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BY IAN YARETT and JACK KEEFE

In print | January 31, 2008

The prosecution of a series of sexual assault cases that was stopped short when the alleged offender left Swarthmore has raised concerns about how the college handles such cases.

Multiple female Swarthmore students reported to the administration last November that they were sexually assaulted by the same individual, a mutual friend, within the space of a few days. According to one victim of these assaults, who asked to remain anonymous due to the sensitive nature of the case, the victims had a meeting with Assistant Dean and Gender Education Advisor Karen Henry ’87 and Associate Dean for Student Life Myrt Westphal to explore their options.

After the meeting one victim chose to pursue a College Judicial Committee hearing against the alleged perpetrator. The hearing was cancelled once the alleged perpetrator did not come back to the college this semester. According to the victim, the meeting was planned because the victims wanted some action on their case. “We chose to put ourselves through this so we can have something happen, and if things don’t happen through the CJC, I know I did everything I could have done, but it will also feel like I put myself through hell for nothing,” she said prior to the cancellation of the CJC hearing.

The victim expressed frustration with the perceived hands-off attitude of the administration towards their case. “In the whole situation, you end up feeling powerless anyway, and the school didn’t help that situation at all,” she said. “They made sure that we knew that we were okay with the fact that we didn’t have to do anything. At the very least we didn’t feel pushed into action. We chose to put ourselves through this so we can have something happen.”

According to Westphal, Karen Henry’s role is to explain all of the options, even if a victim comes in saying that they’ve already decided how to proceed. “Sometimes, that might feel like a non-supportive statement for what you think you want to do,” Westphal said.

Henry said that the first steps taken when a student who has been sexually assaulted comes to a dean depends on how long ago the assault occurred and whether the student might need immediate medical attention. “For instance, if the assault had happened this morning, and the victim had not taken a shower, I would talk with them about going to Worth [Health Center] or having a rape kit done at the hospital,” she said. “Depending on how they are when I first see them, I usually lay things out in the first [counseling] session — how they might want to resolve their situation and what their options are.”

In the first session, Henry said she tries to make sure victims have all the information they need and provides support. After that, she goes over the ways through which the situation might be resolved.

According to Swat Survivors Co-Facilitator and Sexual Misconduct Advisors and Resource Team member Nicole Belanger ’08, victims of sexual assault have a variety of medical, counseling and disciplinary options available to them. Medical action can involve either going to Worth, where birth control options such as Plan B are offered in addition to STD tests and other services, or to Chester Crozer hospital, which offers rape kits through which evidence is collected that could be used in court should the victim decide to press charges.

Between one and three students come to the health center each semester needing Plan B as a result of sexual assault, according to Director of Health Services Beth Kotarski. “If you choose to go to the hospital, someone from Women Against Rape will come and stay with you,” Belanger said. “The hospital also contacts the police, who ask questions, but the victim does not have to answer and has the advocate [from WAR] there with them for support.”

Counseling options on campus are offered by many individuals and groups, including the SMART team, Swat Surviviors, CAPS and Henry. “At SMART, we really try hard to bend over backwards to make things are as easy for [victims] as possible — we try not to let victims feel alone,” Belanger said.

Within the realm of disciplinary action, options for victims range from doing nothing to seeking a CJC trial or contacting the police.

According to Belanger, victims sometimes choose to confront their assailant in a way that doesn’t necessarily involve disciplinary action through a facilitated discussion moderated by one of the deans. Others choose to communicate with their assailant through e-mail or letters.

After the meeting with the deans, one victim in this case decided to pursue a CJC hearing and also filed a report with the police. At that time, approximately one month had passed since the assault.

The CJC hearing was scheduled for early this semester, but was recently called off since the alleged perpetrator did not return to campus after winter break, according to the victim.

According to Westphal, there are times when someone commits an act and for whatever reason decides to leave the college, or is given that option by the college. “However, if they ever decide to return, there might be a CJC trial waiting for them,” she said. While an individual can be tried by the CJC if they are abroad or on a leave of absence, as long as they can be given a chance to represent themselves (whether by coming back to the college, sending in a statement, or participating in a conference call), an individual cannot be tried if they have withdrawn from the college.

“I guess what shocks me the most is that people [can get] suspended or expelled for plagiarism, but for sexual assault — I guess the last CJC hearing decision that was made was a 2-3 split and he was found not guilty,” the victim said.

The victim was extremely happy with the support she received from the SMART team. “was with us every step of the way, she came with us to the Deans Office, she came with us when we went to Worth.”

