The Miami Student Established 1826
FRIDAY, MAY 8, 2015 VOLUME 142 NO. 55
WWW.MIAMISTUDENT.NET
MIAMI UNIVERSITY OXFORD, OHIO
So long, farewell AMANDA WANG THE MIAMI STUDENT
JALEN WALKER THE MIAMI STUDENT
Survivor recalls rape, fights to prevent future assaults SEXUAL ASSAULT
KATIE TAYLOR
SPECIAL PROJECTS EDITOR
PART TWO The following piece is the secondin a series of three that will address the complexities of sexual assault. The first of these was published April 3, 2015 in The Miami Student. The Assault Tears rolled down her face and hit the sidewalk as she limped down High Street, still wearing the Halloween costume, now in tatters, that she had put on the night before. Shutting out questioning gazes from the Uptown lunch crowd, her eyes remained locked on the ground for the rest of the long walk back to her dorm in East Quad. “[My Resident Assistant] took me into her room and I told her everything that was going on and she essentially had to explain to me that I was sexually assaulted,” said Grace, who asked that her name be changed to protect her identity. “I wasn’t able to comprehend that at the time.” Grace was in her first year at Miami when she went out with some friends Oct. 30, 2011. After attending a couple Halloween house parties, the group went to Decibel, an Uptown bar she had never been to. It was there, very late, that an older male in the group, a Miami student, insisted they all take shots. Grace recalled him handing her the first. Several minutes later, just as the bar closed, the room began to spin. Grace scanned the crowd frantically for her friends as a herd of students pushed down the stairs to exit onto High Street, but the next thing she knew she was sitting on the curb, alone and disoriented. It wasn’t long before she was approached by the student who had given her the shot. Commenting on her disheveled state, he said he would take care of her. “He put his arm around me and we started walking in the opposite direction of where my dorm was,” Grace said. “And then I don’t remember anything until the next morning.” When she came to, she didn’t recognize the room, but she did recognize the boy in bed next to her. The pain hit her when she rolled
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TODAY IN MIAMI HISTORY
over, saw her clothes on the floor and asked the male what happened. “He said, ‘We had sex three times – I thought it would be more memorable than that.’ He said, ‘If you want to remember, we can have sex again.’” When Grace refused and insisted she had to leave, the boy showed her the door. Finding Justice It was the next morning, the Sunday of her first Halloween weekend in Oxford in 2011, when Grace went to McCullough-Hyde Memorial Hospital at the urging of her resident assistant. The doctor informed her that the vaginal damage done was consistent with what they see in females after giving birth. Grace said she had taken no drugs the night before. But a urine sample revealed traces of amphetamine in her system. McCullough-Hyde staffers suggested a second and more extensive round of tests that could have identified the chemical in her system, but Grace said no. She just wanted to go home and put the trauma behind her. She realized later that her decision to forgo more testing complicated the possibility of prosecution. “That left it, legally, a very gray case—‘he said she said.’ The prosecuting office was pretty terrible about it and my case ended up getting dropped because they didn’t think it was a cut and dried case and that it was going to be a waste of their time,” Grace said. Though her report to the Oxford Police Department did not result in a prosecution, Grace did find out something else the day she went in to the station to report the crime. The police asked who the perpetrator was, but Grace was interrupted after saying his first name. “Before I even got his last name out the police knew who I was talking about because the perpetrator was well-known on campus for this type of behavior and criminal action,” she said. Grace soon learned that the accused had run into sex-related trouble two years before her own assault, but the university had taken no disciplinary action against him. Miami University and the Oxford Police Department investigated the accused in 2009 after his fraternity brothers reported him for voyeurism. He was accused of recording sexual encounters with women without their knowledge, according
to police records. He was not prosecuted in the criminal courts. Videos of sexual acts were found in the accused’s possession, but Miami did not hold a conduct hearing because they could not identify the women in the tapes as students of the university, according to an email from university President David Hodge to Grace’s father. In October of 2013, Grace filed a lawsuit against Miami University for negligence for not expelling the accused after these earlier incidents. She said that by failing to take action in the earlier case, the university left a predator on campus. Had he been expelled earlier, Grace said, she would not have been raped. Because it remains under adjudication, Hodge declined to comment on the specifics. “Obviously, if there’s a case, we have a disagreement about the facts,” he said. “I believe that a lot of things continue to evolve—our ability to respond to any incident, our ability