When seven current and former students at the University of Connecticut filed a federal complaint last month alleging that the university had failed to protect them from sexual assault, the response from the president there was brusque.
“Astonishingly misguided and demonstrably untrue,” the president, Susan Herbst, deemed the allegations in remarks to the Board of Trustees. “I completely reject the notion that UConn somehow doesn’t care about these all-important issues, because nothing could be further from the truth. I cannot speak to the motivations of the people who have suggested this.”
The reaction to her comments, on the campus and beyond, was scathing. “Tone-Deaf,” declared a headline in The Courant, a Hartford newspaper. “Defensive” and “surprisingly dismissive,” a state senator said. One of the students who had filed the original complaint, with the U.S. Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights, posted the president’s comments and a plea for advice on a private Facebook page for anti-rape activists. Her word for the president’s remarks: “violent.”
In the weeks since, the university has found itself in a harsh spotlight. State lawmakers held a public hearing on UConn’s sexual-assault policies. Students demonstrated against what they called a “rape culture.” Four of the seven complainants, working with a well-known civil-rights lawyer, filed a federal lawsuit. All the while, criticism has rained down on Ms. Herbst for her perceived scorn. The president declined to be interviewed for this article.
Attuned to Tone
As a growing movement of campus rape survivors pushes colleges to change how they handle sexual assault—often directing criticism at top administrators and filing extensive complaints with the Department of Education—presidents have struggled to find the right way to respond. Do they roll up their sleeves, cancel classes, and encourage all-out dialogue? Bring in a big-name consultant to try to fix the problem? List all the efforts that signal the institution’s commitment to handling this charged issue sensitively and fairly?
In the past year, as a steady stream of federal complaints has landed colleges in the headlines, presidents have tried all of those tactics. Some attempts have gone over better than others. Still, guideposts are few, and leaders like Ms. Herbst are discovering that, as much as students want action, they are equally attuned to tone. But concern and humility alone aren’t guaranteed to ward off future criticism.
A wise leader responds to allegations by re-evaluating the situation, particularly when it comes to sexual assault, says Laura Dunn, a law student at the University of Maryland at Baltimore and an advocate for rape survivors. “Any time you have someone in a position of power at the university protect the university’s reputation over the individual student is really hurtful and upsetting.”
In any handbook on campus crisis management, the chapter on sexual assault would be long, and growing. At the top of the list of dos and don’ts: Be human. And don’t counter allegations of mishandling students’ reports with a list of everything the institution is doing right.
Even a businesslike tone, never mind indignation, can come off as insensitive, says Ann Duffield, a consultant who advises campus leaders. Either approach can quickly antagonize key groups and make it difficult to explain credibly what changes are under way.
Instead, she says, a president should listen to students as soon as a potential problem surfaces. The students then know that someone cares, and the president gains a better understanding of what is brewing. If the situation escalates, the president is in a better position to speak with authority and genuine concern.
That’s what happened at Amherst College, where Carolyn A. (Biddy) Martin took note of students’ dissatisfaction with campus culture and sexual-misconduct policies in her first year on the job.
“When you hear a consistent message that there may be a problem, it’s worth looking into it,” says Ms. Martin. “In the case of sexual assault and sexual misconduct, there’s a particular kind of silence that makes it all the more important to bring openness to the process.”
Discussions of campus policies were already in the works at Amherst when the issue reached a boiling point last fall. A former student published a harrowing account in the campus newspaper of her alleged rape by a classmate and what she felt was the college’s callous response. Familiar with the broader issues, Ms. Martin got to work. The college held open meetings and a “day of dialogue.” It also posted a checklist online detailing moves it had made and what remained to be done.
Still, commitment and candor aren’t always enough. Last week two former Amherst students, including the one who wrote the article, filed a federal complaint against the college.
Intentions vs. Perceptions
Indeed, the gap between a president’s intentions and students’ perceptions can sometimes seem very difficult to close.
At Occidental College this year, after students criticized administrators’ response to an alleged rape, the president, Jonathan Veitch, sent an open letter to the campus. In it he laid out the college’s position on sexual assault and listed several steps officials had taken to deal with the issue on the campus. But at times he sounded defensive, accusing students and faculty members of trying to “vilify” the student-affairs staff and seeking “to embarrass the college on the evening news.”
Mr. Veitch later apologized for his tone. But his remarks had hit hard. A coalition of students soon announced plans to file complaints against Occidental under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which bars sex discrimination at institutions that receive federal funds, and the Clery Act, which requires colleges to disclose campus crimes. Debate over the college’s approach to sexual assault has been simmering ever since.
The activists’ anger is understandable, Mr. Veitch has said, but he wishes they would recognize his constraints. “Ultimately, the president’s role is by definition somewhat limited,” he told The Chronicle in July. Sexual assault is “a cultural problem, and obviously it goes beyond my ability to address it.”
In Connecticut a similar scene unfolded. As news of Ms. Herbst’s remarks spread, students who belong to a national group of more than 800 rape survivors and activists known as the IX Network were quick to condemn her. On the network’s private Facebook page, the complainant who posted the president’s comments received a series of outraged replies.
“REALLY stupid of the university,” said one. “They are going to get slammed so much harder because of it.”
Another advised the complainant to “avoid engaging” with Ms. Herbst in the future. “Steer clear of her, take the high ground,” she wrote. “Document everything and submit it to OCR"—the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights—"and cultivate relationships with other admins (or faculty or students) who get it.”
“In the long run,” the commenter concluded, “this supports the validity of your complaint and will bring about change faster and more dramatically than if they tried to sweep this under the rug.”
At UConn, the mood remained charged. By the end of that first week after the students filed their Title IX complaint, the president announced plans to survey students on the university’s “culture and safety” on matters of sexual misconduct. But outside observers continued to suggest that she needed to soften her approach, talk directly with students, and drop what some perceived as us-versus-them rhetoric.
Ms. Herbst did not attend the November 13 legislative hearing, where students and campus officials testified. But that day, in a statement to the board, she adopted a new tone. “As long as there is a single sexual assault on any of our campuses,” she said, “our work is not complete.”
Her earlier comments in response to “the broad allegation of institutional indifference,” said Ms. Herbst, had been “misunderstood.”
Still, the damage at UConn may already have been done, at least as far as some of the students are concerned. A few rape survivors, so put off by Ms. Herbst’s initial response, began to discuss the next day how they would proceed. The president, they thought, had created a hostile environment, a detail that is now part of their lawsuit.
