mmmKjLmmfu *1 imrn ma In This Issue... Page 6 The women's soccer team strives for a winning season... Page 16 and 17 Cyndy Briggs and Will Pizio discuss different aspects of rape and sexual assault... i I SL&CF ■ loofc I 1 VJORSEJ Page 10 Reflecting on the sexual assault protest... SAFE from Rape? Mary Layton Atkinson Daisy Partington Staff Writers For nearly seven years, Guilford College's sexual miscon duct protocol has remained an unchanged, unofficial document. With rumors about a sexual mis conduct case that went before the ju dicial board earlier this month sweep ing across campus, the protocol has now found itself under careful scru tiny by students and faculty alike. "Last year, af ter listening to stu dent, staff, and fac ulty concerns, the faculty requested that the College create a position addressing gender issues in Campus Life," said President Kent Chabotar, in a recent letter to the Junior Kat Allen joins in the protest against Guilford's rape policy James Tatum For more info, on the protest, see page 10 community. In response, the college created the position of Director for Gender Issues and Retention, filled by Cyndi Briggs. Briggs, in turn, handpicked mem bers of the recently formed Sexual Assault Response Team (SART), comprised of faculty from the de partments of campus life, women's studies, counseling services, and student health. The group formed to revise the protocol. Despite these recent efforts, the protocol remains a topic of discussion and concern among students. "It doesn't seem like [the ad ministration has] the ability to bring about justice," said Caitlin Whitney-Gallagher, co-coordina tor of the Feminists Reaching Equality for Everyone (FREE). "I'd like to believe that if I was ever raped, I wouldn't go to the judi cial board ... I would file a po lice report." Jodi Gill, Assistant Dean for Campus Life, believes that part of the problem stems from fun damental misunderstandings about the document itself and the procedures it outlines, specifically the judicial board process. "One of the biggest miscon ceptions students have is that the avenue for individual recourse is the judicial board," Gill said. "That avenue is the civil or crimi nal courts. The judicial board is there to determine the status of the accused as a student." Sophomore John Pickard dis agrees with Gill's assessment. "We [students] al ready know that. The problem is, it's very difficult to trust the adminis tration right now." The ability to trust the adminis tration is not the only concern raised by students in the last few weeks. The Sexual As sault Task Force and Education (SAFE), a student organization dedi cated to support and education on the topic of sexual assault and misconduct, recently devoted one of its meetings to discuss student concerns with the current sexual October 25, 2002 Volume 89, Issue 6 misconduct protocol. The meeting, held Oct. 10, drew a larger crowd than previous SAFE meetings held this year, according to SAFE Presi dent John Boyd. Concerns voiced at the SAFE meeting expressed the need for the protocol to more clearly serve the students. "The protocol is written as though it is [the Administration's] protocol," said John Boyd, presi dent of SAFE. "But it's not. It's ours, the students', and it needs to be user-friendly.." Specifically, SAFE feels that the rights of the assaulted student, rather than only the responsibili ties of Guilford's administration, should be clearly outlined. Interpreting the protocol is also difficult because sections of it are documented in several loca tions, including the Student Hand book and the Campus Safety Manual (available online through Guilford's home page). For example, while students at the SAFE meeting said they felt that the handbook discour ages the victim from talking to friends for confidentiality rea sons, the Campus Safety Manual actually encourages students to "find a friend. Friends can be continued on page 2 ...

Page Text

This is the computer-generated OCR text representation of this newspaper page. It may be empty, if no text could be automatically recognized. This data is also available in Plain Text and XML formats.

Return to page view