This story was originally published in The Mooring Mast of Pacific Lutheran University on February 13, 2015. It was written by Samantha Lund.

This May, His Majesty King Harald V of Norway is scheduled to visit Pacific Lutheran University to celebrate the school’s 125th anniversary and speak at the university’s Commencement ceremony.

PLU was founded by Norwegian immigrants in 1890. HM King Harald has close ties to the school. Before the ceremony, HM King Harald will meet with Norwegian students at a gala luncheon to raise funds for an endowment supporting PLU and exchange programs with Norway.

While he is here, HM King Harald will receive an honorary degree from PLU. HM King Harald will receive a Doctor of Laws jure dignitatis because of his long record of distinguished service to his country and the world, according to the PLU Board of Regents.

“Lutes all around the globe feel honored to have King Harald V as our most distinguished guest and Commencement speaker to mark our Quasquicentennial year,” said PLU President Thomas W. Krise. “His Majesty’s presence will underscore our deep personal and institutional ties to Norway—ties that began in 1890 and continue robustly today.”

More about His Majesty’s visit can be found at http://www.plu.edu/marcom/news/2015/02/10/thekingatplu/

This article was authored by President George Bridges for issue four of the spring semester. It was published on Feb. 19, 2015.

On Monday, Feb. 16, many students, faculty and staff gathered in the amphitheater to reflect on and express their outrage at the tragic death of Pasco resident Antonio Zambrano-Montes. I was inspired by the thoughtful remarks of our students about the pervasiveness of racial and ethnic bias and violence targeting minorities in our society.

Whitman students, like those around the country at many other institutions, are gathering to grieve and protest, and also to try to make sense of why events like the death of Mr. Zambrano-Montes occur. We know that racial, ethnic, religious, gender and sexual orientation biases (among others) continue to exist. The costs to individuals and communities harmed by such biases and prejudices are real and undeniable. Death may be the most dramatically visible consequence, yet the toll of bias is dispersed and felt throughout American communities daily, even when the harmful events don’t make the news or attract protestors’ attention.

As we gather to examine violence against racial and ethnic minorities in nearby cities and across the nation, we also must commit ourselves to honest self-reflection closer to home—on the Whitman Campus.. Do the conversations we have about injustices “elsewhere” simultaneously encourage us to turn an analytical eye on our own community here? As we build solidarity by identifying racial injustices in Pasco or Ferguson, we tend to reinforce our shared beliefs and values. Yet we must also stop and ask: what values do we share in common, and how well do we live them out daily at Whitman? How do I, as a member of this campus community, treat “different” others in daily interactions? In 2005, the Board of Trustees of affirmed that diversity is “fundamentally important to the character and mission of Whitman College … that all individuals are valued and respected and that intellectual and personal growth are enriched because of our differences.”I believe each of us—students, faculty and staff members, administrator, and governing board members—is responsible for (a) understanding the meaning of this commitment, and (b) making this affirmation a daily lived reality on the Whitman campus.

I have served as president for nearly 10 years. During this tenure, I have seen how the actions and words of individuals and groups have, at times, undermined the College’s affirmation of, and commitment to, respectful recognition of our differences. Those among us who are underrepresented in the population, in both visible and invisible ways, bear a disproportionate burden of enduring the hurtful consequences of disrespectful or devaluing actions and words by others. Bias-related events have occurred at Whitman — some very public and some quite private – and have caused harm and pain to a segment of our community members. This is unacceptable. It may seem to some that problems of racial and ethnic bias exist only “out there” – in the really bad places where the people die. As the presiding leader here for the last 10 years, I know this is not true.

I deeply regret that these incidents have occurred and continue to occur, often (though not always) due to the indifference or ignorance of their perpetrators. Harm exists even when the hurtful consequences are unintended. If ignorance is a cause, it can and must be remedied; there is simply no excuse for harming others at Whitman. In my tenure, I have articulated the values reflected in the Trustees’ guiding statement, and have used leadership position to support and facilitate educational, discussion-based initiatives such as the Symposia on Race snortly after I arrived at Whitman and now, the student-led the Power and Privilege Symposium. I have also drawn attention to and challenged statements and actions that promote bias and/or defy values of respect for all. I will continue to do so in the months that remain of my time here.

