Embedded Files
This story explores Brown's history and present to show how Title IX's impartiality can undermine efforts to address gender-based discrimination and violence on campuses
by Cecilia Sarantopoulos
“Is not taking a stance also taking a stance?” Michelle Ding mused, her brow furrowed in thought. The question hung in the air for a moment. We shrugged at each other through the pixelated windows of the Zoom call.
Michelle Ding is a sophomore at Brown University studying International and Public Affairs and Computer Science.
She is also the public coordinator of End Sexual Violence (ESV) at Brown, a coalition of Brown students and student-run organizations aimed at facilitating community-based anti-sexual violence mobilization.
ESV is one of the resources at Brown University that addresses gender-based discrimination or sexual violence.
Another is the Title IX and Gender Equity Office. This program is responsible for universities enforcing Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972, a federal law that prohibits sex discrimination in education. Each university is required by law to have a Title IX office for investigating claims of sexual harassment, sexual assault, and other forms of gender-based violence.
Despite their similar missions, the responsibilities and approaches of Brown’s Title IX office and ESV diverge.
As an advocacy organization, ESV focuses on raising awareness about the issue of sexual violence and promoting a culture of consent and respect on campus.
Title IX offices have legal responsibilities, ensuring compliance with federal and university policies. They investigate reports of sexual misconduct, provide support and resources for survivors, and oversee training and education programs for students, faculty, and staff.
Title IX coordinators and investigators must remain impartial and unbiased when investigating reports of sexual misconduct. This requirement is meant to ensure that all parties in a case are treated fairly and that investigations are conducted thoroughly and objectively. But this approach doesn’t guarantee justice to survivors.
Sexual assault survivors’ recent experiences with Brown’s Title IX office show that Brown continues to struggle with claims of sexual assault.
“Title IX is very clear about being an unbiased, neutral office,” says Michelle. “That’s fine – I guess.” But this neutrality clashes with ESV’s goal of supporting survivors, Michelle says, and means that “survivor-centered organizations” are “a critical campus resource for victims.”
ESV aims to push the Brown administration to increase its transparency about ending sexual violence within the Brown community, a pursuit that harkens back to 1985.
According to the Brown Daily Herald’s May 1985 issue, students’ anger about unaddressed sexual assault and harassment on Brown’s campus peaked during the 1985 Spring Weekend.
During the event, “men on the porch of Theta Delta Chi used the fraternity’s food-a-thon score cards to numerically rate female passers-by and Kappa Sigma printed t-shirts depicting a bikini-clad woman alongside the fraternity’s emblematic toad with paintbrush and paint. The shirts were captioned, ‘One More for the Toad,” wrote the BDH.
Andrew LeSueur ’88, a freshman at Brown during 1985, told the BDH that he would like to “protest against the constant abuse Brown’s all-male fraternities attract,” and that Spring Weekend was hardly “a time for drinking and womanizing.” He said, “I certainly don’t look forward to being at a university where all people do is protest the limited negative aspects, instead of taking bride in the positive attributes.”
The Kappa Sigma chapter was established in February 1898 as part of the Beta Alpha fraternity. The chapter first lived in the Narragansett Hotel and later moved into 127 Angell Street and Hope College.
In 1927, it acquired a house at 49 Angell Street, which was eventually demolished and used for dorms for the Rhode Island School of Design. The Kappa Sigma chapter later left the Beta Alpha fraternity and, in 1968, adopted the name “Toad Hall.”
The November 1985 edition of the Brown Alumni Monthly magazine reported on a rumor that had been circulating. Allegedly, “a fresh coat of paint on the toad [statue] signified that a woman had lost her virginity to a Kappa Sigma brother.” The toad statue was a symbol of the Kappa Sigma fraternity chapter and was placed on the lawn outside the chapter’s residence.
In May 1985, about 250 women and 15 men assembled near Pembroke Hall and marched to Wriston Quad, protesting sexual harassment and violence on the Brown campus. The demonstration was organized in response to the perceived lenient enforcement of university harassment laws and how the fraternity system perpetuated sexism, racism, homophobia, and rape.
