Our rock is the truth

October 24, 2018October 24, 2018

by Stephanie Krehbiel, Executive Director

It began with an email that several faculty members from a small liberal arts college shared with me. It was from their school’s Title IX Coordinator, shared with all faculty and staff of their school, informing them about the school’s mandatory reporting policy* for sexual violence. The pitch of the letter was pretty simple: “If you see something, YOU MUST REPORT. If you hear something, YOU MUST REPORT. If a student tells you something, YOU MUST REPORT.” That was the message to faculty and staff.

“Does this seem right to you?” they asked me.

***

One challenge with working in sexual violence advocacy in 2018 is that no matter what specific thing I’m trying to get done, 2018 just keeps happening. 2018 is the gift that won’t stop giving. As I processed my thoughts about that email and its injunctions, the backdrop was the brutal spectacle of Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination and the public treatment of the women who came forward with stories about their experiences with Kavanaugh’s sexual violence.

On the subject of reporting sexual violence, let me speak briefly about what has been done to Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, who truly had no good options. Her anonymous report to her congresswoman was leaked and ultimately reported by The Intercept; she came forward with her name only when it became clear to her that nothing meaningful would happen if she didn’t. She also came forward because she felt a responsibility to do so. She wanted to prevent further harm being done. In that latter quality, she reminds me of just about every survivor who has ever come to Into Account for help.

I saw that he had this job with kids and I knew he was going to hurt them.

I knew if I didn’t say something and he raped again, it would be on me.

I just don’t want this to happen to anyone else.

Ultimately, Ford testified in front of the Senate—and the American public—with far fewer legal and personal protections in place than would be tolerable in a courtroom, despite the attempts of her lawyers to secure them for her. And at the end of that, the Senate demonstrated how little they cared by burning through every chance for investigation and due process and confirming Kavanaugh anyway. The outcome she risked her life to prevent came to pass, and her life is still at risk.

Americans have endlessly debated her credibility. Her personal life has been made public. She receives hate mail and death threats, and at such a volume that she and her family have essentially been forced into hiding. Her story and her personhood have been cruelly mocked from pulpits, in news rooms, and most shamefully, by the sexual predator who currently occupies the Oval Office.

The collective laughter of vicious boys and men, the thing that Ford has testified most powerfully marked her trauma, is haunting all of us right now. My own survivor trauma involves such laughter. I was a child, and the boys who assaulted me were my age, not more than seven or eight. My memory is patchy and I have no clean narrative of these incidents. But I have clear memories of the laughter, of how amused they were by my anger and my efforts to fight them off. Indelible in the hippocampus.

***

Reporting doesn’t put a stop to the laughter. Ask Christine Blasey Ford. Ask some of our clients. Ask any woman who has gone public and then endured the taunting of men who debate the veracity of her story by assessing her perceived physical attractiveness.

There’s the laughter, and then there’s the outrage, the how dare she. Ford has been accused of ruining Kavanaugh’s life, of inventing her story to serve a nefarious political agenda. She’s been called a liar, but by the insidious abuser logic that grips so much of our public discourse, she’s also been accused of making too much out of a thing that may well have happened but that she should have gotten over. It didn’t happen, but if it did happen, it wasn’t a big deal. She’s a liar, but if she’s not a liar, she’s being oversensitive. Legions of conservative white women on social media endeavored to be offended by her on behalf of their boys and men, whose lives, they speculated, could be so easily ruined by conniving women like Dr. Ford. At the reeking floor of this cultural cesspit is the assertion that all boys do this, all men do this, and it’s the job of the rest of us to put up with it. If we can’t, there’s something wrong with us.

The day of Ford’s testimony, one of our former clients posted her story on social media, about her sexually abusive ex-boyfriend, whom she reported through a university Title IX process:

People I had always liked and admired, people I thought were decent and level headed, sided with my ex. I was “crazy”, “wanted to ruin his life”, and “why hadn’t I said anything earlier”?

It was devastating. I had been taken to the court of public opinion, then executed in the town square. Of course, some people did ask for my side of the story, and it was exhausting to have to retell and relive my personal hell over and over again. But I did it, I felt like I needed to.

So often, when we report, when we come forward, this is how it goes. Yet we’re told that we must report. The responsible thing to do is report. If we report, people can do something about it, and if we don’t report, we can’t blame people for doing nothing.

We’re told that it’s our responsibility to make people do something other than nothing. For that, we should be willing to risk being blamed for everything.

***

Which brings me back to that Title IX email. Which I hated.

It’s not that the policy itself was a surprise to me. I’m used to dealing with reporting policies like this, and they’re not the fault of the relatively inexperienced Title IX coordinator who wrote this email. She may well have had the fear of God put into her about the school’s vulnerability to lawsuits, should they not be able to prove that they are receptive to reports of campus sexual assault. At colleges and universities across the U.S., policies that require all personnel to report any suspected sexual violence to the school’s Title IX Coordinator have become standard. In defiance of the accumulated wisdom of professional victim advocacy in the fields of sexual, intimate partner, and domestic violence prevention, these policies require such reporting regardless of the actual wishes of victims.

I’ll put this in the starkest terms I can think of. Imagine you are a trusted faculty or staff member for a student who confides in you that her boyfriend is hitting her and raping her. She wants to leave him, but he’s threatened to kill her if she does. Like many abusers, he has isolated her from her friends and family, and she doesn’t know who she can trust. She’s terrified, and she needs to talk through her options with someone who can help her find resources without triggering an administrative process that she could lose control of.

This is a student whose life is in danger. This is a student who desperately needs help that doesn’t strip away her own agency or decision-making power. She likely knows better than anybody else what actions–her own or the school’s–might set off a fatal response from her abuser. This is a student that a lot of empathic women faculty have had in their offices. This is not an occasion for YOU MUST REPORT. It is unconscionable to ask a faculty or staff person sitting in front of such a student to make a choice between risking that student’s life and risking their own job.

Contrary to popular belief, federal law doesn’t technically require these blanket reporting policies. Reporting campus sexual violence involves two broad areas of relevant law: one is civil rights law (Title IX) and one is campus safety law (Clery Act). Title IX regulations require mandatory reporting from “responsible employees,” a category whose federal definition is so ambiguous as to almost be circular. The Clery Act requires it from “campus security authorities.” For a variety of reasons–the ambiguity in these categories, for instance, and the newly vast for-profit industry of products aimed at helping campuses achieve compliance with these federal laws–blanket mandatory reporting policies have become the default setting in higher education, even though they are not legally required.

I’ve read and heard many perspectives on these policies from people in academia. They aren’t popular policies with faculty, for instance. I have faculty friends who routinely receive reports of sexual or domestic violence and flat-out refuse to comply with the mandate to forward these reports to their Title IX office, because these faculty friends cannot in good conscience take away a victim’s agency and would rather risk their jobs. I’ve also heard multiple people–people who are probably less likely to receive reports of sexual violence–refer to these policies as a “sex panic.”

