Check out our three fall internships and see if any of them are right for you. Our interns are integral to our work each semester—this isn’t a making copies and getting coffee situation, it’s more like producing materials and doing research. Feel free to contact us with any questions: volunteer@safercampus.org.

In July I wrote a long post about alcohol and consent that was sparked by a case out of Lincoln University in PA. A female student reported being raped by multiple men while intoxicated to the point of incapacitation, and this year four of these men were set to go to trial. What makes this case particularly interesting (it kind of grosses me out referring to a rape case as “interesting,” I just can’t think of a better word right now, apologies) is that one of the men confessed to the crime—he admitted to raping this woman (and also to witnessing at least two of the other three defendants doing the same) while she was “passed out.” At some point his conscience kicked in and he stopped, leaving the room. His lawyer tried to argue that this epiphany of conscience should somehow exonerate him, but the jury didn’t agree and he was found guilty.

So when I wrote that post, the other three men were awaiting trial (I want to mention though that Forbes, the one who confessed, said he witnesses 10 men in the room). Their defense seemed to be that they had consensual sex with the woman, and then she was “embarrassed” by having “group sex” and claimed it was rape (even though one of them said that when he left her she was “intoxicated and incoherent. So how does that defense work, exactly?). But we never really got to hear from them, because on July 16 the judge declared a mistrial and the case was dismissed. The reason for the mistrial—the prosecution had not turned over some evidence to the defense.

So what exactly was the evidence in question? The initial report about the mistrial cites two specific pieces of information. 1) Although the victim says that she was drinking with two of the alleged perpetrators and was too drunk to remember much of what happened or to consent, there was a taped interview of a friend of hers in which the friend said she had been with the victim that night and she had actually not been drinking. 2) The A.D.A. also didn’t tell the defense that the complainant had been arrested for shoplifting the previous year and plead guilty to those charges. Had the defense been aware of this, they could have used this to attack her credibility during her testimony, because everyone knows that people who shoplift lie about being raped. Sigh.

Notably, the judge did not only dismiss the case, but did so in such a way that the prosecution would not be able to bring the three men back to trial for the same charges.

So, unsurprisingly the D.A. is appealing this decision, saying that the judge made the decision too quickly and “overstepped his authority” in not allowing the case to be brought back to trial. The A.D.A. who was prosecuting the case claims that she did not purposefully suppress evidence, saying that she thought she had in fact sent them the video interview of the witness, and she had simply “forgotten” to pass along information about the shoplifting conviction.  Meanwhile, the prosecution says of the witness that “[she] had been unreliable in her memory of the incident, was not an eyewitness to the alleged rape, and was not with the woman when she began drinking heavily prior to the incident.”  On top of everything, Forbes is now appealing his guilty verdict based on the mistrial in the case against the other three. Even though he already confessed to the crime.

It remains to be seen whether or not the judge will reverse the decision on the dismissal or hear Forbes’ appeal. I hope the judge takes to heart the words of the D.A.: “Court have recognized that errors at trial can occur” [and that defendants] ‘should not be given a free ride,’ when those errors occur.” While I of course can’t make any claims about what did or didn’t happen in this case, I would hate to see it end this way, without an actual trial. That’s not to say the prosecution didn’t screw up or to downplay the importance of the accused’s due process rights. But nothing about this situation seems to be related to actual justice or accountability.

Most people reading this probably won’t remember the name Kyle Payne. His story broke right around the time I started working with SAFER in the summer of 2008, and it stuck with me over the past couple of years. For the best background, I would check out the series of posts that Cara did over at The Curvature, but the brief history is that Payne was an RA (resident advisor) at Buena Vista University in Iowa, who was charged with sexually assaulting an unconscious student and taking naked photographs of her. He pled guilty to the photographing, but not the assault, and was sentenced to 6 months in county jail.