Over the following hours, 120 women stepped forward and spoke about their experiences with rape and harassment on campus. Some of the protesters’ demands were that Brown offer free self-defense courses, ban certain fraternities from campus, remove derogatory symbols promoted by fraternities, have fraternities sponsor self-education forums on feminist, gay, and Third World issues, and diversify the University Council of Student Life.
A female student disagreed with the protesters’ demands, saying that “when individuals commit acts of sexual assault, they should be punished…not entire organizations.” Jennifer Ogden ‘87, who painted the toad magenta in 1984, told the BDH that “you just have to have a sense of humor about it.”
The BDH published a photo of a protester holding a sign that said: “toads belong in water…not on Wriston.” The BDH also reported that the rally was “not an anti-fraternity speakout per se, and that the women were not asking for the abolishment of fraternities,” though many protesters “did direct their comments toward the male inhabitants of Wriston.”
Toad Hall fraternity members denied the rumor that they added a new coat of paint to the toad statue when a fraternity brother took a woman’s virginity, but protesters insisted that allowing the toad statue to remain on Brown’s campus “perpetuated the rumor.” Mike Persky, a member of Kappa Sigma told the BDH that “the women’s demand to remove the toad [was] ‘absurd.’”
The toad was later removed from the lawn. Dean Eric Widmer, Brown’s Dean of Student Life from 1979 to 1988, “praise[d] Kappa Sigma fraternity for voluntarily removing from its lawn a toad statue that had become a point of contention.”
Dean Widmer also told the Brown Alumni Monthly magazine that “whether the toad actually was meant to symbolize that [a woman had lost her virginity to a Kappa Sigma brother] became irrelevant. By removing it, Kappa Sigma eliminated a troublesome symbol of male chauvinism that made all Brown’s all-male fraternities vulnerable to criticism.”
One of the protester’s final remarks was said almost directly to fraternity members who “were in earshot,” according to the BDH. “We don’t want to be raped, we don’t want to be assaulted, we don’t want to be objectified, we don’t want to be whistled at, we don’t want to be harassed,” she said. “Don’t you get it?”
As the rally reached its end, the toad “wore a newly painted red smile and a sign saying: ‘leave me alone.’”
After the rally, fraternities “either responded crudely or not at all,” according to an article titled “Down with the Toad” by the Brown University Library. Many fraternity members expressed outrage at the protesters’ demands.
According to the BDH, Kappa Sigma brother Peter Didlicky ‘87 said that “sexism is a part of life.” Erik Dichter ‘87, another fraternity brother, also told the BDH that fraternity members thought the protesters were “making mountains out of molehills.”
Two fraternities were immediately ousted from Wriston Quad “after several staged confrontational acts,” and Phi Delt lost its charter after “numerous disciplinary infractions, including vandalism.”
Almost 40 years later, in April 2021, ESV sent an “Open Letter to the Brown Community Regarding the Brown Administration’s Historic Present Complicity in Campus Sexual Violence.” The letter argued that Brown has a history of treating campus sexual violence with neglect and apathy.
The letter stated that the American Association of Universities had found that 24.5% of female, 8.0% of male, and 32.9% of TGQN (transgender, genderqueer, nonconforming) undergraduate students at Brown “experienced sexual victimization by physical force or incapacitation during their time at Brown.” ESV says that these statistics suggest that “hundreds, if not more than one thousand students are likely being sexually assaulted at Brown each year.”
Brown’s Title IX and Gender Equity office issues an annual report for each academic year. From July 2019 to June 2020, 109 incidents were reported to the Title IX and Gender Equity Office.
Twenty-three of these cases were categorized as sexual assault (including “non-consensual touching, non-consensual penetration, and sexual assault undefined by the reporting party”), and three of these cases were considered sexual exploitation and sexual coercion. This disparity between the Title IX report’s numbers and the AAU’s 2019 numbers suggests that many victims chose not to report sexual assault to Brown’s Title IX office.
ESV stated on Instagram in April 2021, that “Brown University is doing the bare minimum to combat the public health and safety crisis of sexual violence on campus.”
