If Stephen J. Trachtenberg were just an ordinary professor at George Washington University, remarks he made last week that women “have to be trained not to drink in excess” to better resist sexual assault probably would have caused a furor—and, perhaps, some amount of embarrassment for the institution.
But Mr. Trachtenberg isn’t just any professor. He was president of the university for nearly 20 years and became president emeritus after stepping down, in 2007. He continues to be prominent on the campus, and in higher education, and he remains one of George Washington’s foremost public figures. Now he has put the institution in an awkward position—unable to let his comments stand unremarked upon, but seemingly unable to disavow its past leader’s choice of words.
The incident has also sparked discussion, at George Washington and beyond, about the proper role and conduct of presidents emeriti. Do former chiefs have a responsibility to temper their public comments?
Public Perceptions
Asked about his understanding of his role as president emeritus, Mr. Trachtenberg was unequivocal. “I’m not a spokesman for the university,” he said. “I am merely my own man, speaking in the capacity of a professor.”
But that’s a distinction that many observers have trouble making, as Mr. Trachtenberg’s recent remarks demonstrate.
He made the comments last Tuesday on The Diane Rehm Show, a radio program produced by WAMU-FM and syndicated nationally by National Public Radio, as part of a discussion of fraternities and sororities.
Caitlin Flanagan, a contributing editor at The Atlantic who was also a guest on the program, was among the first to hear in Mr. Trachtenberg’s words an insinuation that women are partially responsible for sexual assault. Staying sober in order to fight back was “not a realistic strategy for protecting ourselves from rape,” she said on the air.
The next day, the blog Jezebel excoriated Mr. Trachtenberg in a post titled “Ex-GWU President Knows Why Rape Happens: Drunk Chicks.” Condemnations arose across social media, where current students and alumni called on the university to repudiate his remarks. Timothy E. Kaldas tweeted “Fmr GW prez Trachtenberg called #rape ‘misbehaving’ & blamed victims 4 drinking. When’s GW condemning him? This alumnus is waiting @GWAlumni.”
On Thursday the university released a statement that read, in part, “Sexual assault under any guise and regardless of the circumstances is repugnant and unacceptable.” It added that “many dedicated faculty members, students, and staff are advancing our efforts to create a university culture in which every member of our community understands that sexual assault is unacceptable.” But it mentioned neither Mr. Trachtenberg nor his comments. (A George Washington spokeswoman declined to comment further.)
On Friday, Steven Knapp, George Washington’s current president, issued a statement of his own, describing sexual assault in nearly identical terms: “utterly repugnant and unacceptable.” Mr. Knapp’s statement acknowledged Mr. Trachtenberg’s remarks and the resulting controversy. It also noted that the president emeritus, now a professor of public policy, “is free, as an individual faculty member, to express his personal views.”
‘A Certain Amount of Gravitas’
Indeed, in his current role as a faculty member, Mr. Trachtenberg is entitled to hold and express whatever opinion he likes, said Gretchen M. Bataille, a former president of the University of North Texas and a leadership consultant. “Anyone associated with the academic endeavor has academic freedom,” she said.
Anyone who assumes “that presidents emeritus have a special requirement to not state what they believe,” she said, is only making an assumption.
But Ms. Bataille added that there is “a certain amount of gravitas that goes along with being a president or a chancellor or a senior administrator.” And just because presidents emeriti can say whatever they want doesn’t mean that they should, said Carol A. Cartwright, president emerita of Kent State University, who is also a senior consultant with the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges.
She declined to discuss Mr. Trachtenberg’s situation specifically. But she said that having been the president of a university “always is a part of who you are.”
“Certainly each individual will have their own way of thinking about what is an appropriate role, but I believe that even though you’re not a sitting president anymore, you are still associated with an institution,” she said. “Some people will see you as representing the institutional values; therefore you need to be especially thoughtful in what you choose to say when you express a personal opinion.”
Off the Cuff
While the university was clarifying its official position, Mr. Trachtenberg did his own damage control. After the incident, he said, he emailed the institution’s vice president for external relations because he “was feeling apologetic about having focused so much anxiety on the university.” In his message, he said, he asked that she pass on to Mr. Knapp “that I’m sorry that this is going on.”
He said he had discussed the situation with the chairman of his department “because she’s been getting email about it.” He wrote an op-ed in The GW Hatchet, the university’s student newspaper, in which he said that he was “terribly sorry any observations of mine have been construed to mean anything other than full support for the victims of sexual assault or rape.”
He had also spent the past several days “writing back individual emails to every person who wrote to me directly.”
He repeated that he felt “terrible” about the pain his comments may have caused some women, and discussed the letters he had received from some of them. Many shared with him their stories of sexual assault—"very touching, heart-rending things,” he said. “And then they tell me what I said, which I didn’t say, so I write back.”
He is unapologetic about “trying to do a good thing,” he said. “I was misinterpreted or misunderstood. I’m not ashamed of my initiative to say that sobriety is a good thing, and that people who are inebriated are more vulnerable.”
So his response points to the trickiness of his public role. And rather than retreat behind the university’s external-relations department or a carefully worded statement, he returned a phone call from a reporter and spoke off the cuff.
In the meantime, if there has been discussion among top administrators at George Washington about the controversy, Mr. Trachtenberg hasn’t been a part of it.
And as of Friday, he had yet to speak to Mr. Knapp about the incident. “He’s got enough problems,” Mr. Trachtenberg said.
