Privilege

by Mary Adkins

  So I just wanted to get those possibilities on the record. Because this just doesn’t make sense to me unless something else is going on.

  III. Interview of Matty Tuttle, Witness for the Complainant

  Mr. Tuttle is a second-year student and friend of Ms. Stoddard’s. She sought his help in the early morning hours of September 10 when she “collapsed” of fatigue on a bench on one of the Main Campus lawns. Mr. Tuttle states that he arrived several minutes after receiving her text to find her “distraught, exhausted, and sad.” According to him, it was apparent that “something terrible had happened” even before she told him what that was.

  Mr. Tuttle also let me know that he “knew something was wrong” the weekend before, when he visited Ms. Stoddard in her dorm room on the morning of September 3, although on that occasion she didn’t tell him anything about the night before.

  IV. Interview of Joelle Pasha, Witness for the Complainant

  Mrs. Pasha is a nurse at Carter University Hospital System in the ER department, where she is the nurse on call for sexual assault. Her interview corroborated Ms. Stoddard’s version of what took place the night of September 9.

  She added that she found Ms. Stoddard’s behavior and demeanor to be consistent with that of a person who has recently experienced assault.

  V. Interview of Ellen Harris, Witness for the Respondent

  Ms. Harris is a third-year student and a friend of the respondent’s. The night of September 2 she was with the complainant and the respondent in his dorm room.

  Ms. Harris corroborated the respondent’s description of what took place in the earlier hours of the evening, specifically that they were all drinking heavily. She was with the respondent until he returned to his room for the night and did not feel that his behavior was out of control or that he was behaving in any way out of the ordinary. She added that she knows the respondent quite well and does not view him to be a person capable of sexual assault. She told me that she was very surprised to learn of the allegations and that he seemed very upset telling her about them.

  She does not know the complainant apart from that one evening they spent together on September 2.

  Summary and Conclusion

  The investigator finds the witnesses’ statements credible. Both complainant and respondent agree on the facts of what took place on the nights of September 2 and September 9. Where they disagree is over whether Mr. Brand understood that Ms. Stoddard was not consenting to sex on either occasion. She argues that her “body language” made her lack of consent clear, whereas he argues that, in large part owing to inebriation, this was not true and that he believed her to be consenting.

  The investigator is available to provide additional information or impressions at the request of the administrator.

  September 25, 2017

  The Office of the Dean of Students

  Carter University

  120 Campus Drive

  Tyler Brand

  CU Box 937

  Via email

  Dear Mr. Brand:

  An investigation into allegations made against you under the university’s sexual misconduct policy is now complete. Based on the findings of the external investigator, along with character letters submitted on your behalf and on behalf of the complainant, the administrator hereby makes the following findings:

  Allegations

  Allegation #1—Sexual Assault on September 2, 2017

  Based on evidence presented, the administrator finds under a clear and compelling standard that you are not responsible for violating the university sexual misconduct policy as laid out in the Carter University Student Handbook. The reasoning on which this decision was made appears below.

  Allegation #2—Sexual Assault on September 9, 2017

  Based on evidence presented, the administrator finds under a clear and compelling standard that you are not responsible for violating the university sexual misconduct policy as laid out in the Carter University Student Handbook. The reasoning on which this decision was made also appears below.

  Reasoning

  As to Allegation #1, both parties conceded that excessive drinking clouded their memory of events, and so we are left to piece together the facts without the aid of their memories. Intoxication is not a defense to assault; it is, however, an obstacle to obtaining an accurate understanding of events, which this office is repeatedly frustrated by in cases such as this one.

  This office uses the following evidence to infer what took place on September 2: A female witness on behalf of the respondent stated that just prior to the interaction in question between the parties, the respondent was behaving normally. The complainant’s statement that she “kept going” and was “pulled in different directions,” along with her behavior in continuing to interact with the respondent and agreeing to go out with him again, support the finding that he is not responsible.

  As to Allegation #2, there is no evidence that Ms. Stoddard was under the influence of alcohol, and her testimony that she was not under the influence of alcohol is credible. Mr. Brand stated that he was intoxicated, however, “both times” and that he struggled to “remember specifics.” Thus, Ms. Stoddard’s version of the night’s events is given more weight. Ms. Stoddard stated that she made “very clear” her lack of consent.