Many people have contributed to addressing these issues over the years, and are involved in ongoing work now underway. Special recognition must go to our students, especially for their leadership,, and concrete accomplishments in renewing our commitment to understanding and valuing others. On Feb 19, 2015 we will enjoy our third year of the Power and Privilege Symposium, a student-inspired, developed and administered initiative. The Symposium is one of many collaborative efforts students have undertaken to promote diverse, inclusive and equitable treatment of individuals and groups at Whitman. Their efforts to align our everyday actions more closely with our stated values create clarity and hope.

I know that Whitman can do more to promote a welcoming climate that embraces and encourages all members of our community. While overt acts of ill will or bigotry may be mercifully rare, nevertheless, as President, I will not be complacent in confronting ignorance and insensitivity. Unintended demeaning remarks and implicitly biased actions hit their mark, regardless of the speaker or actor’s motivation. Whitman must change. And to facilitate constructive change in this direction, I have constituted a college wide council on diversity (Whitman Inclusion, Equity and Diversity) W.I.D.E., co-chaired by Professor Brooke Vick and our Chief Diversity Officer Kazi Joshua.

The Council will launch a climate study of Whitman’s life and culture this semester. Concurrent with the climate study, the council has begun gathering data from institutional reports and consulting with various campus constituents to determine issues that require attention and action. With this information, the Council will create a strategic plan for diversity that will guide Whitman’s work for the next five years under the leadership of President Murray.

Throughout this process, we will remain committed to dialogue, analysis, and building honest understanding. I cannot alleviate the painful effects of bias, insensitivity, and other past harms. However, I am unequivocally committed to promoting an interpersonal and institutional infrastructure at Whitman College, such that each individual has an equal opportunity to work, grow, and learn from one another in a climate of mutual respect and consideration.  I look forward to embarking on this together in the coming months.

This story was originally published in The Willamette Collegian of Willamette University on February 3, 2015. It was written by Jessica Meza-Torres, Edna Htet, and Malorie Hill.

The Internet and human interaction are not mutually exclusive. Though a number of sentimental hipsters will still look back with teary eyes at a time when we all “still participated in actual conversation,” the Internet has actually elevated our access to discourse, making distance between individuals almost completely arbitrary.

Consider the hashtag. That wondrous little symbol that for decades was but a useless pound sign on the corner of our phones—and has recently turned into a worldwide phenomenon vital to Internet culture.

You likely see your friends casually using hashtags to add that finishing touch to their selfie captions on Instagram or Twitter: #Cute, #SelfieSunday and, who could forget, #Swag. But as we interact more with hashtags, that little pound sign has evolved into a political engine.

The sweet thing about hashtags is that—after creating one on social media—it automatically becomes a link through which all other uses of that hashtag are conveniently amalgamated. This virtual collection consequently becomes an organized space of information and more focused conversation. Topics range from Taco Bell’s newest burrito to commentary on Kim Kardashian’s most recent selfie. However, there has been an emergence of hashtags specifically created in response to social issues. Their popularity proves that the hashtag allows for the voices of marginalized identities to come together and be heard.

An early example of the hashtag as a vehicle for organization that comes to mind involved comedian Stephen Colbert and writer and activist Suey Park. After Colbert tweeted a racially-charged, allegedly satirical comment aimed at the Asian community, Park responded by initiating the “Cancel Colbert” and “Not Your Asian Sidekick” Twitter campaigns. Though Park later commented that she did not actually want the show to end, she did expect an apology. Author and activist Michelle Malkin later added, “I’m sick of liberals hiding behind assumed ‘progressiveness,’” ending her tweet with Park’s “Cancel Colbert” tag.

The feud led to a greater conversation about hashtag activism, in which many praised Park and her peers for making use of such a casual tool to start a social movement. Critics, on the other hand, were quick to call her work “slacktivism,” a term coined by radio host and political commentator Dan Carlin. The term refers to an easy, “lazy” form of activism, in which participants may retweet, reblog or repost content about social issues, and then completely disengage, considering their work complete.

