#dartmyth250

[dartmythcollege-blog]

TW: SA

Dear President Hanlon (and also, To Whom It May Concern),

As a sophomore at Dartmouth, I was sexually assaulted after a fraternity party. This experience has impacted my life physically, emotionally, and financially in ways I could never imagine. The alienation I faced from 2005 to 2007 at Dartmouth as a sexual assault victim who reported the attack was harrowing and demoralizing in many ways. Once full of hopes and dreams that I would be a graduate of a prestigious Ivy League college, my experience completely took the wind out of my sails as a young adult preparing to forge my way in the world.

After my sexual assault, which was reported to police but not ultimately prosecuted, my Dartmouth peers wrote horrible things on the Internet about wishing I was dead. I faced regular shame and ridicule which I have internalized for years. At one point toward the end of my time at Dartmouth, I honestly feared for my safety and had to seek refuge in a safe dorm on campus. On graduation day, I barely walked across the stage, teetering on the edge of a nervous breakdown.

Part of the reason it took so long for me to come to terms with the level of abuse I accepted at Dartmouth was that I left college during stressful times in late 2007 when it was very difficult for young graduates to find work. It was arguably even harder for a young graduate like me who suffered sexual and emotional trauma and was effectively “cast out” from the Dartmouth network. Ever since, I have had extreme financial challenges for most of the time (and while at school I was on a scholarship and came from a bankrupt family with very limited income). Dealing with this reality while working to recover from abuse has been difficult to bear.

Willing myself to do the typical Ivy League career-building things to land a solid job after graduation proved nearly impossible. On top of it, I was suffering from crippling anxiety and depression stemming from experiencing severe trauma without a safety net. I felt— for good reason, I might add—  that it was completely unsafe to speak about my past experiences. When it came time to network and schmooze under these extreme circumstances, I couldn’t bring myself to lie to people’s faces when they asked me about my time at Dartmouth. Many times after a job interview I would be reduced to tears, after having to keep a straight face with an interviewer while simultaneously ruminating about the difficult experiences which scarred my psyche.

People would enviously remark on my Dartmouth education during a job interview, about what a great experience it must have been. I wanted them to know the whole story, about how much suffering and sacrifice was required to ultimately hold that fancy parchment diploma. But it was a story that stayed buried for many years, hidden by shame and a desire to pick myself up by my bootstraps so to speak, to turn the other cheek and find steady work and succeed in spite of the things that happened to me.

To this day I have yet to find a permanent job that has offered me health insurance benefits— my English degree is just as unmarketable as everyone warned me it would be when I was working to obtain it. And on top of it all, I have learned that the very English degree I worked so hard to earn is not even of much use when it comes to speaking truth about all of these painful and terrible things now that the time has come for revelation and reckoning, which is long overdue.

I cannot even use my English degree to define what happened to me as “sexual assault” and “rape” without encountering significant legal risk. Whether I am allowed to identify my attacker as a rapist who committed sexual assault is currently up for debate in federal court. Even though those definitions are clear and defined by the FBI, and even though the crimes I reported to the police fall well within those definitional guidelines.

My prestigious degree should at the very least render me capable and competent to define subjects on clearly defined and cited terms. What was the point of me earning a degree in Creative Writing if I cannot even use it to write about something deeply personal of extreme importance, which seems to be increasingly relevant to the shared experiences of many other victims? What power does my degree have if my very attacker can use the power his own Dartmouth degree has afforded him to effectively render me mute?

As victims we are damned in silence and anonymity, and damned in speaking and emerging from the shadows. We are damned as we are shamed into pretending everything is OK, and damned as we are implicitly asked to hold our lips and make nice anytime anyone asks about Dartmouth. Rather than take this significant moment to truly engage with the victims of the community, Dartmouth has acted to create policies to encourage people to move on and stop talking about the problem, long before it has truly been solved. Dartmouth has explicitly stated that the class action against them should be divided, and to me the strategy for dividing the voices of victims to me seems clear. If we are divided, we cannot stand together. Things can get settled and agreements can be signed to keep quiet. Things can easily get buried once again.

It seems there is no fair path forward for victims to seek reconciliation, as victims seem to be judged more harshly by the community than those who committed heinous acts of sexual abuse in the first place. This demonization comes no matter how we behave as victims, which is why it is no surprise that some victims would choose to remain anonymous in the face of such retraumatizing tactics.

