJA meeting that Dec., “[did] not benefit the victim, nor help the accused to clear his name, nor [did] it protect the Stanford community from predators.” Then-president John Hennessy signed the proposal in April 2010, to be enacted as a pilot program and reviewed the next year. Among other things, the ARP ended the requirement that accusers and suspects appear at the same hearings and sometimes testify in front of each other, and it extended the statute of limitations for such cases from six months to two years. The ARP was extended to a three-year pilot program, and later approved with revisions by the ASSU and Faculty Senate in 2013.

2014

was the year Leah Francis, and her rapist, graduated. Francis alleged she had been raped off-campus by an ex-boyfriend on Jan. 1, 2014, and under the ARP, Stanford found him responsible for sexual assault. His punishment was 40 hours of community service, completion of a sexual assault awareness program, and a five-quarter suspension, to take effect after he graduated. He would even be permitted to return for graduate school after what, in an email to the student body, Francis characterized as a “gap year.” Francis made headlines in 2014 for organizing a rally that called for Stanford to reform its sexual assault policies, including mandatory expulsion for all individuals found responsible for rape. She also Alex Simon via Slate heavily criticized the ARP for being “extremely detrimental to the ability of the survivor to keep on sur- Leah Francis protests Stanford’s handling of sexual assault cases. viving,” claiming that the judicial investigation was an exhaustive and burdensome experience. was the year Stanford would make headAfter Francis appealed the university’s sanctions and demandlines across the globe for a now infamous ed her rapist’s expulsion, Stanford decided instead to defer his decase of sexual violence on its campus. gree for two years, neither suspending nor expelling him. Almost a quarter century later, this ruling resembles the administration’s Brock Turner, a freshman, was caught in-the-act, raping an unconfirst-ever formal punishment of sexual assault, in the 1992 case scious woman behind a dumpster. He was arrested that night, but against Stuart Thomas, and the Francis case is currently under re- the incident went unnoticed by the public for over a week. The barrage of sexual assault reports over the years had become view with the Office for Civil Rights. so monotonous that the Stanford Daily no longer even made preAnd the controversy was déjà vu in more ways than one. Foltense to treat new ones as newsworthy. What would become the lowing the “Stand With Leah” rally — attended by hundreds of stumost-talked-about Stanford news story in recent history occupied dent demonstrators — and widespread criticism of how Stanford only a single sentence in the Stanford Daily’s weekly rundown of handles sexual assault, the university announced its response: yet police activity. another task force. After the anonymous, muckraking campus newsletter, the Fountain Hopper, investigated and broke the story, it went viral. It was first treated as an egregious example of sexual assault, but as Adrienne LaFrance later wrote in the Atlantic, the case stood out not for any unusual horridness but rather for the fact that “it’s so rare for sexual violence, despite its ubiquity, to garner this kind of attention.” Turner’s peculiarly short sentence along with his victim’s powerfully written and widely-shared, 7,000-word letter read in court sparked ongoing national conversations about justice, privilege, and culture. It also, for better or worse, inspired California lawmakers to pass new mandatory minimum sentencing legislation. In a statement in June 2016, Stanford announced that it had concluded its own investigation and banned Turner from setting foot on campus, which the statement described as “the harshest sanction that a university can impose on a student.” But dealing out such a punishment probably wasn’t that difficult considering the unambiguousness of the Turner case. In Apr. 2015, the Provost’s Task Force on Sexual Assault Policies and Practices (created a year earlier amidst the Leah Francis Brock Turner’s mugshot from his initial booking. controversy) announced its recommendations. Chief among them were that the ARP be replaced by a process called the “Student Title