It is important to note that the very use of the word “slacker” by critics of hashtag activism produces a stigma for those who do not fit traditional definitions of an able body. The work of Park and other activists brings attention to the possibility that hashtags allow: For the first time, a larger variety of voices, bodies and opinions have space to be heard in a public sphere. Simultaneously, these varying identities use the space to find each other.

What lies at the core of social movements is engagement and cooperation, regardless of the medium through which they are achieved. The standards by which we measure “effective” or “productive” activism, then, need to be reexamined.

“I don’t really use hashtags, but I find them funny and I think that’s how they’re supposed to be used. I understand people using hashtags to try to spread their ‘message’ or to get something trending, but I personally do not think that is the best way to spread a message or use hashtags.” -Conner Olson, sophomore, undeclared

“I think hashtags are hilarious, but I feel like they should stay on the Internet. They can make conversations more interesting and funny, but they definitely shouldn’t be used in any serious or academic writing.” -Juliette Hallberg, sophomore, computer science

“I don’t really use them in social media. I think people use them to be funny, but sometimes they are just annoying and they’re trying to get likes. That’s weird. I just think they pop up too often in real life.” -Maile Symonds, sophomore, politics

“Is there #anything #irritating about this #sentence? I unfollow people who use hashtags. I hate reading a tweet with multiple hashtags in it, as though someone is talking to you with food in their mouth. Let’s keep the web a hashtag-free place.” -Mitchell Heidenreich, sophomore, rhetoric and media studies

Most popular hashtags of 2014 / 2015

1. #WorldCup

The 2014 World Cup has been labelled the most talked about social media event ever, with numbers as high as 9.9 million mentions on the final game day. Single players also received outrageous amounts of Twitter mention, with Argentina’s Lionel Messi topping the charts at approximately 363,000 mentions and Brazil’s Neymar coming in a close second, with 316,000 mentions.

2. #WeCantBreathe

This hashtag is a variant of Eric Garner’s last words, “I can’t breathe.” Garner was an African-American man who was fatally strangled by NYPD officer Daniel Pantaleo on July 17, 2014 for allegedly selling “loosies”—or single cigarettes from packs without tax stamps. The hashtag ignited broader conversations about police brutality and the constant threat faced by black Americans. According to Google Trends, the hashtag was tweeted more than 1.3 million times in the month of December 2014 alone.

3. #BlackLivesMatter

Originally created by Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors and Opal Tometi, this hashtag emerged as a response to the death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin and the failure to indict his murderer, George Zimmerman. The hashtag reemerged after the death of 18-year-old Michael Brown sparked protests nationwide, but since then the trending topic has been cleared from multiple social media histories, including Tumblr.

4. #IceBucketChallenge

This hashtag went viral in July 2014. Its purpose was to promote awareness of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as ALS, and to encourage donations for research. This hashtag gained a lot of momentum because it was usually accompanied by a video of celebrities dumping buckets of ice on themselves and then nominating others to do the same. The success of the campaign can be evinced by the 2.4 million tagged videos circulating on Facebook.

5. #BringBackOurGirls

After the abduction of 276 Nigerian girls from a boarding school in the northeastern town of Chibok last April, this global Twitter campaign gained a lot of media attention due to high-profile support from First Lady Michelle Obama and Nobel Prize winner Malala Yousafzai. Though the hashtag helped collect almost 300,000 signatures on online petitions, the campaign has faced criticism for abandoning the cause. Approximately 230 girls are still missing while the online support and media attention has died out.

6. #WhyIStayed

After the Ray Rice scandal last September, Beverly Gooden famously tweeted, “I stayed because my pastor told me God hates divorce. It didn’t cross my mind that God might hate abuse, too.” Gooden created the hashtag to confront the stigma women face when they stay in abusive relationships. The hashtag went viral, as women shared their lived experiences, simultaneously debunking the myths associated with domestic abuse and sexual and gender-based violence.

7. #UmbrellaRevolution

A series of student-led demonstrations unfolded in Hong Kong last October, advocating for democratic reform under Communist rule. Though these demonstrations were peaceful, authorities resorted to the use of tear gas in hopes of pacifying protesters. The “umbrella” aspect of the hashtag originates from the protesters’ use of umbrellas in attempt to protect themselves from the harmful effects of the gas. The hashtag facilitated global support, with solidarity messages stretching from Berlin to San Francisco.