The moment I began speaking out again, I began to face the threat of a very expensive lawsuit. As a result of the limited ways I began writing publicly about my experiences, I am accused in a court of law of being a lying, defaming, and gold digging opportunist, among other things. Members of the homegrown terrorist “incel” community have made statements about how I need “to be raped and burned alive.” One said he wanted to find me and “slit [my] throat,” and fantasized about hurting my family. All because I now face the challenge of my assailant accusing me of defamation, and attempting to put all of my speech and my life on trial as the price to pay for uttering forbidden words shielded under a veil of omertà. I sometimes wonder if the stakes would be lower if I’d joined the Mafia instead of attending Dartmouth.

Back when I was at Dartmouth in the aftermath of my assault, I was unable to receive psychological care at the college because there was an emergency shortage of therapists and psychiatrists available. There was an impossibly long waiting list, and ultimately I was unable to receive the care that I needed and deserved. Which is why the accusations being leveled against the Psychological and Brain Sciences department are, to me, beyond the pale. Abusers were sanctioned and paid by the college to continue academic research in the field of psychology, and meanwhile victims were being swept under the rug and denied psychological care.

To say this is a lost opportunity in the field of psychology is an understatement. For me, poverty and governmental policy kept me from accessing necessary therapy after graduation for several years. It was only years later under the care of many therapists that I ultimately began to fully accept and come to terms with the truth about Dartmouth, which is something I ran from in early adulthood and tried unsuccessfully to forget. I sometimes wonder what my healing process would have looked like if I had been afforded community support and an adequate safety net.

I fear a generation of future female leaders has been lost to the reality of scapegoating and re-victimization. These people could change the world if allowed to come together and given the space and resources to fully heal. We have not been given that opportunity, and we have been divided and silenced to weaken our cause. We have not been treated as stakeholders nor have we been given a seat at the table to foment change.

We are the voices that are needed to find lasting solutions which honor and rectify the lives of victims. Dartmouth can do much more to provide a platform and support to build a strong future for its victims in spite of the wrongs that happened to us at the college. Dartmouth needs to step up to recognize this festering wound at the core of its institution, and recognize the harmful experiences inflicted on its own community members. Professing ignorance, as the administrators do, seems to me almost like a cruel joke.

The first time I went to the mental hospital seeking treatment for a psychological breakdown, I met another troubled former Dartmouth student, Alix LeClair, in the women’s wing with me. She was having similar visions as I was about a resurgence of divine feminine energy, and the need for women to step forward and reclaim the sexual power they had relinquished to society and to others. We bonded over these ideals and compelling dreams and visions of an enlightened future, which the medical community was all too quick to label as sheer madness.

I came to find out she had also been abused at Dartmouth, and during her time there had protested and banged on the President’s door to his mansion late at night, to urgently give her message about honoring the feminine and dismantling the toxic patriarchy within the institution. At the time, I did not grasp it all and was focused on my own recovery. She and I went our separate ways after I was discharged and I never came back to see her at the hospital. I wish I had, because she died suddenly and unexpectedly a few months after we met. My good friend and sex educator Anna Zelinsky ‘06 still has a watch that Alix gave to me in the hospital, which reminds me that the time is always now and that I can no longer afford to avoid doing the difficult work of confronting the scary and difficult truth about Dartmouth College.

I have spent the past thirteen years of my life unpacking everything that happened to me during my time at Dartmouth. This unpacking has sent me several places including the federal court in the Eastern District of New York, cost tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars along with countless hours, and introduced me to dozens of other women who have suffered in ways all too similar to the ways I have suffered. Unraveling all of this has come at a great price, but it has also brought me closer to finding meaningful connections in the face of a lot of pain.

The time has come for Dartmouth to come to terms with the very real lives of the people who have been harmed by sexual violence and grotesque harassment on its campus. Because none of those costs are ever referenced in the marketing materials or the financial aid paperwork— and even with a scholarship, for me the price of losing my sexual autonomy as well as my voice has proven to be far too great of a price to bear.

At the very least, Dartmouth’s victims need representation and support. At the most, actions should be taken in a good faith effort to bring us closer to wholeness. Covering up the past and marching forward with new policy band-aids is not going to solve the problem of institutional rot, nor will it address the plight victims have faced and ultimately still face to this day. Dartmouth needs to take the opportunity to rise to the occasion of this “Call to Lead” they have foisted upon the community, take heed of this “red letter day,” and do better.

Monica Morrison, ‘07

[dartmythcollege-blog]

In freshman year, I was having breakfast with a "friend" who I confided in and told her what high school was like for me. Then she proceeded to question how I got into Dartmouth and why I was there. Before you ask, yes, she was.

