Consensus Reached on Sex Assault Policy

Author: Taylor Johnston

After three weeks of deliberation, two recommendations for changes in the sexual assault judicial process emerged from the Monday, Oct. 27 Community Council meeting. The Council recommended giving sexual assault victims the option of participating in hearings through closed circuit television conferences and providing special training and debriefings for Community Judicial Board members who review sexual assault cases. The Council approved these sexual assault policy revisions, suggested by the Sexual Assault Policy Group, with some of its own caveats, in response to concerns raised about the evenhandedness of the proposed procedure.

The Policy Group's plan for an anonymous reporting form and the creation of a smaller subgroup of the Judicial Board to review assault cases did not gain the Council's approval.

President John McCardell will now consider the Council's recommendations. In an effort to educate the College about the possible new policies, the Council has also called for a community forum on the subject, which will take place before McCardell makes the final decision.

Though both the Council and the Policy Group hope the provision for a hearing over closed circuit television will make the judicial process more comfortable for assault victims and encourage them to come forward, several members voiced concerns about the impact this might have on the rights of the accused, echoing the opinion of the College attorney who attended the last Council meeting to address this issue.

Council members Hieu Nguyen, associate director of annual giving, and Felipe Colon '04 brought forward similar questions about the fairness of allowing the accuser to participate through television.

"If you have the accuser in another room you are already kind of victimizing [the accused] . . . [It makes you think] 'Look at this guy, this animal. She can't even be in the same room as him.' It creates this atmosphere," Colon explained. He later added, "Obviously, we can't forget the reasons why we're doing this, but we have to be prepared to have accountability."

In addition to Colon and Nguyen's concerns about implied guilt, the Council addressed the importance of the right of the accused to face the accuser, an issue brought to light by the college attorney during the previous meeting.

Assistant Professor of History and Council Member Louisa Burnham addressed this concern. "Facing your accuser doesn't necessarily imply breathing the same air [as your accuser]," she claimed.

The Council ultimately decided to approve the recommendation on the condition that the possible disadvantages a teleconference hearing could pose to both the accused and the accuser be clearly enumerated to the Community Judicial Board before such a hearing took place. They also specified that an advisor must stay with the accuser for the duration of the hearing. The motion passed with ten approvals, one disapproval and five abstentions.

The Policy Group's recommendation that assault hearings be tried by a smaller subgroup of the Judicial Board failed to resonate with the members of Community Council, who believed the diversity of opinions of the larger Judicial Board more valuable than the more intimate environment a smaller group might provide in order to limit access to sensitive details and encourage victims to come forward. The council unanimously adopted a motion to keep the current eight-person Judicial Board for assault cases, but did pass the recommendation to provide further education to the Judicial Board about sexual assault cases and allow members of the Board to discuss their feelings after the outcome of a case or appeal during a confidential debriefing.

In an informal straw poll, the Council also voted to send the anonymous report form back to the Policy Group for reconsideration, feeling the form, as it stood, allowed too much room for false accusations, pranks, and inaccurate statistics.

"We want to [make sure we] know what the goal of [the anonymous report form is]," said Dean of Student Affairs and Council Co-Chair Ann Hanson. "If the goal is to make it easier for victims to report, that takes us one way, but if the goal is to get better information [about assaults on campus], that takes us another way. I'm not sure this report form is the best bridge between the two goals."

Some Council members felt a survey by a professional polling company might better achieve the dual goals of awareness and improved information and education about sexual assault with more accurate statistics, but Policy Group member Elizabeth Brookbank '04 defended the importance of the form, sighting the success Colgate, Mount Holyoke and Skidmore Colleges have had with similar reporting methods.

"The actual numbers are secondary in importance to the awareness that [assault happens on campus] - the awareness that the numbers from the anonymous reports would give to other victims that they were not alone and that there were things they could do about it," Brookbank argued. "Obviously, this isn't a perfect solution, but I feel like it is better than what we have now. Isn't it better than not knowing [about the possible assaults] at all?"

At the conclusion of the meeting, the council decided to send the report form issue back to the Policy Group rather than call for polling at this time. They offered that the form be reconfigured as an online option with set drop-down fields to eliminate the possibility that someone may put the name of a specific person, which might leave students and the reputation of the college vulnerable to pranks and false accusations.