The kicker is that Payne was also a sexual assault advocate. His blog is now set to private, but he used to describe himself there as follows:

Kyle is a social justice educator, writer, and activist. Much of his work is concerned with putting a stop to violence against women. For years Kyle has served as an advocate for survivors of sexual violence and other forms of abuse, in addition to promoting what he calls “a more just and life-affirming culture of sexuality” through activism and education. As a researcher, Kyle has studied the feminist anti-pornography movement and is particularly interested in men’s roles in confronting pornography and the rape culture. In addition to his pro-feminist work, he is involved with anti-racist, free speech, peace, and anti-globalization movements.

As repugnant as this description was in 2008, it gets worse this week as a commenter pointed us to this August 20, 2010 story about how Payne has been arrested again, this time for possession of child pornography:

After Payne told a counselor that he was continuing to use pornography, a police officer and two parole officers went to his apartment in Sioux City August 12 to examine his computer. His parole agreement required that Payne submit to such searches.

They found over 200 animated images of child pornography on the machine, and when questioned, Payne reportedly admitted that they might recover photographic images of actual child sex acts from his hard drive. Officers found software intended to “scrub” computer files to prevent them from being discovered. Payne had reportedly also downloaded child pornography onto his BVU student drive prior to his initial arrest.

It’s bizarre that this story got sent to us today—as we’ve been prepping some resources on housing rights for suvivors, I was just googling the original Payne story YESTERDAY to make a point about how schools need to have protocol for when a perpetrator of sexual violence is a member of the housing/res life staff. Re-reading all of the original posts about him, including the one written here by Ashley, I was again filled with rage at the hypocrisy (which honestly doesn’t seem like a strong enough word) of this man, claiming to be a supporter of women who suffer at the hands of men just like him. And tonight I am angry still, but I am also just deeply saddened by the fact that this story continues; that whatever therapy this man was going through wasn’t enough. So much of what I believe in—my social justice values, you might say—hinges on transformation, learning, redeeming oneself…and then people like this make me second guess the possibility of that at all.

I want to end this by echoing Ashley from two years ago, because it’s still really, really relevant:

This case is an excellent example of one of the myriad reasons a college should make the investment in full-time trained sexual assault advocates. They think that’s too expensive? How much will it cost when the school gets sued because some self-styled student “advocate” sexually assaults the person they’re counseling? How about the lost tuition from students too traumatized to continue with their schooling? The fallout from the suicide that happens when the counseling center is closed?

Seriously, you have three baseball coaches and you can’t hire one person to deal with sexual assault on campus?

Back to school for you means back to work for us! We’re currently looking for three interns for the fall semester to work with us in outreach/communications, policy and research, and development. Full descriptions of the internships and application procedures can be found here. Generally we ask for about 8 to 10 hours a week and that you commit to meeting with us in person once a week. (This is not a go into the office every day kind of thing, most work is done independently). Check em out and see if any sound right for you.

Over the weekend I read Amelia’s piece over at Feministe about the challenge of having a member of her campus feminist group dominate discussions, try and change the direction of the group without consensus, and misrepresent the group’s Take Back the Night event (having already been insensitive to triggering rape survivors during a past group meeting). Amelia’s story is complicated by the fact that the group member in question is a guy, bringing up some important questions about how to be a good male ally in a feminist organization largely made up of women (or in any progressive organization that includes feminism as part of its social justice frame). More on that to come (although for now, check out Hugo Schwyzer’s great follow-up to Amelia’s post on how feminist men can effectively step up and step back)…but the post brings up the basic issue of establishing ground rules for group meetings or discussions in order to make things run as smoothly as possible and let everyone’s voices be heard. It’s completely possible that Amelia’s group already had guidelines like these in place, but I figured they were worth bringing up.

At SAFER trainings we like to let the group brainstorm their own discussion ground rules from the outset. But here are some that are generally important to us. Feel free to leave more in the comments.

