Here I stand before you in depressed dejection. Not, mind you, because of what you did say - the verdict that you came up with was no surprise and was expected ahead of time. As a result of what you didn't say, what you didn't deal with, my complete lack of faith in the system has been reaffirmed.
It is unfortunate that despite it all, the University did not even discuss the issues I worked so hard and faced so much pain to bring up. The University's Sexual Harassment Policy is nothing but dust. It truly hurts every woman on this campus to know that our Sexual Harassment Policy is a dummy, a policy with absolutely no substance behind it. It is even sadder to know that every other harassment policy is probably the same, and it only took you 25 minutes to decide that.
I only ask that in the future, you not so brazenly set aside the issue of sexual objectification and public degradation based on gender, and that you actually deal with the issue instead of ignoring it completely, as you did in that mockery of a hearing.
What if it were race, ethnicity, or any other bodily characteristic that is irrelevant to political agendas or public personas?
Do we not have the right not only to respect ourselves on this campus, but also not to be pilloried for characteristics we have no control over and should be proud of? Do you want us to be ashamed of the very core of our being - our very own bodies? Your precedence last week says you do.
The amount of time, barely 25 minutes, and the wording of your response proves what my advisers said to me throughout the process, but my misplaced childish naivet?© refused to believe it deep inside. I expected that The Primary Source would not suffer consequences for targeting and sexually harassing me. What I did not expect was for my whole entire existence to be so totally and completely ignored as it was. This is what shattered the myth I was apparently suffering under. This is why I'm so hurt and angry now.
I learned the school doesn't want to deal with sexual harassment. They don't even want to pretend they do. Last I checked, SEXUAL HARASSMENT was why I went to the hearing in the first place. Yet your response did not even mention the questions I brought to you, did not even reference sexual harassment at all, not even once. Your response not only answered nothing, it proves that nobody cared enough to listen or think.
Did I make a right to free expression complaint? I don't believe I did. In fact, I'm positive I didn't. I made a sexual harassment complaint; thanks for dealing with it. Why wasn't the issue I raised addressed at all? What about my right to not be sexually harassed on this campus? Is that no right at all? Did you feel like mentioning it?
A single hour hearing with almost no questions and 25 minutes to decide on such an important issue was all it took to create a response that did not even mention sexual harassment. I ask you to take a look, and this time around, at least think about what this process has taught me and demonstrated to the students about their school.
I have to go home full of the knowledge that the University won't even discuss sexual harassment and doesn't even try to pretend; that the Committee of Student Life, CSL, didn't even give a moments fake notice to the systemic oppression that I've been na??ve enough to try to bring into the public consciousness.
The decision in my case is why no one challenges the system. We are lied to. We are told to believe in the University system. But the message we get is contradictory. We are shown that we are unimportant - our valid complaints made invalid, erased, ignored, not more than half an hour after their presentation.
The Primary Source now has the precedence to harass anyone on this campus as an individual and never be forced to face or think about the issue, to at least admit to themselves what they have done and deal psychologically with those consequences. That's all I ever wanted, for them to admit and take responsibility for their words and be forced to think about them.
All I wanted was for the school to state it did not support sexual harassment and to take it seriously so that the Source would have to look at the issue and finally take it seriously. I never wanted to censor or terminate The Primary Source and said this numerous times. I just wanted them to stop hiding, and the school to stop accepting their abusive actions. That's it...that's the most I was hoping for.
All I wanted was the Source to have to go home and stop hiding behind delusional lies. For a publication that prides itself so much on freedom of speech and the press, The Primary Source shows little respect for the first amendment. The first amendment entails responsibility; it is not just a clich?© phrase to throw around whenever you feel like it.
In Supreme Court case Bethel School District vs. Fraser, it was affirmed that even in public school systems, the right to sexually degrade someone simply for being a woman is not protected by free speech clauses. But this was not a case about free speech. It was a case about sexual harassment, conveniently forgotten by the CSL and The Primary Source.
All you have said, CSL, is that only their free expression is important; you did not address the rights of the other side. Why my right not to be sexually harassed doesn't count is completely unimportant and ignored. Why did you not even answer the most central question, the reason for the whole entire hearing?
I ask you to think about it, to stop hiding from discussion about harassment (not freedom of speech and the press, for those were never in jeopardy). The Source targeted me as an individual through my gender and attempted to degrade and invalidate me by the sexualized usage of my body. How should the University treat that denigration of my being? I do not want your defense as to how seriously you took it, how much you agonized for that whole half hour, or how you just happened accidentally to leave out of the verdict the actual point of the whole hearing. All I had wanted was an answer to the question of harassment and to be taken seriously, but apparently, that was too much to hope for, and I now know.
I have to deal with being silenced first because of my gender and then the argument it makes in sexual harassment, but The Primary Source doesn't even have to go to bed at night knowing they did something wrong. They can pat themselves on the back for sexually degrading me and getting away with calling it a "joke" and feel like they're the ultimate martyrs, the saviors of free speech. They did no such thing, as much as they'd like to delude themselves. What they did, like you the panel did, was ignore thinking about and dealing with sexual harassment.
All I got was a slap in the face as the school didn't listen to me, discuss my issues, and unabashedly rubbed it in my face with a shoddy 25 minute discussion time and that closing statement. That closing statement that said absolutely nothing about sexual harassment - not one word. That hurt, and it's my freedom of speech to let you know it. Though you probably won't think about it anyway.
Iris Halpern is a senior double majoring in English and women's studies. Her sexual harassment complaint against The Primary Source was denied last Monday night.