But this isn’t a sex panic. It’s a liability panic. From a legal perspective, blanket mandatory reporting policies at higher ed institutions make perfect sense. The most cynical interpretation, which I believe is operative on some level in pretty much every institution that has these policies, is that the policies help to legally absolve schools of responsibility for any sexual violence that isn’t officially reported, while at the same time making it less likely that survivors will talk about sexual violence at all.

YOU MUST REPORT. If you don’t, that says, you’re not our problem.

***

In the weeks after the client I quoted above went forward with her report of her abuser, the blowback against her was gut-wrenchingly awful. This is when my fortitude as an advocate is always tested: I see the suffering of our clients at the outcome of an action they’ve taken, and I fight off the temptation to fantasize about omnipotence. If I indulge that fantasy, then I can believe that there might have been an alternative I could have encouraged that would lead to justice without all the trauma. I wish I could learn how to be a better advocate from that fantasy, but I know I can’t.

I remember one particular phone conversation with this client and Into Account co-founder Jay Yoder. Jay recounted to her the mantra that carried Jay through a similarly grueling period of communal attacks. It went like this: What happened is real. What happened is true. I am standing on a rock, and that rock is the truth.

It’s this mantra I come back to when I sit in the pain of all my collected experiences and observations about what happens after survivors come forward, whether through formal processes or informal disclosure. There is all that pain, and then there is the reality that I still want survivors to speak, when they can. I still want survivors to come forward and say what has happened to them.

Because truth is a rock. That’s why. Not because I believe that individual survivors bear the responsibility to protect their communities from their perpetrators, or because I believe that the legal and bureaucratic processes available to survivors are truly designed to produce justice. It’s not because I believe I can save anyone from the re-traumatization that these processes so frequently deliver.

It’s because I’ve seen the power of the truth to heal. Lies may spread like wildfire, but truth is like a geological miracle. When survivors tell the truth about what happened to them, even as the flames burn around them, they’re standing on rocks that are expanding, searching, merging. Our rocks become a mountain range. We become summits, together.

I categorically refuse to concede the power inherent in the truth. I can’t control any community’s collective denial about its own sickness. But I can stand with you on your rock. I can bring you water. If you’re too tired to stand, or don’t have standing legs, we’ll sit. If you need to lie on the ground, we’ll lie on the ground. We’ll feel the solidity beneath us. We won’t know what comes next, but that’s okay. That’s the way of things.

What we will know, what I will remind you of when you need to hear it, is that all of our truths together have more power than we can fathom.

*What we call “mandatory reporting” at a college or university is materially different from mandatory reporting laws for child abuse. When you are a mandatory reporter as a result of a job that puts you in regular contact with children, you’re legally obligated to report any suspected child abuse to law enforcement, and failure to do so puts you at risk of arrest. When you’re a mandatory reporter at a college or university, you’re required to report any suspected sexual violence against a student to your school’s Title IX Coordinator, and failure to do so puts you at risk of losing your job.

You are where you need to be

October 15, 2018October 15, 2018

By Katherine B. Wiens M.Ed, LP, Chair of Into Account Board of Directors

Wherever you are on the journey is exactly where you need to be.

This is my new mantra about sexual violence and survivors.

I believe this statement honors each survivor and where they are on their journey. If we truly wish to help someone who has experienced sexual violence, then we need to come into their circle, not expect them to come into ours. Listening, believing, caring, and honoring is a big part of coming into that circle. It is important to resist our own human nature in wanting to fix things for another person. Our own ego wants to have all the answers to help people. But to enter into a survivor’s space is to sit with them where they are and to listen to their experiences. Telling them what we think they need or where we believe they need to be on the journey is asking the survivor to come into our space. This is not helpful.

When a safe space is created for survivors, then perhaps they can open up and let you in. This is a risk for them and too often those they thought were trustworthy have betrayed them. So, answers are not yours to give. Your listening, caring, honoring and valuing presence is what is needed.

If a survivor is ready and able to let go of the pain, trauma and betrayal they have experienced, then honor that decision. If they are angry as hell about what happened to them, then listen, care and honor that space. If they are overwhelmed and numb and cannot talk about sexual violence, honor that decision. This is what it means to be in their space. To honor that space as holy ground and sit with them just as God sits with them.

Each survivor’s journey is different, but many of the losses are similar. The loss of trust, loss of confidence in who they are, loss of feeling safe anywhere, and many other losses. When a person experiences sexual violence, they may also feel guilt and shame. These are two small words, but they have a massive impact on the life of a survivor. When we try to push the survivor to be okay, because we are uncomfortable with their anger and pain, we pile on more guilt and shame. Telling survivors to let go, forgive, forget, and move on is saying to them where they are at is not okay. That often gets interpreted as they are not okay. And rather than helping we may be increasing the massive impact of the guilt and shame they are already experiencing. This is definitely not what God is calling us to do for those who have experienced sexual violence.

So, honor the space on the survivor’s journey as exactly where they need to be. Listen with care and compassion. Let them know you believe them. If you are honored enough to be let into a survivor’s life and trusted enough for them to open up to you, the best thing to do is listen and to say, not only with your words, but also with your actions, “I see you, I believe you, I care about and you are important to me.”

I write this as a survivor of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) and as a victim of betrayal trauma in a Mennonite church. I use survivor of CSA because I have had many years of therapy, trusting relationships and education to work through that part of my life. I say victim of betrayal trauma because that wound is very fresh and I’m in the grief process where I’m experiencing anger, sadness, depression and the tremendous loss of my faith community. I know in time this grief process will pass, but for now this is where I’m at, and it is exactly where I need to be.

#BelieveSurvivors means what, again?

October 11, 2018October 10, 2018

by Hilary Jerome Scarsella, Director of Theological Integrity

A lot of this angst in the news these days around believing women could be sorted, I think, with some focused attention on what belief actually is in day-to-day human experience. In current popular resistance to the idea of believing women and survivors of sexual assault, folks are treating belief as if it is a magical state entirely unwarranted by reason, like a child’s belief in Santa Clause or the Easter Bunny. But even these examples suggest that belief is more than that. Children who believe that these holiday characters are real actually do have good reason: the adults who they trust to help them learn about the world have, in most cases, told them so.

Belief, as in a child’s reasonable belief in Santa Claus, can be inaccurate. But let’s remind ourselves that thoughts and judicial rulings and data sets and scientific studies can be inaccurate too. The goal cannot be to reach a kind of certainty that is absolutely impervious to error, because that kind of certainty does not exist anywhere, with regard to any subject. Imposing it as the bar survivors have to meet in order to win your support is really just a disguised strategy for avoiding the reality of sexual violence. The goal, rather, is to have ***good reason*** to say we know or think or believe one thing as opposed to another. Belief is always accompanied by reason, and it is always accompanied by a way of being in the world that is shaped by that reason. You cannot get to belief separate from knowledge and action.