• “One Person, One Mic”: No interrupting. One person will speak at a time
• Agreeing as a group to be respectful of each other’s feelings, and our own, and to be respectful of all cultures, races, sexual orientations, gender identities, religions, class backgrounds, abilities, and perspectives when speaking.
• Speaking in “I” statements: Don’t tell others what to do or think as if it is a command. Instead, describe your own experience. Agreeing to challenge people who make hurtful comments.
• Guaranteeing a safe space: agreeing not to repeat personal things people say during a group meeting to others.
• Recognizing our own and others’ privilege: When entering a space and speaking, being aware of privilege based on race, age, experience, sex, gender, abilities, class, etc.
• “Step up and step back”: If we usually don’t talk much, we will challenge ourselves to speak more. If we find ourselves talking more than others, we will speak less.
• Self care and group care. Don’t make assumptions about anyone’s history of sexual assault or interpersonal violence. Be aware that there may be survivors present when taking about sexual violence. If the content of the discussion is triggering, allow yourself to take care of yourself first. As a group, don’t judge anyone who needs to step out either for a few minutes or for the remainder of the meeting.

Feministe commenter Frowner also had some great suggestions from their feminist collective that go beyond discussion ground rules and speak to really defining the kind of group and space you want to develop, like establishing a mission statement all group members must agree to before joining, establishing an accountability process for when someone crosses an established boundary, and creating facilitation rules and processes. Check em out.

It’s back-to-school time, and for the first time in three years I’m headed back to school too. It’s exciting, but also stressful and, especially if you’re headed to college for the first time, potentially kind of scary. Not only do you have to worry about doing well academically, making friends, securing work, etc., but you’re navigating a new social world and testing your own boundaries, all in an environment where we know sexual violence is a pretty big issue. Luckily, new and returning students have plenty of folks to offer them super useful advice on staying safe like, don’t walk around alone at night. In fact, don’t be alone ever. Also, watch your drink. Maybe you shouldn’t drink at all actually. To be safest, just don’t trust anyone, or yourself, and you should be OK. Wait, what?

Over the two years I’ve been writing for SAFER, I’ve carefully walked the line between trying to promote primary prevention education and techniques (primary prevention meaning approaching sexual violence prevention by focusing on the changing perpetrator behavior and cultural attitudes that enable rape and assault) over risk reduction techniques, without totally writing off risk reduction (risk reduction being the strategies most often given to women to ‘reduce the risk’ that they will be assaulted by altering their behavior, i.e., stay in groups, watch your drink). Because honestly, people probably shouldn’t accept drinks if they aren’t sure what’s in them. If you feel a situation is unsafe, whether it be a walk alone to the other side of campus or an aggressive person hitting on you at a party, you should listen to your instincts and call in a friend for company or backup. Some of this advice is good old-fashioned common sense that we should all have, because until we’re living in a rosier world where violence isn’t an issue, sometimes we’re going to have to make shitty sacrifices.

But that’s the thing—they are sacrifices. What frustrates me about hearing the same risk reduction techniques handed out to students every year (and let’s face it, they are always aimed at female students) isn’t just the fact that focusing on women’s behavior alone puts the sole responsibility for preventing violence on the potential victim, which I think unintentionally plays a role in enabling victim-blaming. It’s also that while telling you how you can help “protect yourself,” no one stops to tell you how fucking unfair it is that you have to do it in the first place. Few things make me angrier than the fact that I experience social situations or even just taking a walk differently than my male peers because of the threat of sexual harassment or violence. And by not giving space to that anger, these lists of safety tips, as well-intentioned as they are, continue to normalize violence as harassment as these givens—like: Men are potential threats. Learn how to protect yourself from them. That is all. This defaults men into being predators and women into staying scared. There is no room for progress, or envisioning a world in which women’s behavior isn’t seen as a predictor of the likelihood that they will be assaulted.