[dartmythcollege-blog]

TW: SA

Dartmouth was ready to save the white, rich rapist but not the low-income kid struggling to make it by. One gets a slap on the wrist. The other gets kicked out. Before you ask, yes, *that* one got the slap on the wrist.

[dartmythcollege-blog]

TW: Racism

My lab assistant asked me for my name. Then she asked me to repeat it. She responds with “Sorry i have trouble with non-anglosaxon names.

[dartmythcollege-blog]

TW: Mental Illness

I had my first panic attack during my sophomore spring. I was in my room, tired after an incredibly long day, and spiraled after I was woken up to be told I was late for a previous commitment. In so many ways, Dartmouth has broken me. It has forced me to find time to heal while being a student, working five jobs to support myself and my family, and trying to be involved within student organizations. I navigated this institution and its lack of transparency time and time again. It took me a few weeks before I was able to schedule a triage and meet with a regular counselor at Dicks House. I grew to build a wonderful relationship my counselor, a strong woman of color, only to come back to campus and find out she had left Dartmouth. Where are our faculty/staff of color? Why do we hold such a low retention rate?  How does this impact our students of color?

[dartmythcollege-blog]

Dartmouth encourages you to take internships and study abroad not realizing that is virtually impossible for low income or lower middle class students. I did a back to back internship and study abroad, making zero income for 7 months. I couldn't even enjoy my time away from campus because I was so stressed financially. I don't think Dartmouth realizes how much pressure there is to do internships and get off campus experience. While there is aid available, it is not enough. I got Rocky funding, I got extra loans, but in the end that only screws me over more. I don't know how to be "competitive" at Dartmouth or in the workplace without having money to begin with. I'm going broke just trying to tread water and keep pace with kids that are financially supported by family wealth.

[dartmythcollege-blog]

TW: SA

I was sexually assaulted at Dartmouth my freshman year and later sexually harassed by two drunk fraternity brothers who came to my dorm room at 3 am, screaming obscenities. I had to call Safety & Security to get them to leave, but no report was filed and no consequences given. I nearly transferred, telling my counselor at Dick's House that I was "struggling with how to be a woman at Dartmouth and keep my integrity." Sexual aggression and misogyny were normalized on campus in the 1990s. The institutional culture of sexual violence and gender harassment has apparently not changed much since then. I am appalled by the current administration's hypocrisy in claiming to support survivors of sexual violence while using aggressive tactics to intimidate and silence them.

[dartmythcollege-blog]

TW: SA

I was raped by a Greek sibling in my house. Title IX banned me from an entire floor of the house because “my presence made [my rapist] uncomfortable”

[dartmythcollege-blog]

Dartmyth's failure to promote PoCs in the graduate school, a faculty member told me that, being pre-tenure and under a lot of pressure to produce research, the benefits of promoting diversity & inclusion initiatives don't outweigh the time costs. #Dartmyth250 #dobetter

[dartmythcollege-blog]

TW: Mental Illness

I used to take care of my mental health really well before Dartmouth. After an incident right before I came to dartmouth I was diagnosed with PTSD. I had an event during freshman year where I went to the Hanover Walmart and I was held at gunpoint, and since then it has affected me a lot. When I went to my first appointment after the event to see counseling the Staff Psychologist decided out of all the questions to ask me, “What type of gun was it?” Instead of talking about anything else or anything that could have helped me during the appointment and he kept asking the question even when I frankly to date have never remembered anything so visibly in my life. And every time I hear just the starting part of the question “What type?” I start shacking. He obviously didn't care about my health or how the appointment could have helped me. For him I wasn't a patient or even a student I was just entertainment and my trauma was just another story for him.

[dartmythcollege-blog]

TW: SA

I was assaulted and my former best friend is still friends with him.

[dartmythcollege-blog]

TW: SA

Dartmouth loves to pretend like they’re doing so much to combat sexual violence, but really it’s just students who care and can’t put up with it any longer.