So when folks say “believe women” or “believe survivors,” it’s flat out wrong to interpret this statement as a prompt to give your cognitive assent to a position that is not warranted. It is, to the contrary, shorthand for making the argument that there ARE justified warrants for, in general, 1) considering testimonies of sexual assault truthful instead of untruthful, and 2) organizing relationships and politics and law accordingly.

It’s also a plea for folks to live out this belief day-to-day. Here is an incomplete list of what it means #BelieveWomen and #BelieveSurvivors in action:

Know what sexual violence is and how it works on systemic and interpersonal levels.
Know enough that you have the ability, in general, to recognize authentic survivor testimony when you hear it.
Speak & act up on behalf of survivors and others vulnerable to sexual violence.
Support survivors interpersonally, socially, and politically.
Respond to disclosures of sexual violence in ways that empower the survivor and hold those responsible accountable.

These are verbs, friends: know, recognize, speak, act, support, empower, respond. This is what it means to believe survivors.

And here’s a final tidbit to consider:

‘Belief’ is one of the most rich and complex actions (yes, actions) that human bodies and minds can take. Centuries of religious and political history insist on this. Belief or refusal of belief in God or capitalism, for example, is informed by the convergence of countless kinds of knowledge (experiential, economic, social, historical, spiritual) and can influence everything from decisions individuals make about how to raise their kids to global levels of poverty and prosperity in a given era. Belief is powerful. It is an action that structures the world.

Christian folks, particularly those of conservative and evangelical persuasions, tend to hold religious belief in high regard. I’m not here to take issue with that, but I do want to suggest that we take a moment to observe that these same folks who hold religious belief supreme (and, here, I mean specifically those national political figures who cast themselves as conservative or evangelical Christians) are now, in the face of Kavanaugh’s confirmation, simultaneously flattening the concept of belief on the political stage in order to discredit it as an appropriate response to testimonies of sexual violence. Belief in Christian testimony to Jesus as Lord and Savior is defended as admirable sans objective evidence, while believing survivors’ testimonies to their own bodily experiences is cast as unreasonable in the absence of forensic corroboration. No doubt, the issue is more complicated than this single paragraph can address, but the double standard is clear. Either belief in the face of uncertainty has the potential to be rich and textured and warranted, or it must, as a rule, be naive. Folks can’t have it both ways.

I am in favor of preserving the notion of belief as having the capacity to be powerfully nuanced and transformative. Belief is not the same as certainty. But it is always accompanied by reason and it is always lived in action. To believe survivors is to accept the well-reasoned, thoroughly researched, evidence-based argument that survivor testimonies tend to be truthful. (Not familiar with the research? Time for you to whip out Google.) It means understanding sexual violence well enough to judge the evidence and recognize authentic survivor testimony when you encounter it. It means understanding the systemic dynamics that exacerbate sexual violence and tempt folks to distrust survivors. It means interrupting those dynamics and acting in solidarity and care with survivors and those vulnerable to sexual violence in the future. It means organizing family and society and the workplace and Congress and the Supreme Court in ways that structurally resist sexual violence and heed the truthfulness of survivors’ testimonies.

Action Alert: Tell Goshen to Listen to Survivors

July 11, 2018July 11, 2018

Consecutive Abusive Soccer Coaches Demonstrate Goshen Must Invite Survivors to Share Experiences

Take Action!

Current and past members of the Goshen Women’s Soccer Team have shared their experiences of abuse headed up by two separate coaching teams – reports include sexual abuse, food and housing deprivation, financial deception and manipulation, and racist and homophobic verbal abuse. The abuse was enabled by a negligent, dismissive, and sexist response on the part of Athletic Department personnel and Human Resources. Misconduct reporting procedures were violated or ignored.

Continue reading →

Why Abuse Survivors Still Think Twice Before Telling their Stories: Retaliation At Goshen College

by Stephanie Krehbiel and Hilary Scarsella

ACTION ALERT: We’re asking folks to send email of support for survivors to Goshen College’s president and board. It can take a little as 30 seconds to amplify survivors’ voices.

Documentation:
Introduction to May 5 event from Anneliese Baer
Victim Impact Statement from Anneliese Baer
Victim Impact Statement from Rachel Stoltzfus
Update Statement from Erin Bergen (July 2018)
Goshen Signed Resolution Agreement with U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights
Facebook Live Stream video of statements by Anneliese Baer and Rachel Stoltzfus, recorded at Goshen College, May 5, 2018

“There are many survivors who would like to be present today, but are restricted by time, financial burden, and the ever-present weight of Goshen College’s past inaction and silence surrounding our abuse. Let us not forget the voices that are not present today, and the implications of who has the most access to this space. As we take in these stories, remember that this meeting is not happening in a vacuum. It is happening after 6 years of constant silencing, and that affects how the information is presented today.”
–Anneliese Baer, May 5, 2018, Goshen College

On May 5, two courageous women who were abused in the Goshen College women’s soccer program, Rachel Stoltzfus and Anneliese Baer, spoke on the Goshen College campus about their experiences. Their stories included testimony about sexual harassment, racial misconduct, homophobia, stalking, financial manipulation, emotional abuse, housing and food deprivation, and life-threatening physical conditions. The stories began with the 2011-2012 school year, spanned the tenure of two different coaching teams, and implicated multiple current and former members of the Goshen administration and Athletic Department. Rachel and Anneliese spoke in front of Goshen President Rebecca Stoltzfus, a select group of students, the president’s cabinet, and other invited members of the larger Goshen community.

At the behest of other victims of abuse in the Goshen athletic department who could not be present or were legitimately fearful of retaliation if they showed up at the May 5 meeting, Anneliese and Rachel made their statements accessible to fellow victims and their supporters through a public Facebook Live video. In the time since that meeting, a number of Goshen leaders have tried to discredit the survivors who spoke, focusing on their decision to do so publicly. These survivors agreed to a physical meeting with a restricted guest list, but contrary to some of the recent assertions made by administrators and Goshen board members, there was never any agreement about containing these victim impact statements behind closed doors. Accusing these women of wrongdoing for publicly streaming their own words has operated as a convenient pressure valve for an administration that is clearly facing the heat from multiple directions.

We are sympathetic to the pressures administrators and board members face when confronted with the failure of their institution to adequately respond to abuse, but managing such pressures is well within the job description for administrators, and well within the expected commitments for board members. These women are not asking Goshen leaders to do anything but their jobs, and even that request, they make at great personal risk to themselves. It’s the responsibility of Goshen’s board and administrators to negotiate the difficult dynamics of their positions without passing the burden of that difficulty on to survivors calling the college to account for abuse they experienced at Goshen as students.