“It makes all the difference if you come when you’re needed,” she continued. “I know that if we hadn’t called [a SMART team member], we might have lost our nerve and not have talked to anyone — it’s like the first jumping off point. Karen Henry is also wonderful with victim support.”

“My major concern was that I think that this kid needs some serious counseling, and they seemed to think that not only could that not happen, that they were not inclined to see that happen, and we got the feeling that unless we had to bring this forward, that the school and everything would go on like normal,” the victim said.

In taking a proactive step toward an in-school resolution of this crime, however, the victim was not necessarily expecting an immediate condemnation of the individual by the school, per se. Rather, she said that she wanted her actions to lead to a full investigation of the charges – not just for herself, but for the accused as well.

“If you tell the school something like that, then they have somewhat of a responsibility to the other students to at least check it out or investigate it — you know, just for the safety of everyone,” she said. “I don’t want them to immediately condemn [the perpetrator]; I don’t think that’s fair, but I do think it is fair to [demand a psychological evaluation of] the perpetrator, whether he’s guilty or innocent, in that it doesn’t impede anything.”

“Say I went to the deans and I told them what happened … but both of us decided we didn’t want to press charges. I still think it would be helpful for the college to say, ‘No matter what you guys do, we’re going to look into this.’ It was basically — we do something or nothing happens,” she said.

Julia Berthet ‘10, who attended one of the meetings the victims had with the deans, said that she was concerned that there is a tendency in cases like this to assume that the incident is isolated and that it won’t happen again. “realized when they talked to each other that this is not something that happens once and goes away,” she said. “I think that raising awareness about sexual assault on this campus can stop it from happening.”

“I don’t see the administration taking a strong stance that if you assault someone, it will go on your permanent record, you will be put on academic probation, this will happen, this will happen, and this will happen,” Berthet said. “No one wants to be scared all of the time—‘oh no I might be sexually assaulted’—but they should be aware and build this into their weekend habit … [to] be on their guard and not act without complete certainty.”

Westphal pointed to ASAP workshops, sexual health counselors, the Clothesline Project and safer sex workshops as ways the college tries to prevent sexual violence. “I think there is a lot of education that is presented here by both staff and students, but we can’t control who comes and who doesn’t come to those workshops,” Westphal said. In fact, the Dean’s office has discovered that some people who have been accused of sexual assault did not attend those workshops, Westphal said.

However, some close to the individual case believe that an additional degree of awareness of sexual assaults as they occur and as they pertain to the campus is necessary for any significant change, either to the number of assaults that occur or to how they are treated.

“Although I understand my role as a student or whatever, I don’t know the whole inner workings of the administration … I also see that at least, sitting on the outside, I feel that the reason they don’t want to do something is to protect Swarthmore’s image,” said Hoa Pham ’10, a friend of a victim. “Not mentioning this is not making us feel safer.”

She also expressed exasperation as to how the rumor system of the campus functions in relation to these cases – that, frequently, unattached details of a given assault may find their way to the campus body that may distort the actual facts of a case. However, in the current situation, Pham said, these rumors are one of the few ways to be aware of when to be most on guard.

A CJC member who asked to remain anonymous due to concerns about commenting on the issue given their position believed that there were ways to go about “getting [information on sexual assault cases] out to the people without violating anonymity and confidentiality.”

“That’s the first step to having a community that is safer … it has to be recognized that it happens,” she said.

The CJC member also expressed disappointment over the way in which cases involving sexual assault had been handled by the body in the past. “If you ease up on the penalty because of the level of alcohol [the accused] had in them at that moment, that shouldn’t be in my idea [something that gets them off the hook],” they said.

Some concern also exists as to the status of an individual accused of a serious crime prior to any hearing that may or may not later occur. Westphal indicated that the school can take cautionary actions prior to a CJC hearing, such as requiring an individual to temporarily move his or her place of residence if they live in campus housing.

“Would you be comfortable if your children went to a school where the guy who raped them came back in time to graduate? [If I were assaulted,] I shouldn’t have to transfer,” a survivor and friend of the victim said. “In the real world, if a rapist is caught, he’s going to sit in jail, even before the trial happens, he’s going to sit in jail … there’s no walking the streets in the real world,” she said.

According to the victim, the perpetrator will likely be able to get away from this with hardly even a note on his transcript. “I was talking to Karen Henry about this, and she said that there’s a possibility of putting a note on his transcript. However, the note would be on the back of the transcript, not on the front, and only the front of the transcript gets photocopied and sent to the school in case of a transfer,” she said.