8. #YesAllWomen

After the infamous Isla Vista killings in May, #YesAllWomen emerged as a response to #NotAllMen, in which men attempted to distance themselves from misogyny and violence against women. The social media campaign brought women’s experiences with sexism together, simultaneously holding men accountable for their participation in rape culture. Within 12 days, the hashtag reached 1.2 million tweets.

9. #TanSuit (#YesWeTan)

Last August, Twitter was buzzing about President Barack Obama’s outfit choice during a press conference on foreign policy, resulting in the trending topic #TanSuit. Just last month, however, the White House retaliated, posting a picture on its Instagram account depicting yet another tan suit, with the cheeky caption “The President’s suiting up for the big speech. #YesWeTan.” Twitter user Dave Earley famously satirically stated, “When I saw that #YesWeTan was trending, I assumed at first it was referring to Boehner. #OrangeNotTan.”

10. #AlexFromTarget

One Sunday afternoon in Frisco, Texas, a Twitter user that goes by Rims was shopping at Target when she noticed a particularly handsome cashier. She took a photo without him noticing and captioned it “YOOOOOOOOOO.” The tweet went viral, and soon everyone was tweeting about their favorite employees with their own personalized hashtags. The original tweet reached approximately 1,110 retweets and 1,900 likes.

http://willamettecollegian.com/main/culture/

Four months of peace and conflict studies in the Balkans taught me how to recognize genocide and ethnic cleansing, and as I step back on campus I’m overwhelmed by their evidence. I’m overwhelmed not only by the way white supremacy, imperialism and genocide intertwine with the history of Whitman College, but by how little that history has changed.

We (the Whitman community) know about the missionaries who settled in this region, and we know that Whitman was founded in their honor. We can agree that the genocide of North America’s native population was tragic and that religion and pale skin should not justify it, but where we disagree is in the present. Disowning the college’s religious affiliation and dedicating a rock next to Maxey Hall do not atone for Marcus Whitman’s “arrival” (read: invasion) and how foreigners continue to occupy this land.

In her convocation speech last semester, Professor Elyse Semerdjian aimed to open a critical analysis of Whitman’s origins and the imperialist legacy it carries, but her argument was overshadowed by reactions to the case study she used as a point of comparison. So let’s try again this semester, because it is our responsibility to acknowledge that this institution, and many like it across the nation, is inherently racist. It is our responsibility to understand how all of us on campus continue to engage in imperialism and genocide every day.

I learned very quickly in the Balkans that marking territory is a central component of claiming and “cleansing” land. This campus is rife with territorial demarcation. Many symbols of the violence surrounding Whitman are obvious, such as the school mascot (the Missionaries), the name of the school paper (The Pioneer) and the very name of our college, in honor of Marcus Whitman, whom local tribes consider responsible for the death of a couple hundred natives. Other symbols escape our attention, like the school’s official seal which pays tribute to the three states “saved” by Marcus Whitman (see this explanation on Whitman’s website).

By contrast, there are only a few traces of local tribes around campus, reflecting the power dynamic between Whitman College and the native community. Even Treaty Rock by Maxey Hall, long believed to be a gift from regional tribes, is a testament to white supremacy and imperialism. In her convocation speech, Professor Semerdjian noted that far from honoring the region’s tribes, that rock commemorates a treaty that natives signed “under duress,” choosing exile over slaughter. She revealed that it also symbolizes “the establishment of Indian sovereignty”— that is to say their confinement to designated spaces — and the legal battle they have been fighting ever since for basic human rights on their own land.

So are we honoring the native community or are we honoring their obliteration? By expressing pride in Whitman through these monuments and symbols, we celebrate acts of genocide.

One-sided, broken narratives of the past are also a common theme in countries that experience ethnic cleansing and genocide. Memories of various atrocities in the Balkans and our narrative of Walla Walla’s history are similarly skewed in that official versions of the truth dominate discussion to the point where an entire group of people and their perspective disappear.