One of the most harmful things a college president can do, after revelations of systemic abuse in an athletic department, is to attack the integrity of survivor whistleblowers in front of all the students and personnel in that same department. When administrators and boards try to take pressure off of themselves by criticizing victims, the only people who really benefit, ultimately, are abusers.

And yes, that has already happened at Goshen, since May 5.

Survivors’ fears of retaliation have not been unfounded. As Into Account has continued to work with survivors at Goshen, they have brought us extensive documentation and evidence of recent retaliation. Due to confidentiality and our concerns about further retaliation, we are not sharing all the details we have at this point. However, it is our confident opinion that Goshen administration and Board of Directors share responsibility for responding to abuse revelations and May 5 victim impact statements with tactics that have fomented further abuse against current students.

On a related note, Goshen College is currently in a mandatory agreement with the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) in the U.S. Department of Education, due to multiple failures in Goshen’s Title IX protections against sexual harassment. Those failures were found by OCR investigators after our client, Erin Bergen, filed a federal complaint against Goshen for mishandling her own case of sexual assault.

Title IX forbids retaliation against students who report abuse. Title IX also demands that schools take preventive action to protect students from hostile environments. Since May 5, in our opinion, Goshen has already failed on both counts. Those failures have caused terrible harm in individual lives. Furthermore, these failures are undermining what we had dearly hoped was some concrete progress in Goshen’s approach to race and sex discrimination.

As victim advocates representing current and former students who have experienced both, we are in the difficult position of receiving multiple reassurances from Goshen officials that we feel unable to trust, due to duplicitous actions that have intimidated and retraumatized our clients.

Not only are administrative attacks on victims unethical, immoral, and frequently illegal, they are also ultimately self-defeating. The past fifteen years of revelations about sexual assault cover-ups and high-profile administrative resignations at colleges and universities across the country should have taught this to all of us by now. The repressive tactics that worked for previous generations of leaders in higher education do not work any more. Social media is a large part of the reason why.

As of today, that Facebook live video of victim impact statements delivered to Goshen on May 5 has received nearly 3500 views. For a school as small as Goshen, that is a lot of views. There will be more. And these will not be the last Goshen survivors to come forward on social media and say #metoo.

Goshen owes these women. We need to be clear about that: the debt is flowing in one direction. There are far more victims from these soccer teams than those who spoke on May 5, and Goshen can never begin to repay them what they are owed. We are not going to entertain talk of our clients owing yet more gratitude to Goshen leaders for their willingness to listen to stories of abuse that happened in the recent past at Goshen. These women have been more than courteous. They deserve far better than to be treated like naughty children by officials from a school that is still struggling to meet minimal compliance standards related to the kinds of abuse that they suffered.

Survivors use social media because social media is the best way to reach other survivors. With the international #metoo movement, this is more the case than ever before. Social media allows us to organize while at the same time protecting us–albeit imperfectly–from physical and psychological peril. It gives us tools to resist the divide-and-conquer tactics we encounter from institutions. Survivors’ power is amplified through the people that we reach with our stories.

And thus, when college officials decry survivors’ use of social media, it’s time to pay extra attention to the content of what has been posted. To that end, we’re sharing the Facebook live video here, as well as printed versions of Anneliese’s and Rachel’s comments from the video.

We’re going to keep sharing their words. Into Account makes no apology for our role in disseminating their stories. Goshen cannot afford to attack these women; the news they carry is too important. When student athletes make up half of the student body, and when the bulk of recruiting of students of color happens through the athletic department, nothing is more important than making sure that the leaders and coaches of that department are people whose first priority is the health and safety of students. Not administrators’ egos. Not institutional reputation. Not fundraising goals. Right now, holding the health and safety of students as the first priority means practicing nondefensive solidarity with those who are asking for accountability, apology, and change.

To quote the refrain of thousands of wise activists over many years of struggle: People are more important than institutions. We understand the loyalty that can lead people to want to believe the best of their alma maters, particularly when they had good experiences there themselves, or know people who work there and work hard. But a college that builds its economic survival on the backs of abused students is undeserving of such loyalty. If you want the colleges and universities that you love to survive in a way that is worthy of your support, hold them to these high standards. Anything less is a betrayal of your trust.

ACTION ALERT: We’re asking folks to send email of support for survivors to Goshen College’s president and board. It can take a little as 30 seconds to amplify survivors’ voices.

Who defines celibacy?: Why Mennonite Central Committee’s “Lifestyle” policy enables sexual harassment

by Stephanie Krehbiel, Executive Director
featuring letters by Wendi Moore-O’Neal, New Orleans, LA
and Addie Liechty, Oakland, CA

We’re featuring two letters on our blog today. Both are written to the leadership of Mennonite Central Committee (MCC), confronting them about the injustice of their “lifestyle” policy. That policy requires sexual celibacy for all MCC employees “outside of a heterosexual marriage relationship.”

We share these letters in light of MCC’s recent initiatives intended for sexualized violence prevention. As much as Into Account’s staff respects the work of some of the individuals at the center of these initiatives, we’re sounding an alarm on MCC and its attitudes towards sexual harassment and abuse. That “sexuality and celibacy” requirement is at the center of the problem, and it undermines the goals of those within the organization who are courageously standing up for an end to sexualized violence.

For those of our readers who grew up in historical peace church traditions, Mennonite Central Committee is likely familiar as a relief and development organization with a reputation for social justice roots. Whether that reputation is earned or not really depends on whom you ask. MCC has a wide reach; it has done wonderful things, and terrible things too.

Likewise, most of us who grew up in church cultures and institutions are familiar with “lifestyle” policies related to sex and sexuality. In addition to shaping the social world of an organization, these policies tend to operate as political signals to constituencies. A policy’s relative strictness tells potential donors whether or not the organization in question aligns with their values.

With that in mind, let’s look at the MCC policy in question:

MCC requires sexual celibacy for personnel outside of a heterosexual marriage relationship during their terms of service with MCC. Persons of homosexual orientation who meet MCC personnel criteria as noted above will be considered for MCC service if they are willing to abide by MCC’s requirement of celibacy for all outside of a heterosexual marriage and if they will not use MCC as a platform from which to advocate for same-sex sexual relationships.

This policy is unacceptable, and the overriding reason why is that it’s immoral and cruel. It is causing active harm.

I’ll start with the grossness of the last sentence. What on earth does “use MCC as a platform from which to advocate for same-sex relationships” even mean, within the context of enforcing a policy? This could be anything, depending on the whims and prejudices of the interpreter. If you participate in LGBTQ justice movements, are you “advocat[ing] for same-sex relationships?” Will MCC management feel empowered to assess and comment on your same-gender friendships? Can you be fired if someone decides that you’re acting too gay for their taste?

