Columbia’s Sex Police
Every fall, Columbia University mails prospective undergraduates a book full of glossy pictures of studious looking kids aside photo captions trumpeting the greatness of Columbia professors and our famed Core Curriculum. Noticeably absent from the colorful depiction is a darker aspect of student life which the administration would rather cover-up and keep secret then disclose to students, both those currently applying and presently enrolled.
If Columbia were indeed interested in completely and accurately portraying undergraduate education, it would dispense a photo depicting the disciplinary proceedings one would undergo if accused of violating Columbia’s Sexual Misconduct Policy. The bleak room would contain accuser, but not accused. A stenographer would be peculiarly absent, records not kept. Judges would sit perched above, wielding a sympathetic eye for the accuser, produced in part by mandatory sensitivity training.
But even this picture would capture few elements. A caption would be necessary to make note of the policy’s failure to specify whether innocence must be proven, or guilt demonstrated. Also in need of written explanation, the policy fails to specify a standard of evidence, whether it is beyond a reasonable doubt or some other measure entirely, to be employed in assessing whether the accused ought to be convicted.
Since the Columbia Senate, consisting of both faculty and students, ratified the now infamous Sexual Misconduct Policy a year and a half ago, University administrators defended the policy’s transgressions of civil liberties without misstep. All along, they pandered to student activists composed largely in part by the organization Students Active for Ending Rape (SAFER), which vigorously lobbied the Senate on the policy’s behalf.
When Professor of Law and University Senator Gerard Lynch raised due process concerns on the floor, he was quickly rebuked. One of the student authors of the policy told the Columbia Daily Spectator, “the Task Force never really agreed with [Professor Lynch's] opinion” on the due process issue. She added, “Columbia’s disciplinary procedures have been held up in courts of law numerous times.”
The legality of the policy, however, is totally irrelevant. Because Columbia is not a public university, it need not protect Constitutional provisions guaranteeing many civil liberties. What lesson Columbia wishes to bestow upon its students about rights and justice is nevertheless pertinent to its legitimacy as a liberal arts institution. Priding itself for requiring undergraduates to attend several Great Works courses, the policy is totally inconsistent with any school championing the liberal tradition of tolerance and fairness.
When the Daily Spectator challenged popular opinion, editorializing against the policy, it was met with stark criticism from leaders of SAFER who conceded their disinterest in reforming the criminal justice system or voluntarily working within Constitutional constraints. A Columbia College junior at the time, Jeff Senter wrote, “Forcing an encounter between the accused and accuser in a sexual assault case is a flaw, not a virtue of the justice system …”
When Columbia’s administration was again confronted with the policy’s deficiencies, this time in a long letter from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), the University Counsel, Patricia Catapano, wrote to FIRE assuring the group that Columbia was confidant in the policy, as written. In October 2000, the Wall Street Journal responded with an editorial of its own, deeply critical of the kangaroo court.
In the wake of attacks on their beloved policy, statements from SAFER reveal a new course of action on their part. A reverse McCarthyism of sorts, employed to discredit the policy’s critics underlies their response. Among those targeted by SAFER was esteemed ACLU attorney Harvey Silverglate, who they branded “far right”—an unpopular label to wear at Columbia.
And in their press release responding to the Wall Street Journal editorial, SAFER dismissed criticism once again. They did so, not on factual grounds, but by simply asserting only an “ultraconservative minority” opposed the policy. The absurdity of this charge is magnified by the fact that Clinton appointed one of the two people who voted against the policy, Professor Lynch, to the federal bench in Spring 2001.
When the Columbia ACLU hosted a panel with Silverglate and retired Columbia law professor Vivian Berger, SAFER was invited to send representatives to defend the policy. They refused. More cowardly, two leaders of the club ripped down posters advertising the event.
Further negative publicity, including a second Wall Street Journal editorial, sparked a rift within SAFER. Many of the organizations previous supporters acknowledged they were fighting a losing battle in the media, caused in large-part from the poor decisions of their leaders.
Evidently scared of losing support, Sarah Richardson began claiming that she had steadfastly been in support of civil liberties all along, and that it was the administration, not students, who posed the obstacle to fairness. She wrote: “activists should target the Administration, not individual students and student groups.”
Alas, yet another missing picture. Anarchic students, unconstrained by a complicit administration, governing. Ironically, while these activists used the slogan “Behind Closed Doors” to describe what the administration did next, they had engaged all along in a campaign to banish their critics to the shadows of Columbia’s campus, where they couldn’t be heard from.