One example is how we remember the death of Marcus Whitman in “the Whitman Massacre.” The college website explains this massacre as “revenge” for the hundreds of Native Americans who died of an outbreak in disease while they were under Marcus Whitman’s supervision, defending Whitman as someone “well-meaning.” In this version of the past and all others, the death of a dozen white settlers is called a “massacre” while there is no name for the death of hundreds of natives directly preceding it.

Other atrocities in American history are nameless as well. We vaguely call the initial invasion “discovery;” the occupation “colonial America;” the white supremacy that fueled expansion “exploration,” “manifest destiny” and “missionary work;” and the near extermination of this continent’s native population “settlement.” Omitting Native Americans and their perspective is a habit, dangerous because it asserts their annihilation. We in fact continue the genocide by cleansing them from our consciousness, because in this way we cleanse our conscience.

Contrary to popular belief, we are responsible for the past — at least, for how we remember it. We are responsible for the way we choose to discuss this institution and its history, for how we celebrate mass murder and for how we acknowledge the Native Americans, whose oppression and genocide we benefit from every day.

This story was originally published in The Crescent  of George Fox University. It was written by Crescent writer Julia Howell.

A new music class, History of Rock and Roll, is being offered [spring 2015] as a special topics elective course. It will be a cultural and musical survey of the history of rock and roll.

Instructor of Flute and Music History Sophia Tegart is teaching the class. She will cover topics from Bill Haley and the Comets to Elvis Presley, The Beatles, Folk Rock, Soul and Motown, Punk Rock, Rhythm and Blues, Christian Rock, and Dance music, to contemporary pop music.

“We are going to touch on as much as possible,” said Tegart.

Tegart is looking forward to the class because it encompasses the social and cultural changes that accompanied the genres: hairstyles, clothing, language, food, and politics.

She thought of the idea for a rock and roll class while teaching another music class, Music in World Cultures.

“My past students said that one of the things they really enjoyed was the presentations on popular music groups from the various countries we studied,” said Tegart. “The students loved learning about Baba Seghal, who took Vanilla Ice’s ‘Ice Ice Baby’ and translated it into Hindi. They also loved learning about the ‘Madonna’ of China, Anita Mui. The entire class seemed to love learning about The Beatles’ George Harrison and his study of the sitar with Ravi Shankar. I thought to myself one day that it would be really great to give the students a class that covered rock and roll in depth.”

She did some research and realized that many other universities offer a class in the history of rock and roll. It seemed fitting to bring the idea to GFU.

“I wanted to make sure George Fox had one too,” said Tegart. “It’s a great way for students to learn about the social, cultural, and political changes that occurred in the U.S. during the twentieth century, and to see the trends that are occurring today, and it’s super fun to learn about that while listening to quality music.”

Dear Editor:

The students from Hillel-Shalom, whose letter (Nov. 13) regarded this year’s convocation speech, are to be commended for their courage in making public a debate that has played out largely in the shadows. They were correct to label Professor Semerdjian’s speech divisive. For me, a third generation Walla Wallanwho feels implicated in the deception and violence that relegated local Native Americans a postage stamp of scrubland, it was — to quote from Professor Shampa Biswas’s 2007 convocation address —“intellectually unsettling.”

However, I didn’t find it “one-sided,” or merely one person’s “opinion,” as the writers contend. It was a talk with a thesis, a model of the kind of critical, interdisciplinary thinking we value in our community. It’s not my place to show that it’s not one-sided; I’ll leave that task to students themselves. Instead, I’ll proceed to an example that might expand my argument. In 2012, Professor Phil Brick’s convocation speech began with the potentially incendiary statement that “anthropogenic climate change is already here and it may indeed be irreversible.”

To the untutored, an unqualified statement of the reality of climate change could be taken as one-sided insofar as “climate change denier” serves as a surrogate for “conservative Republican.” But surely we don’t think that way. Professor Brick began with a widely accepted statement of fact and then argued from that assumption. While I do not mean to equate climate politics and the identity politics that lurk around the debate over Semerdjian’s speech, I think the analogy is apt to help us consider what we mean by the terms “opinion” or “one-sided.”