This is a situation in which we have to read the historical subtext, which is this: the homosexuals recruit. Watch out for them. Associating queer sexuality with sexual predation is an old, nasty trick, and a staple of homophobic discourse. This isn’t a policy; it’s a dog whistle.

Furthermore, the “sexuality and celibacy” requirements renders MCC’s own anti-harassment policy functionally ridiculous. Now let’s look at that policy:

MCC strives to provide a professional working environment, including management training, inter-cultural training for workers being sent on overseas assignments, and information to all staff that promotes equal employment opportunities and prohibits discriminatory practices, including sexual harassment and harassment based on race, color, gender, national origin, marital status, age, disability or other protected characteristic. MCC will not tolerate harassment on the basis of color, national or ethnic origin, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, age, marital or family statues [sic] or disability. MCC will screen candidates on occupational requirements (such as faith screens), as well as requiring life style [sic] expectations.

Here is something I wish all church organizations could really take in: If you forbid harassment of people from marginalized groups, but at the same time embrace policies and practices that perpetuate the injustices that marginalized those groups in the first place, then all you’re really doing is giving a big “just kidding” wink to people who harass and abuse. You’re letting them know–officially, no less–who is most vulnerable, most expendable, to your organization. You can’t forbid harassment on the basis of sexual orientation at the same time that you’re promoting a policy that renders LGBTQ people subordinate and vulnerable. It doesn’t just make you look like hypocrites. It makes you hypocrites. You know who will exploit that hypocrisy, to the detriment of those vulnerable employees as well as any other LGBTQ people who come into contact with MCC through its relief and development services? Perpetrators. Abusers. Bigots. Jerks. You are taking a population that is already at a higher risk for experiencing harassment and sexual violence, and saddling them with additional vulnerability within your organization.

Furthermore, policies like this are always fraught with ambiguity over what in fact constitutes sexual activity, and what in fact constitutes celibacy, and within that ambiguity is a rich field for victim-blaming. If sex is defined as heterosexual penetrative intercourse (and really, my sympathies to anyone who defines it that narrowly), then everything else is up for interpretation. Is consensual, non-penetrative making out worse if it’s between a man and man than if it’s between a man and woman who aren’t in a marriage relationship? Do they both “count”? Are they both punishable? Does it depend on who you are and how much perceived value you bring to the organization? Does it depend on how many other not-straight-white-male “things” you already are? If an encounter starts out as consensual and one party stops consenting, can the victim be punished within the organization for whatever came before they stopped consenting? Do the genders of the respective parties matter in that situation?

Do trans and non-binary people have a place here? Are they allowed to get married and have sex? Are they allowed to exist? How much gender non-conformity is too much?

The definition of sexual harassment, under U.S. federal civil rights guidelines, includes unwelcome questioning and rumor-spreading about a person’s sexual and social life. If you’re outed as queer without your consent–which is, in fact, a form of sexual harassment–can you then be interrogated and subsequently punished for your queerness? (If MCC’s history of involuntary outings is any indication, then yes, you can.)

These inconsistent, ambiguous, and coded rules are made to be broken. And so really, the question is, who gets away with breaking them, and who doesn’t?

Which brings me to our first letter. Its author, Wendi Moore-O’Neal, is a New Orleans native who came on board with MCC after Hurricane Katrina. Wendi was a social justice activist who was already well-respected within communities that were devastated by Katrina. When Wendi was fired for being, in her words, a “Black, butch, dyke,” she took her case to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Her recent letter to MCC, published below, details how that complaint went.

To whom it may concern,

I am writing to say that Policy #152 is not good policy for MCC as an employer subject to comply with the constitutional rights of its workers.

In October of 2014 I lost my livelihood when I was fired from MCC via email with these words:

“MCC has become aware of actions by you that violate MCC’s Sexuality and Celibacy Policy; specifically, co-habitation with your same-sex partner and subsequent marriage. MCC views these actions as being in direct violation of MCC’s requirement of sexual celibacy for personnel outside of heterosexual marriage.”

I was fired in spite of recognition of my good work as a Community Organizer with this Peace and justice organization for over 3 years. I was fired without a clearly articulated process, where I was faced with an accusation and not allowed to defend myself before l was terminated. I was fired based on assumptions that I was not celibate even though celibacy was never defined. I was fired after I stated that I am a Black, butch, dyke who was getting married. I was fired after I challenged the white male Executive Director of MCC US and the white Director of Programs on their internalized racial superiority and how it manifest in the organization. I was fired without consideration to the impact that would have on the people and work of MCC’s New Orleans Program.

I have always tried to work out conflicts in a transparent and amicable way that advances justice. Shortly after being fired, MCC left me little choice to address this injustice internally, so I filed an EEOC claim addressing the discrimination I experienced. MCC hired Fisher & Phillips law firm, a national pro-management law firm, with over 350 lawyers, to oppose working this out with the EEOC.

I recently received this in a Right to Sue Letter addressed to me:

The EEOC found reasonable cause to believe that violations of the statute(s) occurred with respect to some or all of the matters alleged in the charge but could not obtain a settlement with the Respondent that would provide relief for you. In addition, the EEOC has decided that it will not bring suit against the Respondent at this time based on this charge and will close its file in this case. This does not mean that the EEOC is certifying that the Respondent is in compliance with the law, or that the EEOC will not sue the Respondent later or intervene later in your lawsuit if you decide to sue on your own behalf.

I would prefer to resolve this outside of court, eliminating Policy #152 could help.

Sincerely,

Wendi Moore-O’Neal,
Fired MCC Community Organizer,
New Orleans Program, Central States

(The EEOC’s decision to close their case against MCC on Wendi’s behalf has to be understood in the context of the Trump Administration’s systemic attack on civil rights. We’ll have more on that to come.)

Our second letter comes from Addie Liechty, a therapist and singer-songwriter living in Oakland, California. Addie’s commitment to MCC’s relief efforts with Syrian and Iraqi refugees led them to collaborate with other musicians on a successful MCC fundraising project, The Midnight Hymn Sing, which brought thousands of dollars to MCC’s relief programs. They write:

To whom it may concern,

I am writing to express my discontent with Policy #152 that requires sexual celibacy for MCC personnel outside of heterosexual marriage. On March 16-17th, your organization affirmed this statute for all those in leadership positions, workers with significant interactions with MCC’s constituency and service workers on international assignments. You went on to state that some exceptions will be made, though it is incredibly vague around what and who those exceptions will be.

I have been following this story, but felt somewhat disconnected to any feelings around it. So much so that my partner commented to me, “You don’t even seem upset about this. Your friends are more upset than you are.” I told her that at this point, I am just used to it. However, this morning I felt something again when I read the letter written to you by Wendi Moore-O’Neal. MCC fired O’Neal, by email, in 2014, after “becoming aware of actions that violate MCC’s requirement of sexual celibacy for personnel outside of heterosexual marriage.”