2015

IX Process.” The Student Title IX Process intended to allow for a more streamlined reporting and adjudication process for victims and alleged perpetrators. Its most controversial components, however, in the eyes of those concerned for the rights of victims and the accused were that a “finding of responsibility” would require the unanimous agreement of a three-person panel and that the “expected” sanction for those found responsible for sexual assault would be expulsion. “It is very difficult to get a 3-0 decision from a panel, and these young women are terrified and traumatized and just want it to be done,” Crystal Riggins, a Stanford-retained attorney who represented victims in the university’s new adjudication process, lamented to the New York Times. Shortly after her public comments, Riggins was controversially dismissed by the university purportedly because of her “fatalistic attitude.” As for the 3-0 requirement for a finding of responsibility, law professor Pamela Karlan, chair of the Advisory Committee on Sexual Assault Policies and Practices, told a meeting of the Faculty Senate in 2017: “It’s important for people to understand that the vote occurs after deliberation among the members of the hearing panel. It’s not as if they each go back to a room and they press a button and we look at the result. This is the result of discussion. You could just as easily call it a consensus as calling it unanimity.” And in an attempt to explain the presumptive punishment, ASSU representatives in 2015 wrote in an op-ed in the Stanford Daily that Stanford’s narrow definition of sexual assault “is one of the most serious forms of interpersonal violence and impossible to commit ‘accidentally.’ In its enormous violation of respect for the humanity of another student, it is the ultimate expression of ‘sufficient cause for removal from the University’ in our Fundamental Standard.” The Student Title IX Process went into effect in Feb. 2016 and remains the university’s adjudication process today as part of a three-year trial. A summary of all cases reported to the Title IX office in the 2016-17 academic year, as well as the outcomes, will be

RAPE REPORTING THE LAST 5 YEARS

released by the Provost this upcoming Feb. Thus far, however, only one student since Brock Turner has been effectively expelled for sexual assault, and it was through a non-hearing agreement with the Title IX office, though a report published last May shows that several others have been found responsible for sexual misconduct since the inception of the new process. It is this very delineation between sexual misconduct and sexual assault that has frustrated many advocates. In 2015, the university announced the results of a campus climate survey. According to the announcement, 1.9 percent of Stanford students have experienced sexual assault. To many, however, that number seemed startling lower than the reality. Whether intentional or not, this was the result of a very specific definition of sexual assault and basic number averaging. The same survey shows that five percent of undergraduate women have experienced sexual assault, even under the precise definition of “penetration without consent and/or oral sex without consent and when the respondent indicated that the act (or attempted act) was accomplished through threat of violence, force, and/or when the respondent was incapacitated.” What’s more, according to Stanford’s definition, “incapacitation is not the same as legal intoxication.” Rather, incapacitation is defined as when “a person lacks the ability to voluntarily agree to sexual activity because the person is asleep, unconscious, under the influence of an anesthetizing or intoxicating substance such that the person does not have control over his/her body, is otherwise unaware that sexual activity is occurring, or is unable to appreciate the nature and quality of the act.” A further 33 percent of undergraduate women reported having experienced sexual misconduct, defined as any non-consensual acts that don’t meet the aforementioned standard for assault. The report came under fire in columns and op-eds from students and alumni, and the university is now in the process of reforming its next survey, which will take place this spring. Because colleges are required to report the number of rapes on their campus, listings now exist for the most “rape-ridden” universities. In 2014, with 26 reported rapes, Stanford ranked number 10 on such a list. But high numbers of rape reports on a campus are not necessarily reflective of a relatively high incidence of rape. For many years, Stanford officials have dismissed the notion that the many rapes reported at Stanford represent an abnormally dangerous campus culture. In 1981, for example, Stanford Police Chief Marvin Herrington told the Stanford Daily “that he felt Stanford women are ‘liberated and enlightened’ and therefore more willing to report rapes than many women in the outside community.” This sentiment, that the high number of rape reports is more indicative of a culture of reporting, has been repeated throughout the years. And while it may even be interpreted as a good sign for the university’s reporting processes, it is important to also keep in mind that, reported or not, the rapes are nonetheless occurring. (Data from Stanford Department of Public Safety’s annual Safety, Security, and Fire reports.)