Too often in class, I hear that an assigned article or book is “one-sided,” a response which strikes me as intellectually weak. It’s a lazy placeholder for when we don’t want to engage with the internal coherence of an argument with which we disagree. When a professor assigns a book or article that advances a particular argument, those pieces are not “one-sided” any more than your senior thesis is “one-sided.” They are thesis-driven writings in which a particular interpretation is supported by evidence.

Finally, I worry about glossing convocation as a “welcome to Whitman” event, as the writers do in their letter. While I am not advocating we make convocation purposefully uncomfortable, the event strikes me as more than an embrace to the club. So what should it be? Looking at past convocation speeches, we might get a better sense of its purpose. The convocation address is a diverse beast with a few common markings. Many speeches offer some kind of welcome to the community. Most seek to model forms of analysis and argumentation used in the classroom. What they all seem to have in common, though, is a call to challenge — they all serve to provoke new ways of thinking. As an example I return to Professor Biswas’s 2007 speech, delivered in heady days of the War on Terror, which asked, “[W]hat are the stakes of becoming an intellectual?” Her answer:

“There are risks, make no mistake, in the asking of these questions — risks to our sense of who we are, sometimes at the most personal levels, and risks to those served by our loyalty to the boundaries that keep us divided. So while others at Whitman will expend considerable efforts to keep you safe and well-tended, the task of this remarkable faculty […] is to make college intellectually unsettling for you.”

Speeches are of course a lot of pomp, but I’d like to think these thoughtful statements are not mere platitudes. I hope we mean it when we say as faculty that our job is to challenge you. I’d also like to think convocation is the appropriate venue to begin the challenging, lest the event become trite and prosaic. A little discomfort is good, even necessary. In my field of cultural anthropology, initiation rites and rituals cross-culturally are often uncomfortable affairs, and purposely so: They are meant to upend us from one phase of life to another, to be “pivotal events” as the student writers describe Whitman’s convocation. Students are pivoting from the rigidly biased to the intellectually unsettling. Welcome to college.

Sincerely,

Jason Pribilsky
Professor of Anthropology and Interdisciplinary Studies

As Whitman’s president, I am immensely proud of those students, faculty and staff who stood in solidarity last week on the steps of the Penrose Library in memory of Michael Brown, killed by a police officer in Ferguson, Mo. Thank you for causing our campus to pause and reflect on this tragedy and the larger issue of race and injustice in our society.

Over the past few months we have witnessed shocking incidents in which police officers have stolen the lives of young African American men. That prosecutors have chosen against filing charges in many of these cases should appall any American who believes in the Constitutional right of individuals to “equal justice under law.”

As much as some may believe otherwise, our system of justice does not afford equal justice to all. Race matters. Minorities continue to experience differential treatment by legal officials even to the point of losing their lives to police use of deadly force.

The problem of racial and ethnic disparities in treatment is neither surprising nor new. The causes are complex and do not reduce to simplistic explanations. By all measures African American and Latino men have higher rates of criminal behavior than other groups and are therefore more likely to be arrested and charged for offenses. However, they are also more likely to be convicted upon being arrested than whites because they are disproportionately poor and often cannot afford the most capable legal representation. Finally, many legal officials hold stereotypical views of minority offenders as more dangerous and less remorseful than whites and therefore more culpable for their offenses.

Law enforcement and our legal system exist to protect and serve our communities. With these shootings and a history of differential treatment of minorities, we must ask, “Who are the officials protecting and serving?”

Earlier this year The Pioneer published a story about survivors of sexual assault on campus who reported their assaults to the administration. The following is a first-hand account from one of the survivors interviewed, Mallory*, about her assault and its ramifications for her life at Whitman. The content of this editorial has not been independently verified by The Pioneer, and does not reflect the views or beliefs of the editorial board.

Elliot* was an acquaintance of mine; we had a class together second semester of my first year. The following semester we had another class together and hung out two times, both times sober. The second time, we kissed. On that night I told him that I did not want to start anything romantic at that time. He said fine. Later that week we made plans to hang out again. That night I had been drinking with another one of my friends, unaware that the rum in the mixed drink was 151 proof. I had 3 in an hour, for an estimated BAC of .20. I was coherent when I was texting Elliot, since we had plans to watch a movie. He eventually came by, but it was one in the morning and at this point I was tired, annoyed and told him I was going home. We got to the crosswalk, and he insisted I come back with him.