What if instead or alongside these safety tips for women, we distributed information on how NOT to be a rapist? What would that world look like? Can you imagine, security and anti-violence professionals across the country releasing lists every fall with advice on how to reduce your or your friends’ risk of sexually assaulting someone? For example:

• Don’t use alcohol or drugs to manipulate someone into sexual activity. Don’t stand by silently while your friends do it either
• Don’t ignore verbal and/or physical signs of discomfort when hooking up with someone
• Ask your partner what they want, or check in with them before taking things further
• Stand up to your friends who make jokes about rape
• If you see someone being aggressive or making clearly unwanted advances to another person, step in or cause a distraction
• Understand the long-term negative emotional and physical effects of sexual violence on a survivor

People who get all up in arms about critiques of risk reduction as standalone prevention effort or critiques of victim-blaming usually talk a lot about personal responsibility—women need to be responsible for their behavior too. And there’s a lot to unpack there, but let’s just address the “too”—the “too” implies that culturally we are already holding folks accountable for perpetrating or enabling violence. And by and large, we aren’t. And I could wax philosophical for a long time about why we aren’t—because it’s harder to do than telling women to protect themselves, because it involves talking about sex with young people which makes everyone uncomfortable, because it challenges long-established gender and sexual norms, and so on—but the end result is that we accept that women should go through life afraid, constantly questioning that one wrong move that might ‘increase their risk’ of being violated. And I am so, so tired of settling for that, every year, over and over again.

So this year when you go back to school, and during orientation someone tells you about how you can “keep yourself safe,” file that information away for a time when you might need it, with the understanding that the only person who can truly prevent rape is the rapist. But also, harness your frustration, and anger, and fear into something positive.  Ask if your school has primary prevention education also. Ask if they are going to address the responsibility each of your peers has to not violate each other’s sexual boundaries. If you don’t get answers you like, start talking about it to the administration, to student activists, to your school’s peer health educators, to us at SAFER. Don’t feel forced to settle.

Continued from Part I. Where we left off, Suzy had just discovered her school’s Low Income Student Alliance (LISA).

Suddenly, there was this camaraderie that I previously found difficult to foster in a decentralized urban campus. All of us, despite our generous scholarships, still have to work to pay for our tuition, books, housing and/or supplies. Most of us came from homes with single parents, parents with serious financial debt or parents who never obtained college degrees. Many of us are students of color. A few students have had to take entire semesters, or even years off of schooling due to financial stress. However, all of us had trouble finding the time and resources to implement a policy change that would benefit us as working-class students. We even had trouble finding a time to meet, because all of our work schedules would clash.

Little by little, membership waned; a few students left the Alliance because they left school altogether, in order to make a living. Some of the most thoughtful, intelligent people were forced to halt their educations because their socioeconomic status wouldn’t allow them to continue. When I asked one of these people about an upcoming student action, they said, “I don’t care anymore. I’m focused on making money now. I don’t have time to fight for my right to an education, when clearly it’s not meant for people like me.”

A Diversity of Tactics

One thing that has alleviated most of our organizational issues is the internet. Because most of us had trouble finding a common time to meet, we exchanged our ideas from our homes or jobs. We had to continue the momentum somehow; by setting up a listserve, we could outline some objectives, and notify each other of upcoming events and job opportunities. We arranged a blog, printed flyers with statistics we collected from the government and wrote a zine that we eventually sent to members of the administration. Each member of LISA shared their personal story, describing the difficulty of attending school in the city with limited resources.

The administration’s interest in us peaked once we delivered the zine; they invited us to meet with them. We double-checked our calendars and drafted a proper platform and list of demands to back up our zine. After a couple of students briefly met with them in person, they made public the availability of emergency funds, which low-income students could use for supplies and bills.

Other secret resources for students gradually started popping up. Suddenly people were able to earn work-study money for their internships, or receive scholarships that had previously been kept hush-hush by the financial aid department. The correspondence between financial aid and low-income students has increased since the zine.