This principle can extend to decisions issued by the CJC. A punishment can be non-notational, wherein the record can only be accessed by the school and is essentially destroyed post-graduation. Alternatively, a given punishment can be notational, meaning it will stay filed with a student’s transcript and can be revealed if someone inquires as to an individual’s notational punishments, as is common in background checks and some graduate school applications (specifically medical school). Westphal identified non-notational punishments as being significantly more common than notational punishments.

In addition, in some instances cases involving two different accounts of the same event wherein there is no clear evidence either way can pose an issue, either for a declaration of guilt or innocence. “In some cases, we really don’t know … we have no way of telling which one is telling the truth,” Westphal said.

Furthermore, the relative power of the “guilty” verdict (i.e. how many CJC members called for such a verdict) could positively or negatively influence the magnitude of a given punishment for a given charge. Given two cases with identical charges but wherein one was presented with which a more solid amount of evidence, “the one we would be more sure of the decision … the fact that we felt more sure about one than the other because we had concrete evidence, we may or may not take that into account with the punishment,” she said.

“The majority of the people I see choose not to use the CJC or go to the police,” Henry said. “Most people who come to me even in the most egregious situations choose not to move forward in charging assault.”

While Henry said some individuals do call the police and press charges, or pursue a CJC hearing on campus, there are also many reasons why people choose not to. “It’s a difficult process to go through — each person has to decide whether they want to go through that,” Henry said.

According to Henry, people often find it hard to tell their stories to anyone, let alone strangers; although some people do feel empowered by doing that, for many it is an intimidating process. “It’s a lot of information to take in at once — victims are often overwhelmed coming in the door,” Henry said. “If a person can’t decide, I make sure they have enough information to make a decision, but I can’t make a decision for them. I will support them in any option they choose — I have gone to the police with victims and testified in court for them.”

According to Swarthmore Borough Police Chief Brian Craig, the police’s first response to allegations of sexual assault depends on the length of time between the incident and when the report is made. “The first priority is the safety of the individual,” he said. “If [a sexual assault] is reported a month later — there’s generally much less we can do about that.”

Not all cases brought to the police are prosecuted, according to Craig, and in general the victim is given the right to make that choice. “We can’t force people to prosecute, except under certain situations such as in certain domestic abuse cases, or in cases where witnesses may have been intimidated,” Craig said. “We also would likely not press charges where it could further traumatize the victim.”

Craig noted that the statute of limitations for how long after the incident sexual assault cases can be prosecuted depends on the specifics of the crime — usually five to seven years or more. The Swarthmore Police have not had any sexual assaults brought to them beyond that timeframe. While Craig said that two or three month old cases are more commonly reported, there is still not much that can be done at that time in terms of prosecution, since physical evidence is not recoverable and the memory and availability of witnesses may have declined.

However, this is not always the case. Craig said that the police department had one case several years ago that was reported about a month and a half after it occurred and resulted in successful prosecution. Other cases like this, though rare, do exist.

“We understand that victims [of sexual assault] go through a range of emotions, but it is helpful to us to deal with it right after it happens,” he said. Craig said that the police talk to SMART team members to keep them informed “about what we do, but not to change what they do.”

“A lot of sexual assault cases also involve abuse, which impacts the memory of people and their recollections,” Craig said. Depending on the circumstances, underage drinking might be a factor as well, although Craig said that victims who have brought their case to the police have never been cited for underage drinking.

“Our primary concern is for the well being of the victim,” Craig said. “We only have one female police officer, but generally we contact Women Against Rape and ask them to have a counselor present during police interviews.”

According to Director of Public Safety Owen Redgrave, anyone on campus designated as a campus security authority, including deans, Public Safety employees, health center employees, RAs, SMART team members and others, can report sexual assaults they learn of through a simple online form, in accordance with the Clery Act requirements.

Only statistical information is needed to fill in the form — no information that identifies the victim, and these statistics are compiled each year and made available through the Clery annual report, also available on Public Safety’s Web site. Some other types of crimes that occur on campus are reported in this way as well.

“So long as the [campus security authority] believes that someone believes that [an assault] occurred, they report it,” Redgrave said. In addition, Westphal said that the deans are bound to pass on any crime explicitly reported to them to Public Safety to be included in the Clery statistics, although no details of the crime outside of its class are included in their notes to Public Safety.

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