I finally agreed, but said clearly, “If I come with you, it is to watch a movie. This needs to be like the other night, when we didn’t do more than kiss.” He promised.

We get to his dorm room, and he had already told his roommate to “sleep in the lounge.” I told him that his roommate could stay. I mean, weren’t we just watching a movie? The alcohol started to hit. I told Elliot I had been drinking, and felt like I had too much. Elliot sat me down on his bed and started touching me.

I blacked out.

When I “blacked in,” it was awful. He had forced me on his bed and was having sex with me. My underwear had been pushed to the side. I couldn’t figure out what the fuck was happening, did I ask for this? Did I say it was okay? My body hurt, and I was choking back tears; I just waited for this horrendous experience to be over.

In the morning, I went to the bathroom and saw blood all over my underwear. I looked in the mirror and lifted up my shirt: bite marks, bruises the size of fingertips … soreness. Then he walked in. I will never forget this sick detail: He reached from his shelf and handed me an unopened toothbrush from a multitude of unopened toothbrushes. I wondered if another girl, in this same bathroom, had stared at her underwear, trying to make sense of the blood.

I knew it was not “consensual.” “Not consensual” was the pathetic understatement I could say at the time. I couldn’t tell anyone, not even my best friend and roommate. I had no words.

Elliot would try to sit next to me in class. I stopped going to class. Elliot would touch me and grab me at parties. I was so angry I could only imagine picking up the chair next to me and crushing him … all I really did was stand there. Elliot would stare at me in the gym, licking his lips. So I established a fool-proof routine, ways to avoid him. Elliot asked me to get dinner a few days after, I told him that “[he] knew what [he] did and, I can’t believe [he] told [his] whole team about it.” The guy wanted to date me after what he did to me.

I had terrible PTSD and couldn’t sleep. A friend had to come and stay with me so that if I woke up screaming, I wasn’t alone. At that time, however, I still had not told anyone.

It took me six months to finally say the word “rape.” I had been raped. It took me over a year to report. What’s funny is the one reason I held back from reporting was that I was afraid the school would see our text messages and friendship as implied consent.

Sometimes it feels horrible to be right.

When I finally reported, I had to gush my entire story (well, what I could actually verbalize) three times before the case actually “began.” I had absolutely no idea how the process worked, how long it could take, what to expect… Luckily a girl who had been through the process before me was able to shed some light. Still, neither of us were prepared for how bad it would get.

I certainly did not expect to feel like I was on trial and that my credibility was being constantly questioned. Witnesses expressed the same sentiment of surprise – why did it seem like the school needed me to prove the validity of my story? Like I would invent such trauma… Or spend a year in therapy by choice?

I was fairly certain that Elliot was a repeat offender. However, when I expressed this in many of my several, intense and long interviews, the school reminded me that a no-contact order had been put in place and that if I propagated knowledge of the “incident,” or tried to find the other girl(s), there would be consequences.

As you can imagine, retelling my story was reliving it. The PTSD symptoms not only came back, they were worse. No one prepared me for this, and my investigator never asked me to write down details. I always had to speak. The level of detail needed was insane, and I usually felt like I was choking – you try describing the bruises on your body!

It seemed like my school’s Title IX “experts” did not understand traumatic memory. At all.

So I made a list: every single person I had told about the “incident,” what they knew, and what they didn’t know. As you can imagine, this list was short, but detailed nonetheless. By making this list I was trying to maintain both normalcy and privacy. They promised confidentiality.

Instead, the investigator for my case proceeded to call friends of friends, and then friends of those friends, resulting in not only a case that nearly spanned the allotted 60 days stipulated by Title IX, but one that everyone was talking about. I could not walk into a class or go to any social event without knowing that several people in the room knew. Even some of my professors found out!

However, what calling witnesses not named on my list accomplished was to bring in an overwhelming number of people that did not know I had been raped; as if their not knowing signified doubt of it actually happening, not me demonstrating normal survivor behavior. The school warned them that there would be consequences for talking about the case with me, while I didn’t know why friends weren’t responding to my calls and texts when I needed their support.