These resources had stayed hidden because people were too intimidated by the bureaucracy to navigate it or negotiate with administrators, but we accomplished the majority of our work from the comfort of our cheap computers. Even though I can’t afford a fancy Macbook Pro like many of my peers, I can still access the internet from any place at almost any time, whether it’s from my school, the local library, or even my phone. It’s safe to say that the internet is the most accessible medium through which anyone can learn about the issues, form a community and implement change, no matter if you’re living in a big city in the East Coast or a small Midwestern town.

Although most of LISA has parted ways, and even cities, have no doubt that we’re still scheming. We’ve even contacted similar organizations at neighboring private schools and state schools alike. Somewhere online, the momentum is picking up again, and it’s only a few clicks away.

This is part one of a piece written by Suzy, one of SAFER’s amazing summer interns. Look for part two on strategic organizing in the next couple of days.

Many college students in the US grew up believing in the same narrative. It starts with high school graduation, then it’s followed by the pursuit of a college degree, and it is guaranteed to end with a lucrative career and financial security.

By omitting the reality of student loans, a shrinking job market, and a failing economy, this narrative is, at best, an American fairy tale.

The reality behind being a college student hit me pretty hard from the beginning. After being offered a hefty scholarship to a school in New York City, I took advantage of the offer without any hesitation, eager to live my dreams of going to school in the city. I had borrowed just enough to cover what my school didn’t provide in tuition and housing costs, confident in my ability to balance a job and schoolwork.

However, when my dad was laid off from his job two months into my first year of college, it became clear that my parents would not be able to provide me with a safety net. Since then I have balanced 2 to 3 jobs at a time, all the while struggling to do well in 5 to 6 classes a semester. I even had to transfer to a program that was less challenging, so that I could reconcile my work schedule with my class schedule.

When money is tight, and your schedule is tighter

I always prided myself on my opinions, and my drive to change the status quo. When I noticed some glaring disparities—like the way the men at my coffee shop earned two dollars more than the women***, the rate at which my friends were being sexually assaulted, and the fact that no more than two gender studies classes were offered per semester—there was no way I was going to ignore them. Yet, I found that getting other people sufficiently riled up about it would take a lot of time and effort that I couldn’t spare, as long as I wanted to maintain good grades and keep my hours steady at work.

Rhiannon Auriemma, a junior at Eugene Lang College, understands my dilemma with organizing on a tight schedule. “The main disadvantage to being a low-income student activist is really a time disadvantage. I couldn’t afford to live on campus so I commute and I have a really demanding job on my days off… I haven’t been able to take a leadership role because I knew I wouldn’t be able to fully commit myself.”

Working your way through school is a tricky thing to do, and being a student activist isn’t any easier. You can burn out in no time if you don’t have the support you need to further your cause. Things like time, money, and contacts are all very crucial to carrying on a movement. And as a low-income student trying to revive the feminist movement at a school without a gender studies program, I was hard-pressed for all three of those things.

I had barely any time to manage a feminist group, much less meet on a regular basis without detracting from my hours at work; I had no time to run around the school and chase after bureaucrats for administrative approval, thus limiting my chances of gaining any funding; and I had a limited amount of friends or professors who had any interest in feminist analysis. It’s also difficult to foster a community in an urban setting like New York City where there are so many outside distractions and so little time. Things were looking pretty bleak.

Luckily, I found solace in my school’s Low-Income Student Alliance (LISA), a student-run support group for working-class students. There were plenty other students who, just like me, followed the social protocol of attending college, without any of the financial privilege that most students at our school had. Coincidentally, they were hosting their first meeting at the same time and place as the feminist group; thus, a beautiful and productive conversation was started, in which we discussed the intersections between gender, race and class. I realized that my issues as a low-income student were connected my issues as a woman of color. I also realized my issues were similar to many other people attending my school.

***Due to the gendered wage disparity, all the women eventually quit the coffee shop in unison, and the management caved and sold the place.