[dartmythcollege-blog]

TW: SA

The first time I was sexually assaulted at Dartmouth was my freshman fall. I was at TDX. He was on the football team. He was wearing a ninja turtle costume. He asked me if I wanted to dance, and I told him I was drunk and didn’t feel well. He asked if I wanted to lay down on his couch until I felt better. The next thing I remember, he was naked and on top of me. I threw up while he forced me to give him oral sex. He kept going. I don’t really remember anything after that. I woke up the next morning to the sound of his phone ringing. “You need to leave,” he said. “My sister is visiting and she’s waiting for me outside.” It was one of my first times drinking, and I blamed myself. I didn’t know who to report it to, or how to get help - they don’t really go over those things at orientation. The next day, I walked by my assailant at FoCo. He was sitting with my trip leader. They both laughed at me, and as I walked by them, I fought back tears. I thought I had to be strong. Over the next few years, after he had graduated, some of his teammates, my friends, would joke with me about how they “heard you hooked up with him.” I never told them the truth about what happened - it had become clear to me by then that Dartmouth culture wasn’t really supportive of victims of sexual assault.  I didn’t talk about it to anyone for years. He’s a medical student now, and I just hope that his patients will be safe one day. I wish I had reported him, but I fear nothing would have been different. Dartmouth would not have done anything and it wouldn’t have been worth re-living the trauma.

[dartmythcollege-blog]

TW: SA

My personal experiences are of the "tame" variety--getting catcalled my first week on campus, being groped on a dance floor. The fact that I've heard enough other incidents of greater violence to label these violations as tame is a problem in and of itself, but the fact is that the individuals (of all genders) who have shared their stories with me also talk about it in terms of how it could have been worse or how they should have been more prepared. "I didn't think I would need to worry about it outside of Greek spaces" "I make a point of checking in with my female friends but I'm a guy so no one thought to" and so on. Rape culture at Dartmouth is so prevalent that survivors are forced to think in terms of how it could have been worse (because we all know someone who's had it worse) while perpetrators are shielded by reputations, fraternity brothers, and reporting processes structured to intimidate and retraumatize survivors.

[dartmythcollege-blog]

TW: homophobia

I remember walking faster as three jocks ridiculed my clothes from the [frat] porch while on my way to meet friends late at night. They claimed I belonged to a certain “alternative” Greek house, when I was proudly unaffiliated. Without even opening my mouth, I was forced into a box for being visibly queer on Dartmouth’s campus. At nearly five years since graduation, I still feel unable to locate my community- an anxiety that prevents me from ever trusting a group with which I identify. What if I show myself for the person I want to be, only to be laughed at? While Dartmouth allowed me to finally come out publicly, it only valued me for my social (and financial) capital, not for my gifts and talents. 

[dartmythcollege-blog]

TW: SA

The Lie?

Excerpts from the Dartmouth College Unified Disciplinary Procedures for Sexual Assault with added realities (italics)

I. Introduction; Statement of Policy

Dartmouth College (“Dartmouth” or “the College”) is firmly committed to maintaining an educational environment publically unassociated with sexual and gender-based harassment and Sexual Assault (collectively, “boys being boys”), and in which persons reporting sexual misconduct are provided complimentary one-on-one consultation regarding how to better avoid this situation in the future and persons responding to sexual misconduct will be provided the effective avenue of redress based upon the automatic assumption of a false accusation.

When sexual misconduct is brought to the attention of the school, Dartmouth will take its sweet time and, like its students, procrastinate necessary action to bury the misconduct, carry out only the most minimalistic action (despite its possibility to be ineffective and result in the issue’s eventual recurrence), and address its potential effects on “the College’s” reputation.

IV. Reporting Sexual Assault or Other Violations of this Policy

To promote timely and effective review, the College strongly encourages Reporting Persons and other persons with knowledge of possible violations of this policy to make reports as soon as possible following the occurrence of the assault. To make the early reporting process a reality, Dartmouth has established a protocol that necessitates a minimum of five days to be carried out, involving but not limited to excessive communication with not one, but three, separate offices and a completing a series of incredibly invasive investigatory interviews lasting two hours minimum. A delay of greater than one day in finalizing this reporting process may impact the College's ability to gather relevant and reliable information.

V. The College’s Response Procedure

The College may also implement interim measures as may be appropriate for the accused individuals or organizations involved and for the larger College community. Interim measures may include but are not limited to: exclusion of the Reporting Person from the Responding Person’s academic and living situations as to avoid potential discomfort for the Responding Person; temporary self-motivated suspension of the Reporting Person from academic and athletics in avoidance of traumatic encounters; no-contact orders; and restrictions on team or organization participation or activity.

If these temporary suspension measures are violated by the Responding Person, they will be invited into the Title ix office, given a lollipop, and asked to talk about their feelings in the moment of encounter. If these temporary measures are violated by the Reporting Person, the investigation is voided due to retaliation, charges against the Responding Party are dropped, and the Reporting Person is subject to disciplinary action by the office of judicial affairs.