2018

can be a year of reckoning at Stanford and across the nation. Fewer than four months ago, reports of sexual assault by Harvey Weinstein set off a firestorm of accusations of sexual misconduct against prominent figures in Hollywood, politics, media, academia and a host of other sectors. The #MeToo solidarity movement of late 2017 gave many women the courage to go public with their experiences of sexual violence, and now “Time’s Up” has become the rallying cry of those who are tired of letting those types of experiences persist. But if the story of sexual violence at Stanford over the last half-century is to teach us anything, it’s that commotion will only do so much to reform culture. Although it has dominated campus headlines every few years — seemingly only after high-profile incidents or series of incidents — and although new initiatives have been tested each time, the problem of sexual violence remains an intractable one. Even the attention given toward sexual violence by the university tends to be reactionary, and it has done little to affect the cultural norms that perpetuate this problem on campus. “Too many students at Stanford experience unwanted sexual contact or relationship violence,” the university declares on its website. “We’re working to change that through education, prevention, support and adjudication. Our goal is a campus culture free of sexual and relationship violence. It will take time, but we intend to get there through continual improvement — learning from ourselves and others, and fostering partnerships between students and the university.” There is no doubt that Stanford and many other colleges are dedicating numerous resources to the issue of sexual violence. Since 2011, Stanford has even had a dedicated Office of Sexual Assault & Relationship Abuse Education & Response (SARA) to “provide support and education for the campus community on sexual assault and misconduct, dating/domestic violence, and stalking.” And yet, as Crystal Riggins said in an interview with Marie Claire magazine after her dismissal from Stanford: “Are universities doing enough? That’s a valid question to ask.” Not much has changed from when a 1957 American Sociological Association study found that one in five women in college “were offended by forceful attempts at intercourse.” The Department of Justice and the Association of American Universities report that the same number of undergraduate women experience sexual assault in college today. We’ve almost become numb to the horror of campus sexual violence, and while Stanford students and administrators have certainly made, and continue to make, efforts to address it, it persists nonetheless. In the month of Oct. 2017 alone, as required by the Clery Act, the Stanford community was informed of three rapes, a sexual assault, and an assault, all by the AlertSU campus safety notification system, none of which were further reported on or commented on in the Stanford Daily or any other local news outlets. What feminist lawyer and scholar Catharine MacKinnon said in a 1981 speech at White Plaza has held true over and over again: “We are not in the midst of an epidemic of rape; we are in the midst of [short flurries] of rape reporting and rape publicity.” Campus sexual violence is neither a new nor an old cancer. It is a constant affliction.

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STANFORD POLITICS PODCAST

“It’s about power”

A Conversation with Patti Solis Doyle “As all of these horror stories have been coming out — these brave women are sort of telling their truth about Harvey Weinstein, about Bill O’Reilly, about John Conyers (a Democrat), about Donald Trump — you know it’s horrifying to read…and I can’t say, you know, ‘This is wrong,’ and ‘Victims need to be heard,’ and ‘Thank god this is happening,’ and ‘This is causing a real change in our culture and our society and in the way we look at sexual harassment,’ and not sort of reckon with my own role in working in the Clinton administration in the ’90s when then-President Clinton had a sexual relationship with a 22-year-old intern…What Bill Clinton did was wrong. It’s about power, not about sex. She was 22 years old, and, looking back on it now, having to face my own children, I need to reckon with the role that I had in sort of defending him. And it wasn’t defensible. I just don’t see how anybody can read these current stories or hear the victims’ stories now and look at these attackers in a partisan way. It’s just, I can’t do it, and I don’t see how anybody else can do it.” Patti Solis Doyle was a longtime Clinton aide and the first manager of Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign. She is now a CNN commentator and the president of her own communications firm, Solis Strategies. Listen to the full interview in the December bonus episode of Stanford Politics Podcast, available on iTunes, SoundCloud, and most other places podcasts can be found.

stanfordpolitics.org/podcast CNN

The Gloves Are Coming Off Y

ou can’t break a badass. That’s what I thought when I read Kimberly Latta’s allegations against retired Stanford professor Franco Moretti. Though I don’t know Kimberly, I was a Stanford undergraduate in 1985, the year she alleges Moretti stalked, harassed, and raped her while she was in graduate school at UC Berkeley. 30 years later, “encouraged to report in the wake of the Weinstein and #MeToo movements,” she found the strength to tell her story. Reading her account in Stanford Politics, I was moved by her insight and intellect — and also by the photos of her as a smiling young woman

