Sexual Assault - Penn State and Herman Cain

After having read my 72nd article on the Herman Cain sexual assault allegations and my 57th article on the sexual abuse of minors by Jerry Sandusky, there no longer remained the possibility of staying silent.

Four women have made allegations of sexual harassment against Herman Cain. He has denied these allegations, blamed everyone from the leftist media to a former employee who now works for the Perry campaign, and used not-so-subtly-coded language to suggest that the whole thing is really about him being a successful black man. Nonetheless, there is still a whole swath of media that insists the same thing - that he's being treated unfairly by the rest of the media.

Now let's compare that to the media surrounding the sex scandal at Penn State. After the first day, when one or two articles featured material from the actual case and were primarily about Jerry Sandusky, the rest of the articles have been about Joe Paterno. The comparison should be between Herman Cain and Jerry Sandusky, but Jerry Sandusky's not a high profile enough figure for national media, so the media has instead focused on Paterno. Will he be forced out? When will he be forced out? When should he be forced out?

Amazingly, the criticisms of Joe Paterno have been more severe than those of Herman Cain. Nobody seems to want to assume anything about Herman Cain. Maybe he harassed and assaulted the women, maybe he didn't. We can't be sure. Everybody seems to want to assume everything about Paterno. He must have known exactly what happened, and he's been criticized for everything: waiting a day to report it up the hierarchy at Penn State; not trying to find out the identity of the child involved; not bringing the case to the police when nothing happened within the administration; not asking enough questions of McQueary. In short, he's been criticized for every action he did and didn't take in the wake of learning something of the incident in the locker room.

Nevertheless, the details of what he knew remain obscure. What Mike McQueary told Paterno remains unknown. There has been no trial of Sandusky, or of anyone else who was indicted for their involvement in the incident. In fact, the District Attorney already said Paterno fulfilled his legal obligation.

Furthermore, Paterno's response in the face of the media frenzy has been positively gracious. He has admitted to not doing enough; he has resigned from program in a way that doesn't totally undermine the football team, to which he has a commitment; and he has offered a very genuine response that indicates he is truly regretful about what has happened.

Compare this with the response of Herman Cain. He insists he doesn't remember the settlement, then later says that he does remember the settlement. He blames the liberal media, the Perry campaign, then the liberal media again. He denies ever having committed any of the acts which the women have claimed that he did. And, guess what? He's still the leading Republican candidate for president in the polls.

And the media seems okay with this - as long as we don't know for sure what happened. Until we do, we shouldn't be too quick to judge. That is the reaction to Cain, but to Paterno, it's entirely the opposite. The ignominious ending to the career of the greatest coach in college football history isn't ignominious enough. He shouldn't be allowed to coach another game, according to some mainstream pundits.

What message does this send about values in our society? Is the sexual assault of children more reprehensible than the sexual assault of women? These two actions are both abhorrent. If we assume guilt, then Herman Cain, the assaulter, should be completely vilified. He should be out of the presidential running entirely. Paterno should be condemned for not doing enough. He should have done more; no one doubts that. But the media's relative harshness towards Paterno is truly astonishing. The man has had a great career. He made a very big error of judgment. It's an error big enough to, rightly, cost him his job and his reputation as a great man. But why has Herman Cain not received the same treatment?

On Protest, Activism, and Affecting Social Change, Part 2: Dickinson College Sexual Assault Protest

On Wednesday, March 2, 2011, over 250 students occupied the administrative building of Old West at Dickinson College. It was an unprecedented moment in the history of student activism at the college; never before had the seat of administrative power been taken over by the students of the school. And I would venture to guess that, given that many of us involved were so taken aback by the high level of participation, many members of the administration were as well.

What started as an occupation turned into a sit-in and lasted for three days and three nights. We left the building Saturday morning after having reached a resolution with the administration on Friday night. For a more comprehensive nature of some of the policy discussions, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article about the protest would be valuable. I wish, here, to discuss some of the physical, psychological and social effects of the protest on the students who participated.

The first was severe sleep deprivation, especially among the most involved students. On the first two nights of the protest, I got a combined eight hours of sleep, and I suspect that such an amount is above average. There were some criticisms floating in the rumor mill around campus that the protest served partly as an excuse for a party. This was, I assure you, utter nonsense. I know there were a number of people who did not sleep at all the first night because they were working on articulating our demands with greater precision, or writing press releases, or engaged in tactical discussions on how to proceed.

The topic of sexual assault is one that is inherently emotionally imbued, and the lack of sleep only served to exacerbate the emotional tension that already existed. Add to that the fact that the protesters were more or less confined to interacting with the same 200-300 people for 72 hours straight, and this was something of a recipe for tears, shouting, and instability. Fortunately, the tears were the most prevalent of the many signs of emotional stress, and I'm sure that many times more friendships were made than were broken by the protest. Many of the tears were even tears of joy or accomplishment

In fact, meeting new people, and having the opportunity to engage in meaningful dialogue with them was one of the most rewarding experiences of the several days. The group of people gathered at this protest was undoubtedly the most impressive collection of people with which I have ever been gathered. Put another way, I was more proud to be a part of this group than any other group I have belonged to in my life. And why not? I cannot think of another group to which I have belonged that has accomplished meaningful change.