  It is impossible for this office to determine precisely what took place, and thus a finding of assault is inappropriate at this time. However, the university’s sexual misconduct policy requires an affirmative duty to respect others sexually:

  Sexual respect for others

  Sexual respect for others is broadly defined as a commitment to communicating and acting with respect for one’s fellow students in regard to all sexual and sex- and gender-related activity. It does not include unwelcome conduct such as unsolicited commentary on one’s sex or gender, inappropriate gestures or communication, or refusing to adhere to an individual’s express wishes for bodily autonomy.

  Mr. Brand is found to have violated the mandate of sexual respect.

  Sanctions

  The administrator’s finding that the respondent violated the university’s sexual misconduct policy will be met with the following sanctions:

  Mr. Brand is hereby placed on academic probation for the remainder of the school year.

  As a condition of remaining enrolled as a student at the university and as a term of his probationary status, Mr. Brand will immediately, within three days of the issuance of this decision, enter into supervised training on the university’s sexual misconduct policy.

  As a condition of remaining enrolled as a student at the university and as a term of his probationary status, Mr. Brand will, within seven days of the issuance of this decision, enter into an alcohol-treatment program of his choosing, to be approved by the administrator and monitored by the administrator.

  Mr. Brand, please take these sanctions seriously. If you are found responsible for a second violation of the sexual misconduct policy while you are enrolled as a student, you could face more extreme penalties, including possible expulsion.

  Sincerely,

  Sharon Maddox Arroyo

  Dean of Student Conduct

  Part II

  Justice

  The Carter Chronicle

  Thursday, September 28

  Please, please steal my phone

  by the Irreverent Rooster

  Ladies and Gents! Nonconforming and nonbinary individuals! People who despise gendered salutations and people who despise those people!

  According to Monday’s police log, a first-year Rooster’s phone was stolen this week by a miscreanta on Science Row.

  Upon reading this news, was my immediate reaction:

  Oh, no!

  How terrible.

  Can that please happen to me?

  All of the above.

  If you answered (D), you probably have a perfect SAT score; congratulations, but that scores you no points here.

  The correct answer is (C).

  For the love of our
founder, Reginald Purcell Carter,b someone please pry my phone from my clammy addict hands?

  Let’s consider the perks of being the victim of a phone theft, shall we? When your phone is stolen, in that brief period before your parent ships you a new one, you are spared the following:

  Your first-year dorm’s GroupMe messages.c

  Campus news alerts about inclement weather that never comes.

  Campus news alerts about inclement weather that has already passed.

  Campus news alerts about mild weather that has no effect on anything about your day.

  The despairing silence of the Sigma Chi guy you hooked up with last weekend.

  Your high school boyfriend’s Instagram.

  His new girlfriend’s Instagram.

  She’s not even that pretty.

  Seriously, who’s prettier, me or her?

  Wait, I was making a weird face just now. Let me put on lip gloss.

  How about now?

  OK, last one: my parents’ text that SURPRISE! they drove up to see me and want to meet for breakfast and, meanwhile, I was out so late last night that even KA had shut it down when I stumbled past rape centrald soooooooo . . . sure, Mom. I’m so happy to see you, too. And what do you mean I smell like Uncle Joee?

  But seriously, anyone want my phone for a minute? I’ll pay you in dining dollars.

  Glossary

  a. MISCREANT: Anyone who does not attend Carter but dares to step foot onto campus for a reason other than serving us food or coffee—in this case, to snatch a phone.

  b. REGINALD PURCELL CARTER: I made this up. Who is our founder for real? Someone with the last name Carter who, I am guessing, owned slaves?

  c. YOUR FIRST-YEAR DORM’S GROUPME MESSAGES: No, I don’t want to come to your play about a one-legged banana farmer that’s “genre-bending.” We weren’t friends when we lived across the hall on South, and we definitely aren’t now.

  d. RAPE CENTRAL: The PiKa-ATO-KA axis.

  e. UNCLE JOE: Family alcoholic.

  13

  Annie

  MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 25–FRIDAY, OCTOBER 6

  So this was life.

  I thought it would be better.

  Even after it all: the burns, the scars—I had believed people to be decent. Expected goodness enough. Not outrageous goodness, not universal goodness. I did not expect to be let down so completely by everyone in my world before I even made it out of my teens. I did not expect to be gutted either, and then I was, but this, this was somehow, astonishingly worse. To be gutted was one thing. To be abandoned by the pack for it—that knocked the wind out of me.

