What began as an e-mail to 15 students calling for a response to the University's sexual assault policy turned into a silent crowd of hundreds of students, faculty and staff gathered on Grounds yesterday to call for changes in a system that organizers termed inadequate at responding to and preventing sexual assault.
An estimated 400 students, faculty, staff and community members lined the sidewalk bordering the Amphitheater in a line stretching from the Lawn to the Bryan Hall bridge. Demonstrators, some with mouths covered in red and pink cloth, stood in silence from 11:40 a.m. to 12:05 p.m. to symbolize what organizers termed the "silence surrounding rape and sexual assault at the University."
Event participants gave students copies of a letter addressed to all University deans on their way to classes during the demonstration and hand delivered them to deans who could not attend the event.
In addition to calling for increased education about sexual assault for students, faculty and staff, the letter called for a number of changes to the current sexual assault adjudication procedures including an immediate end to the Sexual Assault Board's confidentiality policy, greater accountability for those who commit acts of rape and sexual assault, increased training in dealing with victims of sexual assault for SAB members and a presidential commission on sexual assault and safety.
Following a U.S. Department of Education decision which held that Georgetown University's confidentiality policies were in violation of federal law, the University students likely will voluntarily discontinue its confidentiality policy, SAB Chair Shamim Sisson said.
The University's sexual assault adjudication procedures are under review this year and administrators have already begun to work on hammering out new policy, Dean of Students Penny Rue said.
In the interest of student self-governance, students should be involved in the reform process, event organizer and third-year College student Vicky Long said.
"We ask that students are an integral part of that reform and that the reform be transparent to the community," Long said.
Though a panel of faculty and staff has already begun drafting new procedures, students will be asked to review proposed changes and may be called on to help revise procedures, Rue said.
In addition to Rue and Sisson, administrators currently working on the policy changes include Clare Kaplan, University sexual assault education officer, and Madelyn Wessel and Susan Davis, special assistants to Vice President for Student Affairs Pat Lampkin.
The administration will seek to involve students who have the most involvement and familiarity with sexual assault at the University, including those students who serve on the sexual assault leadership council and SAB members.
While Rue said she was pleased to see students voice their opinion on a "difficult" subject, she said she thought the administration's efforts should be primarily focused on preventing sexual assault.
"Only students can prevent sexual assault from student to student," Rue said. "Even with every amount of effort we spend working on adjudication procedures we're really more interested in preventing them."
In contrast, Long said she hopes today's demonstration will put emphasis on the isolation that victims of sexual assault can feel when they are not properly supported.
"Something had to be done to break the silence," Long said.
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