Early that same month, ESV members invited the Brown community to five days of protest, a Saturday to a Wednesday.
On one day, protesters covered the campus with 2,000 posters. On another, they conducted an email campaign against the Brown administration. On the final afternoon, protesters gathered on the Quiet Green and rallied.
On the day after the campus had been plastered with posters, ESV posted on Instagram a series of photos that showed the same posters scratched and torn in the Main Green area. “[This post is] for those who believe that rape culture doesn’t exist at this ‘progressive,’ ‘inclusive,’ ‘safe’ university,” ESV wrote in the post.
Two days after finding their posters torn, ESV posted to Instagram an image of Diman House’s—toad hall’s—entrance, the residence of Brown’s Delta Phi fraternity. The posters were ripped from Diman House’s doors. Someone had used the tape from the posters to cover the first two letters of “Diman.”
The fraternity’s entrance now reads “man House.”
ESV issued a statement on Instagram shortly after the instance. The coalition asked for the “discontinuation of Brown’s chapter of the Delta Phi fraternity” on the grounds it has created an “actively unsafe environment.”
ESV received student testimonies, which were posted via screenshot but remained anonymous and thus hid the users’ names. The testimonies claimed that Delta Phi members had run around Diman House’s halls during ESV’s protest week, “yelling and mocking an effort known only for its mission of ending sexual violence at Brown.” One testimony alleged that Delta Phi members “chanted slurs.”
ESV called the alleged tantrums “embarrassing and infantile” and added that they will not stop fighting to “end the rape culture.” ESV said that it would not stop Delta Phi from perpetuating this culture because of their “fit.”
Four months after ESV’s protest week, a federal class action lawsuit against Brown University was filed, claiming that the school not only failed to protect its students from sexual harassment and abuse but also “actively prevented the reporting of such harm.”
Every University student from 2018 to the date the class action was filed who identified as a female was included in the lawsuit, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island. A news release estimated that there are 4,000 students in the class. The plaintiffs are Brown students or recent graduates: Chloe Burns ’19, Taja Hirata-Epstein ’20, Katiana Soenen ’24, and Carter Woodruff ’22.
In response to this lawsuit, ESV wrote on Instagram that “while ESV is not involved in the lawsuit,” they support the survivors who filed. For ESV, the lawsuit was “a huge step in demonstrating that we will not tolerate the administration’s harmful actions.”
ESV also added that their “email campaign and protests were never directly addressed by higher-ups in the Brown administration; instead, President Christina Paxson performatively references ESV@Brown’s efforts in a public announcement and in her ’21 Commencement Speech.”
Seven months after the protest week, ESV addressed Brown fraternities in an open letter titled “Dear fraternities @ Brown.” Since the protest, the coalition reported receiving “multiple accounts of abuse, harassment, assault, drugging, and other oppressive, violent behaviors” within Brown’s fraternities.
In the letter, ESV addressed Brown’s alleged lack of action to change its “cultures, policies, procedures, norms, and makeups in response to” ESV’s efforts and its protest week. The coalition declared being “tired of begging [Brown] to change” and reported hearing that Brown’s administration is aware “of abuse taking place within the fraternities and withholding this information from the public and from Brown.”
ESV later posted its “Frat Action Plan” on Instagram. The plan was a comprehensive guide that fraternities can implement to help fight sexual violence. Some of the plan’s features include education of current and new frat members, accountability structures, identifiable sober hosts, and accessible internal emergency phone numbers. “It’s the job of each fraternity to come up with the nuances of this guide and expand far beyond the provided guidance,” wrote ESV in the post.
Brown students and alums commented on the post, showing their support. One alumnus said they felt a sense of déjà-vu to the “speak-outs and protests in the Wriston Quad” of 1985. “Disappointed, sad, and angry that not enough has changed and to see that frat bros won’t embrace the opportunity to do and be better,” they said.
Viola’s audio and video connect, and she appears on my screen with a pensive expression, her eyes fixed on something in her room or deep in thought.
“How did you decide to file a formal complaint to the Title IX office,” I ask. She takes a deep breath and speaks, her voice soft but firm.
