For four years, students at three Atlanta-area colleges have expressed outrage over how their institutions handle sexual violence. This week, however, some students went a step further, publicizing the names of peers and others who they say have committed sexual assault.
Signs posted Wednesday throughout the campuses of Morehouse College, a men’s college, and Spelman College, a women’s college, listed names of male students and accused them of rape. Other signs accused Morehouse and Spelman officials of protecting rapists. The signs were later removed by campus police officers. (Morehouse, Spelman, and Clark Atlanta University belong to the Atlanta University Center Consortium, known as the AUC.)
On Thursday morning, the Martin Luther King Jr. Chapel on Morehouse’s campus was spray-painted with the words “Practice what you preach Morehouse + end rape culture.” Campus police officers later covered the graffiti with a brown tarp.
Students at the three colleges shared the signs and graffiti on Twitter with the hashtag #WeKnowWhatYouDid. Some students used the hashtag to write about their own stories of assault and share their discontent with administrators who they said had silenced them and protected predators. Others simply posted a name or a list of names, prompting criticism that doing so defamed students and others who had not been formally accused of sexual assault.
The student-body president at Morehouse responded to complaints that he had not immediately commented on the campaign:
A Twitter account called @WeKnowWhatYou appeared, stating that it would post names of perpetrators:
Morehouse College’s president, Harold L. Martin Jr., responded to the outrage in a brief speech on Thursday. Mr. Martin said that he read “every single tweet.”
“Underlying that hashtag is clearly a belief that there is a population that does not feel heard on this very important issue in the AUC and on our campus,” he said.
Mr. Martin also said that he would show students who had been accused of sexual misconduct “the due respect and compassion of not jumping to judgment, fully investigating, and not making any decisions” before having all of the facts.
“It’s also going to be the last time that anybody defaces the chapel on our campus,” he added, “but we will do the work on this important issue. Is that clear?”
Asked what the administration thought about the outing of alleged perpetrators on social media, a spokeswoman for Morehouse wrote in an email to The Chronicle that the college “will investigate all claims of sexual harassment, sexual assault, violence, and discrimination filed with our Title IX coordinator” and encouraged students and employees to file complaints or use Morehouse’s anonymous hotline.
A spokeswoman for Clark Atlanta said students should “report offenses and seek the help and counseling necessary through official, administrative channels.”
Mary Schmidt Campbell, Spelman’s president, responded to the signs in an email to the campus on Thursday. She wrote that her institution has “a zero-tolerance policy for any type of violence, harassment, or unwanted contact” and detailed the campus resources available for students who have experienced sexual violence. A spokeswoman didn’t respond to a request for additional comment.
A ‘Brother-Sister’ Relationship
Tensions over sexual assault have swirled at the three institutions within the consortium since 2013, when three Morehouse basketball players were arrested based on accusations that they had sexually assaulted a Spelman student. (Those charges were dropped last year.)
In addition to the many barriers that prevent sexual-assault victims from coming forward, some students at Spelman told BuzzFeed News last year that they faced pressure to stay silent because of the “brother-sister” institutional relationship the college has with Morehouse. Both are historically black colleges. Those who did report their assaults said they felt guilty for turning in one of their “brothers” and for reinforcing unfair stereotypes about black men.
Much of the unrest has played out on social media. In 2015, two days after Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. visited Morehouse to speak about the White House’s effort to fight campus assault, a “sexual consent form” penned by a Morehouse student circulated on Twitter. It threatened to take action against female students “found in violation of this consent form” and expose them “campus wide as a lying bitch.” After the form sparked outrage, student activists submitted a list of demands “to end the culture of sexual violence in the AUC or else.”
An anonymous report of a gang rape of a Spelman student by four Morehouse students drove more anger on social media in 2016. Students at Spelman and Morehouse wrote on Twitter about their experiences, using the hashtags #RapedAtSpelman and #RapedByMorehouse.
The anonymous Twitter user who initially made the gang-rape allegations wrote several months later that Spelman officials had promised to take action and meet with her, but never did so.
Morehouse and Spelman are under investigation by the U.S. Department of Education for possible violations of Title IX, the federal gender-equity law, related to their handling of sexual-assault cases.
Sarah Brown writes about a range of higher-education topics, including sexual assault, race on campus, and Greek life. Follow her on Twitter @Brown_e_Points, or email her at sarah.brown@chronicle.com.