This caused me to feel something. O’Neal writes in her letter “I identify as a Black, butch, dyke.” These are desperately missing identities in all places of work, particularly Mennonite institutions. Because of this, we/you miss out on people who are able to see things that you/I do not see, from our/your positions of privilege and majority. When I think about how many people are placed on MCC assignments, who are from small, mostly white, North American towns, who have only attended Mennonite schools and are deemed ready after some orientations and an assured heterosexual identity, I have to laugh. Of course, many of these people have done good work and some of them are my friends, but making sexuality the determining factor for ability to serve is negligent for an organization doing cross-cultural work.

The negligence of polices like this one, rise to a deadly level when you consider the ongoing safety risks for LGBTQ people. We are still the most targeted group for hate crimes. Trans and gender non-conforming people have a 25 percent chance of facing violent assault. Furthermore, 80% of those victims are people of color. Currently, many LGBTQ people are fleeing terrible violence in other countries. Are these not people whom MCC should be serving? Might these people benefit from seeing someone like them, in an aid organization, such as MCC? My guess (and hope) is that nobody would contest that rhetoric and discriminatory policies contributed to the genocide of Jewish people, in Nazi Germany. So why do we pretend that church policies such as 152 do not have the same impact on the violence that so many LGBTQ people continue to face?

As I sit here feeling my anger on behalf of O’Neal, I also become aware of my own feelings. Indeed the numbness that I initially felt is an ongoing symptom of trauma. I recently said to my therapist, “Sometimes I feel like my symptoms fit those of a sexual abuse survivor.” To my surprise, she said, “Well, your church sexually abused you.” I do not wish to equate my experience with survivors who have been physically violated, but I immediately understood what my therapist meant.

The ongoing messages about the unholiness of my sexuality, from Church institutions took and continues to take a toll on my psyche. These tolls include shame, anxiety and bodily triggers to touch. As a child, I would perform mental rituals to quell the anxiety about my sexuality. In adulthood, this has erupted into full blown OCD during stressful times, requiring medication and therapy.

Despite this, many parts of me are thriving. I have talents for writing, music and spiritual/theological discourse that I love sharing. This summer, I decided to share one of these gifts with your institution, by creating (with many other talented musicians) “The Midnight Hymn Sing.” The proceeds went entirely to MCC aid for Syrian and Iraqi refugees. I believe this project raised thousands of dollars and I do not regret this one bit. The last thing I want to do is advocate for stopping donations to MCC. Placing my pain over the pain of those fleeing war is absurd, but MCC, you place me in such an odd position.

In an effort to build empathy consider this: What would it be like to sit down with all current employees, particularly those who are white, with those recognizable Mennonite names, and require that they disclose every sexual experience that they have ever had? Imagine for a moment the impact of a process such as this one…describing all sexual acts that ever occurred outside of heterosexual marriage while someone judges if those acts were holy or unholy; judges if something crossed a line and puts their employment and livelihood at risk. Aside from how awkward and traumatizing this sounds, you may find that more employees than you would like to know, are or have been out of compliance with your lifestyle guidelines.

Sincerely,

Addie Liechty (They/them)

Big thanks to Wendi and Addie, for letting us share these letters, and for your willingness to speak your truth to power in the face of the dehumanizing dismissals that you’ve both received.

This is not the end of this story. It’s time to put some more heat on MCC. Next week we will have more information on how to support Wendi, Addie, and the MCC employees who are currently organizing for a safer and more just workplace.

Let’s Have a Locker Room Talk

January 31, 2018February 1, 2018

by Stephanie Krehbiel, Executive Director

Exposing the Abusive Underbelly of College Athletic Departments

Last week, ESPN’s Outside the Lines did an investigative story on the culture of secrecy and self-protection around sexual abuse in the Michigan State University athletic department. While the story’s impetus was the heinous serial sexual abuse committed by physician Larry Nassar, much of it on the Michigan State campus, ESPN’s reporters found a widespread pattern of concealing sexual violence in the MSU athletic department. Among the many discoveries they made, one was the degree to which the athletic department contained and managed reports of sexual violence, without accountability from the rest of the university.

The insularity and secrecy that ESPN found at MSU is more common than we’d like to think. At Into Account, we work with athletes from departments at small, religious liberal arts schools who tell us versions of the same story: secrecy, insularity, and complaints of serious abuse being handled, or simply minimized and ignored, by unqualified athletic department personnel.

Public conversations about sexual assault and college athletics tend to focus on student athletes as perpetrators. What the Nassar trial has made apparent, however, is that abuse is systemic in athletic departments. When student athletes perpetrate abuse, it’s a symptom of a wider university and athletic culture. To address the problem in full, we also have to turn our attention to abuse as it is perpetrated and enabled by coaches, trainers, team doctors, and administrators.

Size Matters: But Not in the Way You Might Think

At large universities, athletics are big business, full of mass pageantry and ritualized playgrounds for the wealthy. (A fragile big business, though; most “Power Five” conference athletic departments are just breaking even, or operating at a loss.) At many small liberal arts colleges, however, athletic departments have a more direct relationship with the lifeblood of their colleges: they function as recruitment machines, and without them, some colleges wouldn’t have high enough enrollment numbers to stay open.

Continue reading →

Better Reporting for Bethel: Student Leaders Discuss Their Resolution to Promote Callisto

November 28, 2017November 28, 2017

For too many college victims, reporting an assault to campus authorities is a scary, obstacle-laden process. At small colleges, where it can seem like everyone knows everyone, reporting can be particularly fraught.

What if, for instance, your rapist is related to the Title IX Coordinator? (Yes, unfortunately, we’ve seen that.) What if someone on the investigative committee goes to your church? What if your abuser has threatened to retaliate if you tell anyone? What if your abuser is popular and has lots of friends? What if your college has a real “we’re all one big happy family” vibe going on and you’re worried you’ll be punished for raining on the parade with your rape story?

Most victims don’t report. At big schools and small schools alike, that’s still the reality.

There’s no reporting system that is a panacea for these problems. But the best online system we’ve seen so far, in terms of its sensitivity to the reporting issues faced by survivors, is Callisto, a platform designed by sexual violence survivors in the tech industry. Callisto does several important things that other systems do not. For instance, Callisto allows victims to make time-stamped reports of their assaults that they can wait to submit until they are ready—a feature that is particularly useful for victims fearing retaliation. They can also choose to submit their report only on the condition that another person names the same perpetrator. Reports can be anonymous. (Watch Callisto’s founder, Jessica Ladd, describe the system in this Ted Talk.)

Callisto has only been around since the 2015-2016 school year, but at the thirteen colleges where it has been adopted, the results are astounding. In the 2016-2017 school year, survivors who used the system were five times more likely to report their assaults than survivors who did not. Ninety-seven percent of Callisto’s users say they would recommend it to other survivors. Even during the pilot year of the project, when they worked with only two colleges, the sexual assault reports on those campuses quadrupled. (That’s a good thing, by the way. It doesn’t mean that the rate of assaults is increasing; it means that there’s a reporting system in place that victims are finding more approachable.)

