Image provided by Moving to End Sexual Assault.
This article is published under the Opinions Section of The Skidmore News.
Content warning: mentions of sexual assault, sexual violence, racism, and transphobia.
What is Title IX? To me, the definition depends on who you ask. For some, Title IX exists to protect survivors. For Skidmore, Title IX exists only to protect the institution. According to the federal government, the Title IX Education Amendment of 1972 states that “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.” Over time, that definition has broadened to include protections for victims of sexual harassment and sexual violence. Schools are legally required to respond and remedy “hostile education environments'' or risk losing their federal funding. By this definition, it is a school’s legal duty to protect those whose education is inhibited by sexual and gender based misconduct. They must protect survivors.
So why isn’t Skidmore?
Last month, the College suspended a survivor for speaking out about her assault on their private social media account. Having had direct communication with the survivor about their situation, they reported that the student conduct board ruled their exercise of free speech a violation of a No Contact Order. No Contact Orders traditionally mean that neither party can communicate with the other through social media, email, text, letter, or a third party. Despite there being no deliberate contact between the survivor and the assaulter, Skidmore decided that the survivor speaking out on social media was a form of third party communication. Skidmore suspended the survivor with a hateful fervor. The student reported that they were forced out of their on-campus housing within four hours, and was told that Campus Safety would arrive afterwards to ensure that they were gone.
No money, no food, no home: a survivor of assault was left alone to fend for themself. You must be wondering, if Title IX is supposed to ensure survivors have a sound educational environment, why was a survivor suspended? The survivor still does not know.
Based on a survey completed by Know Your IX–- a sexual assault advocacy organization– one in four survivors of sexual violence experience “substantial disruption” to their education. The survey also found that more than 40 percent of survivors experience Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and 25 percent suffer from depression. At Skidmore, sexual assault is painfully ubiquitous.
The inexperienced and ill-equipped people in the Title IX office at Skidmore have only made these issues more widespread. Emails go unanswered, proceedings last for months on end, and students get suspended. A month has passed since the demonstration on Case walkway. Students are exhausted, burnt-out, and frustrated. Many feel as though they are shouting into the void, despite the administration's response of “We Hear You.” Since then, there have been listening sessions, working groups, and online resources, but still no substantive administrative change.
So what should Title IX be? In short, Title IX should be a method of protection– for survivors, not assaulters. After Betsy Devos rolled back rights for survivors around the country, the future of equal access to education looked grim. Now, the Biden administration, which is correctly trying to clean up Trump’s mess, recently issued an Executive Order to begin “reviewing” the Title IX rule. The EO declared that “all students should be guaranteed an educational environment free from discrimination on the basis of sex, including discrimination in the form of sexual harassment, which encompasses sexual violence, and including discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity” (Know Your IX). The Biden administration has also claimed they will consider suspending or rescinding Betsy Devos’s Title IX regulation if it proves to be incongruent with their administration’s policy.
Skidmore does not need to wait for the new Title IX policy to act. There are several actions that would improve Skidmore’s flawed Title IX system– and they could implement them right now.
For starters, they can hire a different Title IX coordinator, preferably a BIPOC woman, a QTBIPOC (Queer, Trans BIPOC) individual, or a survivor of sexual assault. This would ensure that survivors receive empathy and understanding. Having a cisgender man--who has never claimed to be a survivor himself--as head of a department that specializes in sexual assault is not effective nor beneficial.
Secondly, the Skidmore administration can, and should, create a student panel to participate in the hiring process of Title IX coordinators. These students would be able to ask the candidates questions, thus ensuring a representative and trustworthy hire. As of now, there is little trust in the Title IX office, and students do not feel accurately represented by the current Title IX staff. Students should not be afraid to speak to the Title IX office. They have enough fear in their lives.
The process for how No Contact Orders are created and executed must also be revised. If survivors can be suspended after speaking out about their abuse, there is clearly a problem. There should be clear and well-written stipulations within the NCO that lay out exactly what a student can and cannot do. At Skidmore, No Contact Orders have been treated like Non-Disclosure Agreements, silencing survivors rather than protecting them. If there is confusion about the terms of an NCO, a suspension should not be the immediate punishment. The student should at least be given a warning, rather than forcibly removed from campus.
Lastly, survivors should automatically be appointed legal counsel during Title IX proceedings. During a time of extreme trauma, it is unfair to ask survivors to make sense of a torrent of legal documents without aid. In the forum with President Marc C. Conner and Dean Adrian Bautista on Tuesday, November 16, Bautista said that all survivors in Title IX are entitled to a free SGA legal council representative, or a lawyer at their own expense. Numerous student survivors have reported that they have not received this council. If survivors are not given a legal representative, or cannot afford a legal representative, they are more likely to find themselves in violation of a No Contact Order due to a lack of personal legal expertise. If a survivor is found in violation of a NCO and was not given legal council, a suspension should not immediately be issued.
There is now a petition entitled “Skidmore Suspends Sexual Assault Victim” circulating social media on behalf of the survivor who was suspended. The demands are as follows: “rescind the violation of the NCO, rescind the suspension given, refund a year’s worth of tuition for emotional, physical, and educational damages, and receive all credits from the courses she has taken.” As of Friday, November 19th at 2:30 P.M., there are over 4,238 signatures and counting-- for reference, there are 2,500 students at Skidmore.
In the November 17 forum, when asked if the petition will be enough to even consider meeting the students' demands, President Conner said “No.” Moreover, despite his little knowledge of Title IX proceedings, President Conner described the petition as “not factual.” His attitude towards the petition was greatly cavalier and invalidated the thousands of voices that signed it.
The changes cannot be entirely in the hands of the student body. Listening sessions are not enough. Skidmore cannot simply wait for the storm to pass, or for Biden’s new Title IX plan to tell them what to do. Survivors are exhausted. Students are exhausted. It’s time for the administration, and specifically Skidmore’s Title IX office, to do the work.
Correction: The following statement has be changed from reading “The Skidmore administration” to correctly say “The Biden administration”: “The Biden administration has also claimed they will consider suspending or rescinding Betsy Devos’s Title IX regulation if it proves to be incongruent with their administration’s policy.”