But it was not just the change that we created that makes me proud of the group of people. Even if we had accomplished nothing, I still would have been proud to be associated with the people who were there. In addition to the many friends who participated, the people I met seemed to be disproportionately well-spoken, intelligent, and intellectually engaged. I think one of the reasons the protest was so successful is that so many inspirational people were there to inspire those of us who approached the protest with slightly more trepidation. The passion was contagious, and in any environment in which so many people are so passionate, it becomes impossible to operate with even a modicum of apathy.

Nevertheless, by Friday night, the protest was running out of energy. It seemed that some strange mixture of adrenaline, caffeine, the inspiration and passion of our colleagues, a sense of purpose, and sheer will power kept us going until Friday night, but it was clear to me that either we would have to end the protest (which we did, given that almost all of our demands were met), or devise a new strategy. The combination of lack of sleep and emotional and social tension had created an existence in the claustrophobic space of Old West that was unsustainable.

Among the many things I learned were the limits of my own body. All of those external influences listed above kept me going, but I was not functioning at full capacity and I knew it. The number of people who told me that I looked absolutely gutted must have been in the dozens. Many people, if not most, looked about like me, I think. I had pushed myself to the limit, but not so far as to be oblivious to the fact that the group as a whole had just about reached the limit.

In retrospect, the fragility of the entire enterprise stands out to me as well. How many small moments determined the outcome of the protest? It seems like an infinity. If only a few of these had happened just a little bit differently, I would hypothesize that the outcome would have been slightly different. Even several months removed from the protest, I wonder about such moments. What would have happened if....? We'll never know, of course, but in the aftermath of a successful protest, it doesn't seem disingenuous to allow oneself to step back slightly and idealize it a little bit. It was, after all, a magical few days for so many people.

Let me reiterate that I feel tremendously fortunate to have encountered such a dynamic and impressive group of people. That I was able to partake in a purposeful endeavor with them makes the experience that much more meaningful. It was a truly life-altering adventure, and so I close this post with another thank you to all the wonderful people who made it happen. Without each and every one of you, it would not have worked out as it did.

I still have much more to say on the subject of protest, activism, and affecting social change, but given the importance of this occasion to my experience, I thought it best to elucidate it in advance of pontificating more about this topic.

On Protest, Activism, and Affecting Social Change, Part 1

I'm currently reading The Strawberry Statement, by James Simon Kunen, about the protests at Columbia University in 1968, and I thought it would provide a good opportunity to write a bit about social activism. The spring semester of 2011 was a volatile time at Dickinson College (now my alma mater). The previous fall had already seen tensions rising, with a panel discussion created to help encourage constructive dialogue about the role of Greek life (I wrote about that here) in that the hopes that such an event might ease some of the tension. But this past Spring, things boiled over.

The first in a series of increasingly politicized events was the invitation to Bill Ayers to speak at the Public Affairs Symposium (PAS), of which I was a committee a member, and whose theme was "Social Activism in an Individualistic Society." Some students, upset by Ayers's past, decided to protest his presence by handing out fliers accusing him of being a terrorist and excerpting his quotes out of context to make it appear that he advocates violent protests. Whether Ayers ever believed in violence against people as a form of protest, we may never know, but now he is certainly not an advocate of such a perspective.

The group of students protesting his presence was quite small, however, and the more vociferous objection to his presence came from recent alumni, many of whom vowed to cease contributing to the school should his invitation not be rescinded. The school stood by the decision to invite Ayers, if not without a little jab at the naivete of the organizing committee, and the event went off mostly without a hitch.

As part of the same PAS, the following day was the first ever Day of Action at Dickinson. PAS gave substantial funds to a number of students groups to allow them all to hold demonstrations on the same day. The event took over the student union building and the main plaza, and was followed that evening by a soapbox that allowed for speakers to express a great diversity of perspectives.

Around the same time as these two events, two other activists spoke on campus. Jaclyn Friedman, a feminist writer, and Komozi Woodard, a former student activist in his undergraduate years at Dickinson and now a professor of African-American history at Sarah Lawrence College. The atmosphere at Dickinson was becoming increasingly intense with such positive reinforcement of the wonders of activist behavior.

Out of this cauldron of activist sentiment emerged the largest protest at Dickinson since 1970, when students marched to the U.S. Army War College to protest American involvement in Vietnam. The cause this time, however, was much closer to home: a sexual assault climate that is dangerous and oppressive, as is true at almost every other college in the country, inadequately addressed by administrations.

A group of over 270 students occupied the administrative building, Old West, for three full days. By the third night, the administration and the student protesters had managed to reach an agreement on how to proceed, and the protest was ended. Although I would not attempt to speak for the administration, I believe that both sides found the outcome acceptable. Regardless, there will be an improved policy in place come the fall of 2011, as well as new educational programs for incoming students.

I had the privilege of participating in this protest, and in the next post I will talk about the experience of being in a protest, and some of the things that distinguished this experience for me.