On October 29, the Student Government Association of Bethel College (North Newton, Kansas) unanimously passed a resolution in support of Bethel adopting Callisto as its online reporting system for sexual violence. Into Account spoke with Kiley Varney, a senior biology major and the Bethel student body president, and Rebecca Schrag, a junior graphic design major, student government representative, and president of Bethel’s feminist collective Femcore, about the reasons for the resolution, and the current state of sexual violence reporting and education at Bethel.

If you’re part of the greater Bethel community–an alum, faculty or staff member, parent, and/or donor–Bethel students need your help right now. There’s one simple thing you can do to help student government bring Callisto to Bethel: Go to the Callisto website and fill out the form entitled “Bring Callisto to Your School.” You can fill this out as a student, alum, parent, staff/faculty/administrator, or “other.” Let Callisto know you’d like to see them at Bethel. And watch this space: we may have more actions related to Bethel and Callisto for you to take in the coming months.

If you’d like to advocate for Callisto at another school you’re connected to, you can also fill out the form for that school. Student activists interested in Callisto can download Callisto’s activist toolkit. Contact us here at Into Account if you need help getting started.

Into Account: Tell us about the reporting system that Bethel has right now. What options do students have for reporting? What are the issues with that system?

Varney: Bethel currently has a platform via our online campus infrastructure (ThresherConnect) that allows students to report student life-related concerns. When a student fills out this form, there is space for them to describe the event they are reporting as well as a space to describe their desired outcome of the situation. There is space for students to fill out their name and contact information if they wish to, but this section is optional.

I see a few problems with this system.

First, the form is called a “Student Life Concern Form”. This wording does not make it clear that the system can be used to report issues of sexual violence. Nowhere on the form does it explicitly say that it can be used to report sexual violence cases either. Even though this system is set up to handle reports of sexual violence, it is also used for a variety of other things such as roommate issues. The form even includes specific instructions for what to do if the concern is related to a class/professor. If a student were going to use this form to report a case of sexual violence but then saw these instructions for reports about a class, they might be deterred from reporting, for fear that this would not be the right place to do so.

Second, when a student does submit a concern via this system, it is unclear what happens to the information afterward. Based on the information given on this platform, a student would not know who their report got sent to and whether or not the information would be kept confidential. Not knowing who would see a report and what actions would be taken because of it might keep someone from reporting a case of sexual violence.

The third problem I see with this system is that a large number of students on our campus do not know that it exists. If students do know that it exists, they may not know that it exists to serve as a reporting system for issues of sexual violence among other issues on our campus. The system is not well-advertised a place to report sexual violence cases. Sexual violence is an issue that deserves its own reporting system that is separate from other student life concerns, and students should be better informed of what the system is for and how to use it.

Into Account: What are some of your biggest concerns about sexual violence on the Bethel campus?

Varney: My biggest concerns would be: 1) we don’t have an adequate reporting system, and 2) we do not do enough to educate students on issues of sexual violence and how to prevent them and report them. I am pleased with some of the work being done at Bethel to provide resources for survivors. We have a local organization called SafeHope with trained professionals that come to campus once a week and provide a space for people to talk about things that have happened to them or someone they know even if the occurrence was a long time ago. We also have a licensed counselor on campus that can provide regular counseling services to students. We are making progress in providing these services to survivors, but there is still more that can be done to improve education, awareness, and resources available to students.

Into Account: Tell us about your interest in getting the Callisto reporting system. How did the student government association get involved in promoting Callisto at Bethel? What led to your resolution? What are you hoping for?

Varney: This summer, I was informed about Project Callisto by Dwight Krehbiel (Professor of Psychology at Bethel, father of Stephanie Krehbiel, Into Account’s Co-Founder/Executive Director). Dwight also introduced me to two community members who are willing to put forth resources to help implement Callisto at Bethel. I learned about what the Callisto is and brought it to the entire student government to discuss.

At first, I was hesitant for SGA to support Callisto because of its high cost. It seemed like there would be better ways to use the money that the community members were willing to put forth to implement multiple educational/awareness tools and resources for students regarding sexual violence, instead of spending it all on a reporting system. After discussing these concerns at length with the Senate and seeing that many Senate members felt that Callisto would be worth the money and worth our support, I wrote a resolution that established official SGA support. The resolution, which states that SGA officially supports the college to pursue the implementation of Callisto, was passed by the Senate a few weeks ago.

With the passage of this resolution, we hope to continue to be in contact with everyone involved in influencing the College to implement Callisto. We have also reached out to the Title IX Coordinator and hope to meet with her and possibly other members of the committee after the new year to discuss Callisto as well as SGA’s other goal of implementing Bystander Training on campus. The resolution establishes SGA’s support (and by extension, the student body’s support) for the College to actively pursue Callisto, and we hope that that support will have a lot of influence on those making decisions about the implementation of Callisto. The resolution also lays the foundation for SGA members to continue to encourage the implementation of Callisto in whatever ways we may see necessary in the future.

Schrag: What I really love about Callisto is its emphasis to empower survivors of sexual violence. It would help resolve issues that our reporting system currently faces by giving victims options and support as well as a match system that safely connects victims of the same perpetrator together to validate each other’s experience and take action.

Into Account: Besides a better reporting system, what kinds of changes would you like to see in the way that Bethel approaches sexual violence?

Varney: I think that education about sexual violence and issues surrounding it can be improved. SGA is actively working on trying to bring Bystander Training to our campus. Bystander Training would be a great start to educating people about situations of sexual violence and how to intervene when they see dangerous or potentially dangerous interactions occurring. I would like to see Bystander Training implemented by next fall, and I hope that more education and awareness programs, as well as more availability to resources for survivors can be increased in the future too.

Schrag: I would like to see Bethel prioritizing these issues more. Last year, Bethel released a video spreading awareness of sexual violence and assault that specifically college students face. It was a step forward for Bethel to be aware that we have a problem but now it is time for us to create programs that combat this epidemic.

A Manifesto on Ass-Grabbing*

November 21, 2017November 21, 2017

by Stephanie Krehbiel

“It’s a no for me.”

*(-slapping, -patting, -squeezing—honestly, if you’re parsing the distinctions by order of offensiveness, you’re already in hot water)

The two most salient points I have to make about ass-grabbing are a) It is not trivial, and b) It is ubiquitous.

Ass-grabbing is just this thing that we’re supposed to live with. It’s fun, people say. It’s no big deal, people say. Take it as a compliment. I know this person who gets offended if people aren’t regularly grabbing their ass! Honestly, there are just so many rules these days, I can’t keep up with all these rules, everyone’s so sensitive now.