“I told my friend that something bad had happened to me and that I wanted to go to Title IX about it,” Viola says. Viola says she was sexually assaulted on the Brown campus in February 2022.
Viola (who asked to use a pseudonym) turned to Brown’s Title IX office. A friend advised her not to. “Don’t. I’ve heard bad things about it,” Viola remembers the friend said. Hoping to disprove this view, Viola embarked on a Title IX grievance procedure in April 2022.
She says that the experience significantly exacerbated her mental health and emotional well-being. “It’s not the most trauma-informed process. In fact, the process is re-traumatizing,” she says.
The Title IX grievance procedure involves several stages, including filing a formal complaint, meeting with investigators, and presenting evidence. The investigators interview the victim, the accused, and the witnesses and gather relevant evidence. In 2020, the Trump administration issued new Title IX guidelines that enable the opposing party’s legal counsel to cross-examine a victim. However, victims can refuse participation in this process.
In some cases, hearings are held at the end of the Title IX grievance procedure to determine whether the accused person violated university policy. During the hearing, both the victim and the accused can present evidence and witnesses. The hearing panel makes a decision based on the evidence presented.
Viola lets out a big exhale when I ask about her hearing. “The burden for putting together the material for this hearing was all on me,” she says. Viola chose not to seek legal counsel through her family, and all of Brown’s Title IX pro bono lawyers were preoccupied with other cases at the time.
Viola had to face, alone, not only her assaulter but also his two lawyers. “They say that Title IX is not a court, but how is it a fair fight when it’s between two lawyers and a sophomore in college,” she says. To offset the lack of legal support, Viola sought advisors from Brown’s Title IX office for guidance in how to negotiate through the maze of the grievance procedure.
The office had no advisors whose training was current with the new Title IX government regulations of 2020, she says. “I went through the entire process alone,” Viola says. “I found it very hard to find someone to talk to in an advisor capacity.”
Viola’s frustration began from the moment she first looked up Brown’s Title IX website, which she remembers as not being thorough enough. “The [Title IX] website tells you that there’s a hearing at the end of the process, but there were so many questions I had as I did not have a lawyer by my side to guide me through the process,” she says. Viola believes that “making the [Title IX] website more detailed can go a long way” toward education and empowering victims.
Some survivors find the process so daunting and emotionally exhaustive that they opt not to pursue the Title IX redress. Hannah is a sexual assault survivor who decided not to go through with the procedure. “If my story helps at least one person, that’s all that matters,” she says.
Hannah (who also asked to use a pseudonym) says she was sexually assaulted on the Brown campus in the summer of 2020. A month after the incident, Hannah decided to reach out to Brown’s Title IX office. Within a week of reporting the incident, Hanna was connected to “an advocate,” a person who was “not presented to me as a therapist but was older and was definitely not a student,” she says. “Although I was quickly linked with them, they weren’t really helpful,” Hannah says. “They discouraged me from reporting the incident.”
Other Brown students speak of Title IX discouraging them from going through with the Title IX grievance procedure. A third student who says they were sexually assaulted on the Brown campus remembers a Title IX staff member saying, “it’s going to be more of an emotional strain to file the report than to endure the sadness [about being assaulted] you feel right now.”
On top of being dissatisfied with Title IX’s counseling services, Hannah says, she encountered her offender daily for two years, as he and Hannah often enrolled in the same courses. During her junior year, when Brown was holding remote learning during the pandemic, Hannah and the offender were in two lecture-based Zoom classes.
When Brown resumed in-person classes during her senior year, they again had two lecture-based classes together. Lecture-based classes at Brown typically accommodate more than 100 students, which could have helped Hannah sit away from her offender. But due to issues with her eyesight, Hannah sat in the first row for both classes. So did her offender.
“Having him a couple of chairs away from me was incredibly distracting,” she says. “I found it really hard to retain information.” Hannah considered taking a leave of absence during her senior year. Her constant proximity to her offender left her feeling “depressed and suicidal.” But a leave of absence would have conflicted with Hannah’s commitments to her external scholarship. “I was scared [the scholarship] would be taken away from me,” she says.
