Occidental College Lawsuit: A Professor Reports On New Sexual Assault Lawsuit At the College

A group of Occidental College students and sexual assault survivors held a press conference on Thursday to announce that Gloria Allred will be representing them in a legal case against the college. One of the most powerful civil rights attorneys in the world, previously Allred has sued the likes of Arnold Schwartzenegger, Herman Cain, Sasha Baron Cohen, Aaron Spelling, Tiger Woods, Boy Scouts of America, and Scott Peterson. She will be working pro bono.

This development comes at the same time that the Occidental Sexual Assault Coalition – having spent years documenting an unjust and illegal process – has submitted two complaints to the federal government: (1) a Title IX complaint with the Office for Civil Rights arguing that Occidental is a hostile environment for women and (2) an argument that the college is in violation of the Clery Act, which requires timely and accurate reporting of crimes on campus.

I am a faculty member at Occidental College. In this post I describe what’s happening, why, what I expect the backlash to look like, and what I hope will come of this.

What’s happening?

One in four college-age women will experience rape or attempted rape. In the U.S., college attendance is a risk factor for sexual assault. The majority of sexual violence – against both men and women — is committed by a small group of men.  Accordingly, it is imperative to identify men responsible for sexual assaults and remove them from their “target-rich” environment. Institutions of higher education, unfortunately, have a perverse incentive to suppress reports of sexual assault and discourage adjudication.  Administrators know that students may be dissuaded from attending schools that have a reputation for a high rate of sexual assault, so these numbers are suppressed all across higher education in America.

Occidental College is no exception to this rule.

After nearly five years of attempting to work with the administration, and facing deliberate indifference, the coalition decided to turn to the federal government for help, hence the complaints. In the meantime, and separately from the coalition’s efforts, sexual assault survivors and their families decided to seek legal counsel.  Gloria Allred has agreed to take the cases.

Why is Occidental College being sued and reported to the federal government? 

Gloria Allred’s cases against the college will likely focus on the alleged illegal and unjust treatment of students who report sexual assault by other students. Incidences of sexual assault have been hidden from the college community; students have been discouraged from reporting to both the college and the police and from proceeding with adjudication; students found responsible for sexual assault have been allowed to appeal without grounds; sanctions have frequently been lessened on appeal; there has been harassment of and retaliation against survivors and their allies; and Occidental has let at least three men found responsible for more than one assault back on campus after their victims have graduated, exposing a new crop of unsuspecting women to a known predator.

The coalition filing federal reports has been pleading with the administration to bring its programming, policy, and process in line with the law and the best practices scholarship. Their solution to the administration’s failure to do this is to turn to the U.S. government; the students have turned to Allred.

What will the backlash look like? 

If Occidental follows the pattern of previous institutions, we will see at least three phenomena.

First, known coalition members, survivors, and their allies will be blamed for harming the reputation of Occidental and putting it at risk of legal sanctions and fines. This will be ironic because it is, of course, rapists, their apologists, and incompetent and corrupt administrators that are to blame. They’re responsible for the harm done to individual survivors and any harm that comes to the institution.

It will be difficult to keep this in mind, but we must.

Second, in an effort to save their jobs and reputations, the administrators will try to divide and conquer the college community. While the college has insurance to cover fines and legal payouts, the administration will likely claim financial hardship and make painful changes (e.g., freeze hiring or cut programs and salaries).  They will engage in the blaming behavior described above to suggest that survivors and their allies are responsible for the hardship that comes with a high-profile scandal. They will attempt to turn the faculty against one another, and the faculty against the administration, with a focus on stoking resentment against the faculty on the front lines of this fight. The faculty members in the coalition will likely pay a high price for their commitment to making Occidental a safer and fairer place.

No good deed goes unpunished.

Finally, women on campus will be targeted for retaliation. All women – not just survivors and their allies – will be fair game for insults, harassment, threats, and violence. Serial rapists are sociopaths and they do not like to be told that they’re not allowed to rape. While the vast majority of male students at Occidental are wonderful people, there are a handful of very scary men on campus who feel entitled to sexual access to women’s bodies. They will interpret the complaints and lawsuits as an attack on their freedom to do what they want to women.  And they will fight back.  Because they see all women as essentially the same, all women will potentially be subject to their outrage.

In other words, their unquestioned power and privilege is being challenged, and they may very well react with symbolic or physical violence.

What good can come of this? 

I am extraordinarily hopeful about the long-term outcome of these lawsuits and complaints.

Of course, I want the students at my institution to get justice, as much as that is possible. But I also believe that we are at a tipping point.

We’re following in the footsteps of Amherst, UNC, and Yale. Together we will be part of the first wave. There will be a second. There will be waves of institutions brought into the light, as lawsuits and complaints expose a nationwide cover up of sexual misconduct and assault at college campuses. In the wake of these scandals, we will begin a new era of sexual assault programming, policy, and adjudication. In this new era, colleges will heed the word of the Office for Civil Rights and consider all instances of sexual assault a threat to equal access to education for women.

In this era, we will no longer live in a world in which going to college increases one’s risk of sexual assault, in which administrations promote rape myths and stoke rape culture, in which reporting a sexual crime exposes you to further trauma and betrayal.  It’s going to be a better world.  And we’re going to look back at when parents routinely sent their children off to rape-prone environments and be stunned. We’re going to remember a time in which we allowed serial rapists to thrive in target-rich environments and be disgusted. We’re going to remember how institutions treated victims of sexual assault and be flabbergasted that we allowed such a thing.

I think.

I hope.

I want this to be the tipping point. And I’m very sorry that Occidental has to be a part of it, because I absolutely adore my little school. But it’s exactly because we are a special place, with such brave students and principled faculty, that we will be on the frontlines of this change.  We won’t be alone. We are linking hands with brave students and principled faculty all across America; we will take the fire together, for the greater good.

Sometimes protecting what is precious means taking decisive action. My college isn’t a wonderful place today just because. It’s a great place because people have been fighting to make it great all along. Justice and equality don’t just happen, they require vision and vigilance. This is just a next step in a long journey that we should be proud of.

An earlier version of this article appeared at Sociological Images. Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.