Is it really so difficult to not grab people’s asses? If you really value that sensation, could you maybe get yourself some sort of squeeze toy? They sell them in the pet store.

But that’s not as fun, is it? And the reason it’s not as fun, for the ass-grabbers among us, is that ass-grabbing is first and foremost a display of dominance. The aggressively sexual ass-grab in a bar and the grandfatherly ass-pat that George HW Bush is apparently so fond of—these are both displays of entitlement to another person’s body. It doesn’t matter if the intention was “affectionate.” If it weren’t meant, on some level, as a display of dominance, that expression of affection would not involve someone’s butt.

The person on the receiving end of that display may be accustomed to that kind of thing; they may be completely acculturated into thinking of their own body as something that exists for the pleasure of others. They might laugh it off, or not react, or try to be “game” about it. None of this means your ass-grab was harmless. It means your ass-grab was just part of a larger cultural context in which some people feel entitled to do whatever they like with other people’s bodies, regardless of how those other people feel about it.

Your ass-grabbing may be the least of the regular physical/emotional/sexual violations that your target is already experiencing on a regular basis. That doesn’t exonerate you; it just makes you one of a whole bunch of other entitled jerks.

Mostly, we put up with sexual harassment like ass-grabbing because we have no idea what kind of immediate hell might rain down on our heads if we stand up to it in the moment. Some men will go from “hey girl, love that ass,” to “I’m going to kill you, you f___ing b__ch” in less than a minute. If you’re getting off on inciting the fear of that response in another person, you need to re-examine your life.

“Hard nope.”

Some people deal with constant ass-grabbing, every day. They go to work and people grab their butts while they’re doing their jobs. It’s just one of the courses in the daily diet of sexual harassment. Ask nurses; ask women who do housekeeping and maintenance work; ask restaurant servers and kitchen staff. Ask women in any industry that is dependent on the labor of undocumented people. You won’t last long in a lot of jobs if you won’t put up with ass-grabbing. You are disposable to your employers in jobs like that, especially if you are being paid under the table and/or have no legal rights or no way of enforcing the rights that you do have. Ass-grabbers generally understand the overall shape of that situation.

Ass-grabbing is frequently a surprise. It’s fun for people who like to display dominance because it’s a stealth act that hits its target from behind. You catch them off guard. If you take pleasure in scaring the crap out of people for no productive reason whatsoever, ass-grabbing is for you.

If you take pleasure in scaring the crap out of people for no productive reason whatsoever, something is wrong with you and you need to be stopped. If you don’t take pleasure in scaring the crap out of people for no productive reason whatsoever, then you have absolutely zero reason to be non-consensually messing with another person’s butt.

(But, for heaven’s sake, just a little pat! That’s not “messing with another person’s butt”! You’re just so sensiti—NO. GO BACK TO THE BEGINNING. DO NOT PASS GO, DO NOT COLLECT $200. NO PATS.)

If you like butts—and why shouldn’t you?—you can do consensual grabbing and whatever else with your partner/s of choice, or you can grab your own, if your arms are long enough. That is not an expression of dominance. That is fine. This is not about having something against butts. This is about having something against being an asshole.

Men and boys grab women’s and girls’ asses, a lot. But there is plenty of other ass-grabbing happening as well. I’ll take a few specific patterns that I’ve heard about consistently from friends and clients. This list is not comprehensive, obviously.

A lot of white women, for instance, have a bad habit of assuming that Black men want their asses grabbed by white women. This is stupid. Cut it out. Black men are people, and thus their asses should not be viewed as available for general grabbing. There is not some super-special, white woman/Black man thing that makes this OK. The script you re-enact, as a white woman grabbing a Black man’s ass, is “We owned you before, and we can own you again.” It doesn’t matter if that was the furthest thing from your mind. (Whatever was in your mind was also nonsense.) That script was written before you ever showed up.

Gay men also put up with a maddening amount of ass-grabbing from other gay men (and ostensibly straight ones too). Toxic masculinity is not just for straight people. Most of the young gay men I know are as embattled and wary about sexual harassment as women are. If you are a gay man who grabs other men’s asses, you are as much of a dickhead as straight people who do that. If you are a gay man who grabs women’s asses because you think it doesn’t “count” because you don’t have sex with women, sorry. It counts. You don’t have to want to have sex with us for us to perceive it as an act of dominance over our bodies.

Then there’s the ass-slapping in football. I would probably need another blog post to even talk about that. Like, where do I even begin with football?

: Seriously. Walk. Away.

And finally: don’t slap/grab/pat your kids’ butts. Don’t let other people touch your kids’ butts. It may seem like nothing, but it isn’t nothing. Allowing that to happen is one way that kids learn that their bodies are not theirs, that they have no right to refuse consent. Teach kids not to grab each other’s butts. They will probably try it, because kids are little humans and they imitate what grown-up humans do. Don’t shame them for it. Teach them.

Teach them so this is the last generation of thinkpieces explaining why everyone deserves a butt free of unwanted touches. Let’s stop ass-grabbing before it begins.

Committing Sexual Violence No Impediment to EMU Social Work Degree

April 22, 2017July 10, 20172 Comments

“Launch Your Future,” EMU’s website shouts in bold capital letters, as they prepare to hand a social work degree to a student who has – by EMU’s own finding – committed sexual violence.

Continuing Eastern Mennonite University (EMU)’s culture of staggering mishandling of sexual violence, EMU student Joel Wheeler is days away from graduating with a social work degree, despite the fact that EMU determined he committed “non-consensual vaginal intercourse,” “on at least one occasion.”

From the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program, here is the legal definition of the word “rape”: ““The penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim.”

Continue reading →

Into Account

Support for survivors seeking justice, accountability, and recovery in Christian contexts

Tag: abuse

You are where you need to be

By Katherine B. Wiens M.Ed, LP, Chair of Into Account Board of Directors

#BelieveSurvivors means what, again?

by Hilary Jerome Scarsella, Director of Theological Integrity

Action Alert: Tell Goshen to Listen to Survivors

Take Action!

by Stephanie Krehbiel, Executive Director

By Katherine B. Wiens M.Ed, LP, Chair of Into Account Board of Directors

by Hilary Jerome Scarsella, Director of Theological Integrity

by Stephanie Krehbiel and Hilary Scarsella

by Stephanie Krehbiel, Executive Director featuring letters by Wendi Moore-O’Neal, New Orleans, LA and Addie Liechty, Oakland, CA

Exposing the Abusive Underbelly of College Athletic Departments

Size Matters: But Not in the Way You Might Think

“Launch Your Future,” EMU’s website shouts in bold capital letters, as they prepare to hand a social work degree to a student who has – by EMU’s own finding – committed sexual violence.

by Stephanie Krehbiel, Executive Director
featuring letters by Wendi Moore-O’Neal, New Orleans, LA
and Addie Liechty, Oakland, CA