to track behaviors—all of that has been improving at Miami and nationally as we’ve paid more attention to this. By all the accounts that I can see, we have people who are first-rate in their responses that they’re giving to victims when they come forward.” In the email to Grace’s father, Hodge explained why the administration previously held off on disciplinary action. “We are a public university and the law and our policies require that all students receive a measure of due process, notice of the charges against them, and an opportunity to challenge the evidence against them before we can suspend or dismiss them…there was not, in our opinion, sufficient evidence adduced as a result of the voyeurism investigation to enable us to initiate the disciplinary action to dismiss [the accused],” the email read. It wasn’t until Grace reported her own assault to the university that a disciplinary hearing was held. When the crime and the accused’s name were published in The Miami Student, another female came forward, alleging the student had sexually and physically assaulted her the night before Grace was attacked. “[The accused] began to hit and choke her. [The victim] began to lose breath,” read the second victim’s police report. “[The accused] continued to pull her hair and punch her in the chest. [The accused] also ASSAULT »PAGE 5
Comedian Seth Meyers to perform at Miami in October EVENT
EMILY WILLIAMS ASSISTANT NEWS EDITOR
Seth Meyers, former head writer for “Saturday Night Live” and host of “Late Night with Seth Meyers,” will perform at Miami’s Family Weekend this fall. Miami’s Performing Arts Series and Miami Activities and Programming (MAP) partner every year to bring in entertainment for Family Weekend. Meyers was suggested for the slot by the Arts, Concerts and Entertainment (ACE) Board of MAP before being proposed to the Performing Arts Series Advisory Board, Impact Weekend Committee and the Chamber MBA Committee, all of whom approved the idea. Julia Harrelson, who serves as the board’s co-chair along with junior Mikayla McIntyre, said the idea of bringing Meyers to Miami was met with enthusiasm. “Seth Meyers was a choice that was very popular and received much encouragement from everyone,” Harrelson said. The director of the Performing Arts Series, Patti Liberatore, noted that live standup shows from the “Late Night” host are rare. “Getting to see Seth Meyers do a stand-up comedy show live will be a special treat for Miami families,”
PHOTO CONTRIBUTED BY PATTI LIBERATORE
Liberatore said. Meyers will be the third comedian in a row to be the featured performer at Miami’s Family Weekend after Jim Gaffigan’s performance in 2013 and Aziz Ansari’s this past fall. “Comedians seem to be a great way to satisfy both parents and students,” Liberatore said, “so we’ve tended to focus more on them in recent years.” The comedian got his start during college in Northwestern University’s improv group, Mee-Ow. During a stint at the Chicago Improv Festival, he caught the interest of a “Saturday Night Live” casting director and was asked to come to New York for an audition. In 2001, Meyers joined the “Saturday Night Live” cast, using his comedic chops to write for the MEYERS »PAGE 5
Goodwill to open shop in Oxford BUSINESS
MAGGIE CALLAGHAN THE MIAMI STUDENT
The city of Oxford has announced that a new business, Goodwill Industries International, Inc., will be opening a store at the previous Moonshine Printing Company location on Locust Street, which has sat vacant for three years. Goodwill, a non-profit organization that focuses on providing employment and training to the disabled and veterans as well as clothes and household items to the poor, announced it would move into the location on Locust Street, across from Walgreens, after the Oxford Board of Zoning approved the proposal during its Feb. 18 meeting. Goodwill plans to tear down the
previous Moonshine building in order to construct an addition to the standing warehouse. The organization also announced that it will have a retail store for shoppers, a merchandise drop off area for donors and a drive-thru donation center to make dropping off merchandise more convenient. Many students, including firstyear Maggie Handler, are excited about Goodwill and welcome the organization in Oxford. “It could be a good place to find cheap, unique clothes for costumes or themed events,” Handler said. According to the Ohio Valley Goodwill website, the Oxford Goodwill location will sell items marketed to both Miami University and the Oxford community. This will be the second nonprofit organization to come to OxGOODWILL »PAGE 5
On May 8, 1973,The Miami Student reported that coed dorms were not in the cards for Miami University. President Phillip Shriver blamed the Board of Trustees. “In view of their stance on visitation, there would probably be a reluctance on their part to approve coed dorms,” he said.
NEWS
NEWS
CULTURE
MYTHBUSTING MIAMI SORORITY HOUSING
WESTERN DINING RANKS 14TH IN NATION
GREAT BRITTON: TOURISTS VS. TRAVELERS
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CONNOR MORIARTY PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR
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OPINION
SPORTS
BOARD WEIGHS IN ON THE DEATH PENALTY
FORMER SPORTS EDITOR GETS FINAL WORD
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