Brigitte Lacomb

Gretchen Carlson

in the 1980s. I know that smile. Every woman does. It’s the smile we’ve collectively and historically put on in order to survive in the face of harassment and assault. With the tsunami of women now coming forward, the gloves — and those smiles — are coming off. From state houses to police stations to emergency rooms to classrooms, the status quo is disappearing. In its place, we see good consequences for survivors and bad consequences for predators. Finally. It’s hard to overstate the magnitude of this cultural shift. Just 19 months ago, when my complaint against my boss at Fox News went public, it felt like I’d jumped off a cliff all alone. There was no #metoo, no Golden Globes protests, no daily revelations about powerful men and their crimes. I’m not sure why — maybe because I was a familiar face from TV — but once I told my story, thousands of women from every state, income bracket, and walk of life told me theirs. Their stories became the foundation of my book Be Fierce. I’m proud to have kicked off this movement and thrilled to see the strides forward we’re already making. But this progress is new, and driving it will fall to the next generation in the workforce — you. I will never forget the sense of independence and freedom I felt when I arrived at Stanford in 1984. I’d grown up in the small, tight-knit town of Anoka, Minnesota. One of my grandfathers was the local minister, the other ran the town’s biggest car dealership. (It still exists today with my 77-year-old mom at the helm.) My family knew everyone, which meant I couldn’t get away with anything! I was a confident little girl, focused on playing violin competitively and making good grades at school. I pushed myself hard and tried to live up to my mom’s daily reminder that “God gave you talents and he expects you to use them!” For me, college was the first time I could just be myself, away from my parents, and I relished it. I tested my limits and did things they didn’t condone. It was a critical time in my development — because, like most undergraduates, it was the start of my independent life. We all know college carries risks and rewards. With so many stories today about student homelessness, hazing parties that end in death,

CARLSON and social media shaming campaigns, I believe college students today face bigger challenges than my generation did. Sexual assault may be the exception. As the stories of Kimberly Latta and many women I interviewed for Be Fierce show, students have long struggled to get support. The Department of Justice released data in 2016 showing 20 percent of undergraduate women experience sexual assault, but only 12.5 percent report it. If these statistics are true at Stanford, it would mean 684 of the 3412 undergraduate women enrolled last Autumn were assaulted. That’s 684 women whose well-being and studies would have been impacted and likely damaged. Moreover, only 85 students would have reported the crime, compared to 599 who would’ve stayed silent.

was a Stanford undergraduate the first time I was sexually assaulted. I’d taken time off school to serve as Miss America before returning to finish my degree. The assault happened after I was crowned, in New York City, in the back seat of a car service with a successful television executive. He’d said he could help me get into television journalism, my dream job. I spent a day with him, taking meetings and feeling lucky that he believed in me. His demeanor was almost fatherly. I didn’t realize getting help with a new television career also meant him getting into my pants. Suddenly, without warning, he attacked me — groping my breasts, forcing himself on top of me, pushing his tongue down my throat. I fled from the car, ran to my Stanford friend’s apartment, and sobbed for hours. I felt stupid and asked myself, “What the hell just happened? Why would he do that? How had I believed he was interested in my talent and my smarts?” Soon after, I was assaulted again — this time in Los Angeles by a top PR executive. He said he wanted to help me leverage my Miss America title to kick off a media career. We had a great meeting, and I didn’t think twice when he suggested we have dinner. But when I got in his car, he grabbed the back of my head and pushed it into his crotch with so much force that I couldn’t breathe. I somehow pushed him away and escaped from the car. These events happened in 1989. I didn’t tell anyone until 2015, while writing my first book and memoir Getting Real. Only then did I confront the fact that I’d been assaulted and actually used that word. For 26 years, I’d felt shame and embarrassment — but I never called it assault. Why? Like so many other women, I bought into the myth that somehow I’d asked for it, and I thought I wouldn’t be believed. The idea that women invite assault by pursuing public life is one of the most insidious myths out there. Also, because I was young, empowered, and full of dreams, predatory behavior wasn’t on my radar. Young women aren’t always on the lookout in what seem to be benign situations; they have a high self-confidence, and they believe others do too. Stanford’s sexual violence and support webpage says, “if you’ve experienced sexual and/or relationship violence, what happened is not your fault. You always deserve to be safe and respected.” It’s a message that even an older and wiser me still needs to hear. Hindsight is 20/20, and looking back, I see the signs that the jerks who assaulted me didn’t have great intentions. At the time, it felt like the assaults came out of the blue. And surviving didn’t insulate me from workplace harassment later on. It took a long time to let go of the feeling that I had some responsibility for what happened.

