Eve, CC ’11, had doubts about filing a complaint with the University against one of her closest friends, a student who sexually assaulted her one night while she was sleeping.
She said she was confused by what happened and the last thing she wanted was to ruin someone’s life. When she went to the Office for Disciplinary Procedures for Sexual Assault to ask about how the disciplinary process worked, she was told her case was airtight—she couldn’t lose.
Nevertheless she said she was warned repeatedly that no one had ever been expelled from Columbia for violating the University’s policies on sexual assault. She heard that cases were often dismissed due to procedural errors.
Between the office’s founding in 2002 and the spring of 2010, DPSA has conducted 22 hearings, during which one student accuses another of sexual misconduct before a hearing panel of two deans and one student.
Although administrators said they would not release information about sanctions incurred during these proceedings, students involved in the University's Sexual Violence Response Program recently said they were excited to hear through the grapevine that the DPSA process resulted in a student’s expulsion last semester, around the time Eve filed her complaint.
Because of a confidentiality agreement with the University, Eve—whose name has been changed for privacy reasons—cannot share the outcome of her hearing. But looking back at the fall semester, a time when she had trouble eating, sleeping, and getting to class, Eve said the stress of the hearing was worth it.
“I just wanted to speak to somebody who had gone through DPSA and could tell me, ‘Hey, it’s gonna suck and you’re gonna hate it, but at the end you will feel so much better for it,’” she said from her bedroom in EC, where her friends were downstairs waiting for her with pizza. “I swear to God, if I hadn’t done this I would be a totally different person right now.”
‘I COULDN'T DO THAT’
As Eve started speaking to friends about what had happened that night, she began to realize she wasn’t alone. Over coffee, an acquaintance, Lisa, CC ’11, told her the same thing had happened to her with the same guy two years earlier. Lisa had asked him to get help from the Men’s Peer Education Program and didn’t file a complaint.
At first, Eve was tempted to do the same.
“I didn’t want to make him suffer. It was literally like I want him to get help and stop doing this to people,” she said. “But I also saw what not filing did to her,” referring to Lisa.
Lisa lived on the same floor as the student who assaulted her during their sophomore year, shortly after the incident.
Eve decided that she couldn’t run into him at parties or be on campus with him anymore.
“It was hard for me, so I couldn’t imagine this girl having to go through years of standing in the same elevator as him,” she said. “I realized I couldn’t do that.”
12-PAGE POLICY
Eve’s friend Spencer said he read the 12-page DPSA policy every night of the six weeks that Eve’s hearing lasted.
She and her friends said they felt lost from day one.
Hearings take place on the fifth floor of Lerner Hall, in a set of three rooms pegged for student group space. Two deans and a student, who have received two days of training and are not part of the respondents’ or complaints’ schools, sit in the middle room. The two parties sit in the adjoining rooms with television screens of the panel. The respondent, complainant and their respective witnesses take turns giving testimony before the panel.
After both students and their witnesses present testimony and answer questions, the panel submits a recommendation to the dean of Student Affairs at the respondent’s school and the dean issues a sanction if the student is found to be in violation of the University’s policy on sexual assault.
Similar closed disciplinary hearings have come under fire recently, following an investigation by the nonprofit Center for Public Integrity, which found that students found to be in violation of university policies on sexual conduct are often given light sanctions, like academic probation or short-term suspensions.
But DPSA manager Melissa Tihinen said that universities require these special procedures for adjudicating sex crimes.
“DPSA exists to give students a type of recourse that exists on campus. If a student is concerned about their immediate environment, that’s why DPSA exists,” she said, adding that bringing a case to the police is not always convenient or realistic.
She said that the range of sanctions at Columbia, which include "anything from a written warning to some sort of educational endeavor to suspension or expulsion."
In an interview with Spectator in December University President Lee Bollinger said he didn't know if anyone had ever been expelled from the University for sexual assault, but if they hadn't he would find that troubling.
"My view is that that's a problem," he said. "I think my role would be to initiate a review of our policies with respect to disciplinary actions, and at some point I may take that on... as I have seen these in operation for many years I have felt troubled by the procedures." Bollinger added that he had no such plans at the time.
NEW DEVELOPMENTS
Dean of Student Affairs Kevin Shollenberger said that students have asked him to take a more involved role in resolving conflicts that come about directly after a student files a complaint.