Stay tuned for part two…

Cross-posted at Feministing Campus

Last week a Drake University senior was charged with sexual abuse after photos and video of him allegedly sexually assaulting an unconscious fellow student were found on his computer. What makes this different from the cases of campus sexual assault we usually hear about is that the victim was his fraternity brother. While incredibly disturbing—the video was found by the victim, who says that he has no memory of the multiple assaults, and he believes he was drugged—perhaps this shouldn’t be as surprising as it is. Statistically we know that 1 in 33 men have experienced rape or attempted rape, and research from the 90s published in the Journal of American College Health suggests that up to 10% of campus acquaintance rapes are perpetrated against men, usually by other men. But this is sadly something we just don’t talk about.

We do joke about it, though. While poking around online reading about this story, I more than once came across the gross term “bro rape” and was reminded of that horrible “comedy” video about “bros raping bros” that made the rounds two or three years ago. Salty Femme wrote about it over at Feministe, and she said it quite well:

This is a pretty ugly contribution to the stigma men face around being rape victims. It mocks and silences male survivors of sexual assault, all of whom deal with the same crap as female victims plus all the feelings around not being real men because real men, straight men, don’t get sexually assaulted. And here’s why this video is silencing male survivors of assault – a group of college boys can make a video mocking male sexual assault that millions of people watch and find hilarious and not feel guilty about it because sexual assault against men is somehow not real…The reason it’s so funny is because it could never happen, right?

The point about stigma faced by male victims is an important one—honestly, I rarely think about victim-blaming in terms of male victims because the language around it is often so gendered toward the “female” (short skirts, sluttiness, etc). But male victims do get the victim-blaming treatment as well. The following response to the assaults at Drake come from a website that touts itself as being written “by the common man, for the common man.”

I’m slightly confused by this story. Like what does “it’s very evident that the victim was incoherent at the time” mean? Does that mean he was passed out cold or was this dude just shitfaced and hooking up? Big difference right? Because I don’t care how fucked up I am I wouldn’t hook up with a dude…So to me this almost sounds like this guy was awake when this happened and knew the only way to save his reputation was to report Bertolone for rape. Because if you were passed out cold wouldn’t you try to keep this low that you got your dick sucked by a guy? Just beat the fuck out of him and tell him to move out or else you go public. Do people see what I’m saying? Something just doesn’t feel right about this story. I think the victim was sneaky into it.

So not only it is impossible that it was rape because a real man would never let himself be assaulted, a real dude would also never tell anyone about it because doing anything “gay” would just be too embarrassing. The comments on the piece are often in agreement (with a lot of jokes about teabagging, which apparently some guys do to each other as part of general frat/college hijinks? Only it sounds to me like sexual assault?).

Language and attitudes like these and “humor” like the bro rape video are directly responsible for creating a culture in which boys and men feel like they can’t come forward if they’ve been sexually assaulted. This combination of what dictating what “real men” do and don’t do, plus writing off sexual assault and harassment as “boys will be boys!” bad behavior is particularly dangerous on a college campus where hazing actually exists, there is a high occurrence of alcohol- and drug-related assault, and in a small community the fear of being labeled as “gay” or as a victim is perhaps more potent for younger men. This is just one of the reasons why it’s important for colleges to make sure their policy language around sexual assault is gender neutral, and it’s really an issue that should be covered in sexual assault awareness and prevention education—without humor.

Men who have been sexually assaulted should check out Male Survivor

A couple weeks ago, Christine (another SAFER Board member) and I spoke with Livia Rojas at the California Coalition Against Sexual Assault (CALCASA) about the work that SAFER does, what we’ve been up to, and what we’re excited about. The interview is now online for your listening pleasure.

Thanks to Livia and CALCASA for their support!

Update: I realize I completely forgot to post this video from June of SAFER Board members Erin and Twe at the CALCASA Campus Technical Training Institute! Watch the video after the cut. Continue Reading »