That said, there are important things college students can do to protect themselves. Even though my children are still a few years away from university, I’m already teaching them that everyone has a responsibility to change the mindsets and actions that create victimizers, victims, and bystanders. If my kids were leaving for college today, here’s the advice I’d give them: Know who your friends are. Don’t assume college is one big happy family full of trustworthy people. I have as much Cardinal pride as the next alumna, but let’s be real: Universities are a group of randomly affiliated students. It’s okay to keep your guard up, and build a few good friendships with a smaller circle that will have your back in every situation. Take steps to protect yourself. Alcohol and drugs are obviously part of college life, and they play a major role in sexual assault. So make rules and stick to them: Don’t take drinks from strangers. Don’t leave drinks unattended. Know your limits. Establish a “safe word” with friends and family, who can help you get out of a bad situation. Say it or text it if you need help. Even if your family is far away, it’s okay to let them know something isn’t right. Stay in touch. For many, college is the first time away from home for any length of time. Nobody’s going to make sure you get home every night! Hopefully, you have a close relationship with your parents and can reach out to them regularly — but if you don’t, find an adult

The idea that women invite assault by pursuing public life is one of the most insidious myths out there. who can be your touch point. As much as you want to be independent, keep in touch with your roots. Make that weekly phone call. Email regularly. Use your family as a sounding board, and let them help you problem-solve. There’s something about talking to Mom or Dad that reminds us of our values. If you’re rolling your eyes because this sounds clichéd, let me offer this perspective: We never stop being our parents’ children. I’m 51 years old, and I still call my mother for advice. It was especially crucial for me in 2016, when my sexual harassment case went public. I’ll never forget my parents calling to say they supported me no matter what. I recognize how fortunate I am to have them, but make no mistake, we’ve worked on our relationship over the years. It’s funny how struggle and crisis can crystallize the important child/parent bond, and I urge you to let university be a catalyst for growth. Finally, find a passion beyond partying. There’s more to life than the next beer pong competition. Volunteer to help the homeless. Join cross-country. Try out your acting chops. Advocate for sexual harassment classes on campus and clubs to bring young women and men together to tackle this issue. College is one of the few times in life when you can try out a huge variety of activities — so get to it! Just make sure to choose groups that empower you and give you a forum for your authentic, best self.

CARLSON These are things you can do on a personal level to protect yourself. But it’s not enough to keep yourself safe — it’s vitally important to learn how to step in and speak up, to stop harassment when you see it.