“Where we have asked to be more involved is the front end, of being notified if when a complaint has been brought, in case we need to take any kind of interim action. Meaning, students could live on the same floor, and for the well-being of both students we might decide that we want to move them,” he said.
Until recently DPSA reported to both Jeffery Scott, executive vice president for student and administrative affairs, and to Singleton. But in December the program was moved out of SVRP to answer directly to Samuel Seward, vice president of Health Services. Seward said the move is a natural one.
"The role of Sexual Violence Response is very different from the role of DPSA," Seward told Spectator. "The role of DPSA is to provide neutral, fair, completely-unbiased processes for students who believe they've been assaulted by one of their peers. Sexual Violence Response is much more in the world of providing support and doing outreach and programs and what have you. They're very different kinds of roles."
During Eve's hearing she had contacted Singleton about meeting for advice on DPSA, but Singleton replied back via email saying meeting with her would be a conflict-of-interest. Under the new reporting line Singleton will be allowed to meet with all parties involved in a DPSA hearing.
In January, Health Services brought in Tihenen, who worked in Residential Life at New York University, to take over managing DPSA from her longtime predecessor Helen Arnold.
Kate, a volunteer at the University’s Rape Crisis/Anti-Violence Support Center, said she’s heard DPSA is starting to shed its bad rap.
“They’re taking it more seriously now. The new director at DPSA is a lot more capable of implementing the system and she’s more committed to obtaining justice for people who go through these things,” said Kate, who requested that her name be changed because Rape Crisis Center volunteers had been asked not to speak to Spectator.
‘TEACHABLE MOMENTS’
The Sexual Violence Prevention Program has historically had a conflicted relationship with DPSA.
Another Rape Crisis Center counselor said it has been difficult to encourage students to file complaints when sanctions have been so light in the past. She added that many students have been “very unhappy with the results” of their hearings.
One student close to SVP said Columbia has hesitated in the past to discipline students to the fullest extent after they have violated policy.
“Campuses don’t want to admit that they have all these rapists running around. They consider a lot of cases ‘teachable moments’ so they don’t want to turn people out on the streets when they think they can fix it,” she said.
In May 2010, Spectator published an anonymous op-ed from a student who said she filed a claim with DPSA, participated in a hearing and was happy to learn that her assailant had been found in violation of Columbia’s policies and expelled. Shortly after, she said, she learned he had been readmitted to Columbia, with minimal sanctions, after he appealed his case to his dean.
Eve said that it’s unfortunate so many students only recognize DPSA from that op-ed.
“That’s the information that’s out there about DPSA. That’s the article that everyone’s read about DPSA and that’s so wrong ... There are flaws in DPSA, but it’s getting better,” she said.
Singleton agreed that the op-ed was not representative of DPSA procedure.
“We’re not really in a position to comment on individual cases. But I’d certainly remind you … you can’t assume that everything that is said in certain editorials is true,” she said.
The University cites the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act in declining to provide information about DPSA cases. Although Singleton releases the number of cases that have gone through the DPSA to the University Senate every year, Columbia does not provide information about the results of those cases.
Tihenen said most colleges decline to release statistics on judicial sanctions.
“I’m on a lot of listservs. I go to a lot of conferences with our peer institutions and that’s not a practice that’s widely used at their institutions either,” she said, adding that the University strives to follow best practices set forth by the government.
A TURNING POINT
Christmas lights are draped across the walls of Eve’s living room, where she and her suitemates have always keep their front door open—except for last semester.
“The whole time the hearing was happening we locked our door,” she said. “We didn’t know if he would get really drunk and come in and try to hurt us. That’s the thing—when someone you think you know does something like this, it completely changes how you view people ... When somebody’s done something so out of the realm of what you ever thought could have happened, you have no idea what’s going to happen next,” she said.
On a recent Saturday, Eve and five friends are talking about her assailant—someone they were all close to just a year ago.
“I do believe in my heart that, maybe not now, but years from now he will look back at this moment in his life—and I wouldn’t go so far as to say he would ever be thankful—but I do cling to this idea that on some level he will look back at this and think of the hearing as a turning point in his life,” she said.
Her friend Lucy looks a little incredulous but far from surprised.
“And that’s what blows my mind about you, is that some of the reason you chose to file was to help him in some way. You just said, ‘OK, I’ve got to do something for him.’ The idea that the best thing you could do for him was to file and show that this is serious, is a mindfuck ... but it’s also just so right,” Lucy says.
COMMENTS
Comments will be moderated in accordance with our comment policy