Unable to focus on her schoolwork, Hannah says she re-contacted Title IX to explore potential accommodations that would make her feel safe inside her classroom. “Unfortunately, nobody offered me any solution or alternative,” she says. Hannah also debated reaching out to her professor but felt “afraid to go to office hours.”
Hannah turned to another option, hoping it would help alleviate some of her distress: CAPS. Brown’s Counseling and Psychological Services offers mental health treatment and prevention services for Brown students, including individual counseling, group counseling, and psychiatry.
After meeting with a CAPS-provided therapist three times during her senior year, Hannah finally felt a sense of some support. “I felt like I really connected with the [CAPS therapist] and she really validated my feelings,” she says. “Our three sessions helped tremendously.”
Neutrality is often seen as a solution to avoid harming those falsely accused. But BWell, one of Brown’s Health & Wellness resources, reports that “false reports of sexual assault are dramatically overestimated.”
According to BWell, the overestimation of false reports can be attributed to poorly constructed studies and a lack of understanding of the dynamics of sexual assault.
Having conducted rigorous research, BWell concluded that “rates of false reports are consistently very low, ranging from 2% to 10%. This is similar to rates of false reports for other crimes,” said BWell.
Title IX’s impartiality does its best to protect those 2% to 10% of cases, but in doing so can harm the 90%-98% of survivors.
Since the 1985 protest, a moment in Brown’s history, students and survivors have been demanding accountability from the administration and justice for their experiences.
This demand has been amplified through platforms such as ESV, a coalition that believes in and advocates for survivors. A coalition that is not afraid of making efforts to hold offenders and the Brown administration accountable for their alleged actions and inactions.
To the question “what is Brown waiting for to wholeheartedly prioritize addressing sexual violence at Brown,” survivors have received the same answer since 1985, and “it’s never been enough.”
Cecilia Sarantopoulos is a senior from Greece studying Comparative Literature and Theatre Arts.
Commentary
It was eye-opening to delve into the 1985 protest against sexual harassment and violence, as it revealed the long-standing nature of these issues and the ongoing fight for justice. Throughout my exploration, I read testimonies, reports, and statements from various sources, which allowed me to understand the current state of sexual violence prevention and response at Brown. One of the most significant challenges I encountered while writing was navigating the topic's sensitivity and ensuring a balanced perspective. I needed to address the experiences of survivors, their dissatisfaction with the Title IX office, and End Sexual Violence at Brown (ESV). I had to approach these multiple viewpoints carefully to ensure all voices were represented. Learning about the protest week organized by ESV and subsequent events, such as the federal class action lawsuit, added another layer of complexity to the narrative, revealing the intricate interplay between student activism, administrative response, and the pursuit of systemic change. Overall, the process of writing this article was both challenging and fulfilling. Being able to amplify these important stories was incredibly satisfying, as I recognized the power of sharing and advocating for change.
Sources
"Brown alumni monthly Vol. 86, no. 3 " (1985). Brown Alumni Magazine (BAM). Brown Digital Repository. Brown University Library.
https://www.brown.edu/initiatives/pembroke-oral-histories/interviews/decades/1980s?page=1
https://library.brown.edu/create/protest6090/down-with-the-toad/
https://www.brown.edu/campus-life/health/services/promotion/sexual-assault-dating-violence/myths-about-sexual-assault-reports
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ekg1DHj6d05zdsb7bz4yoryvFzAkhivG/view
https://www.browndailyherald.com/article/2021/08/students-alums-file-federal-class-action-lawsuit-against-brown-claiming-u-fails-to-protect-students-from-sexual-violence
https://www.brown.edu/campus-life/health/services/promotion/sexual-assault-dating-violence/myths-about-sexual-assault-reports
https://www.brown.edu/Administration/News_Bureau/Databases/Encyclopedia/search.php?serial=F0270
https://repository.library.brown.edu/storage/bdr:980743/PDF/
Zoom call with Viola 4/11
Interview with Hannah 4/22
Photo by Brown University Library
Photo by Instagram (@endsexualviolence.brown)
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