hy does it matter? Experts say that sexual harassment on campus is a gateway crime to assault. Research by Cornell’s ILR School shows that public harassment has an emotional impact on girls similar to sexual assault. And a survey by Hollaback!, an organization devoted to ending public sexual harassment, found that 20 percent of college students feel harassment hurts their ability to concentrate in class, and it keeps 23 percent from attending class at all. In other words, those off-handed comments that are so frequently dismissed as harmless are, in fact, the opposite. Each of us has the power to stop harassment and assault. One of the most important things we can do is stop being bystanders and start being allies. Statistics from corporate America show why this is so important. A full 98 percent of U.S. companies have sexual harassment policies, and 70 percent have prevention programs. Yet, at least one-third of women experience harassment at work, and employees who witness sexual harassment overwhelmingly don’t report it. In 2016, the Harvard Business Review identified this as the bystander effect, which means the more people who witness harassment, the less likely anyone will take action. But what did we all learn after 9-11? You’ve heard it a million times: “If you see something, say something.” Imagine if we had the same approach to sexual harassment training! Instead of teaching people what not to do, this training teaches what to do: Safely interrupt harassment, challenge perpetrators, and support victims. There is also the work our country must do to enact real change. It’s not enough for a few powerful men to lose their jobs. We must take measures to ensure students and workers alike aren’t subjected to sexual harassment and assault in the future. An important step is lifting the veil of secrecy created by arbitration. Over the past decade, institutions and companies have increasingly made arbitration a condition of employment and settlement in workplace contracts. An estimated 60 million Americans are under forced arbitration clauses in our workforce today, and that number is growing. (It’s doubled since just 2000.) Forced arbitration takes away a victim’s constitutional right to a fair and open trial process and protects harassers by keeping allegations and settlements secret. It’s unjust and unconstitutional.

Photos courtesy of Gretchen Carlson.

I spent much of 2017 walking the halls of Congress, pushing legislators to take real, meaningful action to help harassment victims. In December, I proudly joined legislators from both parties to introduce the “Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Harassment Act,” which restores victims’ constitutional Seventh Amendment right to a jury trial. Under the act, harassment victims can choose arbitration or court. It’s the only way to ensure their claims are made public. While it’s a narrow bill, it’s an important start to undoing the systemic silencing of harassment and assault victims. But it doesn’t take an act of Congress for institutions and companies to step up — we’ve already seen Microsoft end forced arbitration in employee contracts. That’s an incredible evolution by one of America’s biggest and most important employers, and I’m hoping many more institutions and companies will follow Microsoft’s lead. We’ve made a lot of progress. To paraphrase Churchill, this isn’t the end or the beginning of the end — but it just might be the end of the beginning. When one survivor speaks out, she gives the gift of courage to the next survivor. Over 19 months, we have progressed from one titan falling to an avalanche of survivors saying “enough.” Now it’s time

When one survivor speaks out, she gives the gift of courage to the next survivor. to change our institutions from within. I’m confident that this progress is possible. When I look at photos from my childhood, I see a bold, little girl grinning with confidence. When I look at my photos after the assaults, I see a young woman smiling through pain. Today, I look in the mirror and see a true badass who won’t be intimidated ever again. It’s amazing. And it’s an evolution each and every one of us can make to always be fierce. Gretchen Carlson ’90 is a former television anchor, an author, and an advocate for workplace equality and the empowerment of women. Also, she was crowned the 1989 Miss America and was recently elected chair of the board of directors of the Miss America organization.

RESOURCES FOR VICTIMS OF SEXUAL VIOLENCE For emergencies, call 911.

24/7 Resources University Police (Stanford Department of Public Safety) Confidential Support Team CAPS (Counseling and Psychological Services) Bridge Peer Counseling Center YWCA, Silicon Valley, Crisis/Support Line Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN) Sexual Assault Hotline

650.329.2413 650.725.9955 * 650.723.3785 * 650.723.3392 * 800.572.2782 * 800.656.4673 *

Other Campus Resources Sexual Assault & Relationship Abuse Education & Response Office (SARA) Title IX Office University Ombuds Office for Religious Life Office of Community Standards ASSU Legal Counseling Office

650.725.1056 650.497.4955 650.723.3682 * 650.723.1762 * 650.725.2485 650.375.2481

Medical Resources Stanford Health Care Emergency Department Santa Clara Valley Medical Center (SCVMC) Emergency Department SCVMC Sexual Assault Response Team (SART) Office Planned Parenthood, Mountain View Vaden Campus Health Center

650.723.5111 408.885.5000 408.885.6466 650.948.0807 650.498.2336

* These resources have the ability to keep a victimâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s name confidential and anonymous. Reporting an incident of prohibited sexual conduct to one of these resources will not lead to a university or police investigation.

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