Furthermore, since calling so many witnesses muddled my story, I had to compulsively check my email, and come in for several more interviews to respond to various extraneous details.

The investigation suddenly began to focus on one thing: confirming the date of the “incident.”

Naturally, since I didn’t tell my friends for months, and since they did not experience the trauma, none of them could confirm a date – only speculate that it happened sometime that year. Because the investigation took so long, I began to break down. Every facet of my life was under attack. I lost several friends, people were gossiping about me, I was weeks behind in homework because I was spending hours every week trying to “prove my case,” my recently good relationship with my family was obliterated. My school had isolated me, I felt entirely alone, and was giving up.

Because of the investigation, I became that girl in the ugly yellow-tan bathroom, staring at the blood on her underwear, all over again. As if once wasn’t enough. The frustration of being brought back to moment zero was excruciating. I continued with counseling. My counselor put me on suicide watch.

I will say that although no one on the school’s Title IX team encouraged me not to report – on the contrary, they were all for me reporting – several times during my case I was reminded that if this was too “difficult,” I could quit, and just let the school handle it. I’ll let you interpret that on your own.

In the end, it did come down to those text messages implying consent. I was furious. In Title IX, there is no need to prove beyond a reasonable doubt; if there is a “preponderance of evidence,” a phrase commonly repeated to me to mean that there is a 51% (or greater) chance that the defendant is “responsible,” then the case moves into a hearing with a board, and punishment is decided. I thought “blood” and “bruises” would be enough, but apparently not. Most survivors of rape knew their attacker. Yet, text messages implied consent, and several witnesses describing how he would stare at me at the gym did not imply intent.

The Whitman College’s policy on consent reads as such: “a freely and affirmatively communicated willingness to participate in sexual activity, expressed by clear, unambiguous words or actions,” and that such willingness cannot be given when intoxicated. What I learned during my case, as it was so carefully explained to me, was that text messages asking to hang out signify unambiguous willingness, and that you have to be incapacitated, passed out and not just intoxicated, to be unable to give consent.

My case was closed. I had no right to appeal. Whitman College chose to protect a (potentially repeat offending) rapist. I stood up, shook their hands, and looked them in the eyes. They couldn’t do the same. I left the meeting and went to the library to work.

Six months later my investigator came to the restaurant where I work, and sat in my section. I felt like I was choking, about to vomit, and had flashbacks – not just of Elliot, but of the case as well. The process was so exhausting that I now associated my investigator with the rape itself.

Go figure.

Currently I am a senior, focusing on school. I enjoy frequently running into those responsible for how my case was handled. People still gossip, perhaps symptomatic of attending a small school. In May I will graduate and, sadly, will not be proud to have a diploma with Whitman’s name on it. My attacker is not here this year; he is now attending an Ivy League, Whitman diploma in hand.

-Mallory*.

Over Thanksgiving break my nephew and I talked about how racism and sexism function in America. I asked how he would help people who are not white or male if he was ever in a position of power.

His response was simple and immediate: “I will help other people only if they’re nice to me.”

My nephew is only seven. But he was still able to articulate one of the most powerful tools of the patriarchy: the ability for those in power to be selective in whom they help and to demand certain conditions be met before their help is given.

Despite all of the think pieces and academic works I have read about patriarchal oppression, I was only able to articulate the problem I have thought around for so long after hearing my nephew’s words. For those who are not white, male or straight in American society, power is not simply difficult to navigate and nearly impossible to attain; it is almost always predicated upon one’s willingness to play by the rules outlined by those in charge. I play every time I hold my tongue as I calculate whether my words will hinder my ability to get a letter of recommendation. I am not the only one who plays by the rules, nor am I the only one burdened by playing.

The burden of playing by the rules — this is the weight of niceness.

We are taught how to carry this weight: every time a child of color is taught to never run in public, every time a girl is taught not to walk alone at night, every time a non-straight person is taught not to display their affection publicly. What is so horrendous is not that we are taught how to bear this weight. What is so horrendous is that our very survival depends upon learning how to bear this weight. What is so horrendous is the time that we lost in learning how to survive.

What is so horrendous is that we must bear this weight at all. Imagine how much we could do with the weight of niceness off our shoulders.

-Maria Ptucha ‘15