  As I reached the end of the decision letter, I found myself thinking back to first-year orientation, to when Dean Sharon had told us first-years that we were safe at Carter.

  Welcome to Carter, she’d said. You’re part of the family now. This is a safe space for you to ask questions, to become who you truly are.

  At the time, I’d found it an odd thing to say. Of course, we were safe. Why wouldn’t we be? Now I understood: she meant we weren’t.

  Then I found myself thinking of phrases that sounded almost cheesy in their simplicity but that felt so true they made my eyes grow hot. Like that the part of me that made me me had been stolen. That I had been hollowed.

  I forwarded Matty the decision and then lay down on my bed and stared at the ceiling until he arrived, opening the door to my room and letting himself in. I rolled my head to face him, and the lack of surprise on his face just reiterated the cruelty of it all.

  He took a seat on the edge of my bed. I sat up and said nothing, awed by the void that had welled up within me. In place of my soul, a great canyon had materialized, and this was interesting—I didn’t care. I did not give two shits about it. Like a god surveying her vile, indifferent creation, I felt merely a weary disappointment.

  “It’s awful. But it’s not just here,” Matty said. “It’s everywhere.”

  I didn’t ask how he knew this. Matty, who hated socializing, who didn’t even date because he claimed he was too busy, knew this, and I hadn’t. His precocious knowledge no longer impressed me. It made me nauseous.

  Everyone knew that Tyler would walk away unscathed, I realized: the nurse, the dean, Matty, Simone. Tyler himself probably knew.

  I told Matty I wanted to be alone.

  After he was gone, I reached for my headphones, plugged them into my phone, and turned the ringer on silent. I scrolled through my music until I found the October Sky soundtrack. I closed the blinds, slipped the earbuds into my ears, and crawled into bed.

  THE CELLO IS not an instrument that one learns in order to hide in the back of the orchestra. If the violin is the leading lady and the timpani is the worthy foe, the cello is the noble suitor, the heart throbbing beneath the story. When I was a child, I’d dismissed the cello for the same reason I’d dismissed the violin: it was too popular.

  But when I awoke the morning after I received the decision letter, which was also the last day of classes before fall break, there was only one thing on earth that interested me. I had once read that the cello is the sound of the human heart breaking. Was that why I couldn’t think about anything else?

  A bunch of us kept our instruments in the student center so we didn’t have to haul them back and forth to our dorms. I texted my cellist friend, Abigail, asking if I could borrow hers, and she wrote back that she was already in Cancun, having left for break a day early, and that I could have her cello if I wanted, which I interpreted to mean she was already drunk.

  Before the decision in my case I’d planned to take the bus home for fall break—it was only about a four-hour trip, and my mom or dad would pick me up in Atlanta. I’d bought a ticket but was relieved to see it was exchangeable. That evening, I texted my mom that, last minute, I would have to stay for rehearsal, a lie. She was clearly disappointed but didn’t argue; my parents had a respect for my music bordering on insanity. They credited it with getting me into college and securing a scholarship that allowed me to attend a private university. Whereas my brother’s illness and its expense had blindsided them, yanking the future out from under them, the bassoon had swept in to fix everything. I would see them in two weeks, anyway, for Parents’ Weekend.

  I found I still couldn’t tell my parents, but I also couldn’t pretend that everything was fine, and so I was avoiding them. They noticed. Over FaceTime, sitting so that they were both in frame, they begged me to reveal to them what was wrong, threatening to drive up to Carter. I told them I had been seeing a guy who turned out to be a jerk, leaving it that vague. This had seemed to satisfy my mother enough.

  The music building was empty. As I passed the concert hall on my way to the practice rooms, I opened the door to peek inside. The room felt larger and more reverent than ever without a soul in it, hundreds of tan seats facing the clean, barren stage framed by grand velvet curtains.

  “Hello!” I shouted. My voice echoed back to me. Why would I play in a practice room when I could play in the concert hall? I walked down the center aisle, my TOMS crunching on the gritty carpet, noisy in the broad silence. I climbed the stairs to the stage. Stacked in the wings were the folding chairs we used for performances. I set down Abigail’s cello case, dragged out a chair, and flipped it open. I fetched a music stand from offstage, sat down, and pulled out the instrument.

  I opened the sheet music to October Sky, which I’d swiped from Abigail’s cubby. I didn’t know how to make the notes, but at least I knew that each string was a note and that the fingers changed them, and I didn’t plan to leave the music building until I figured out how to play the damn thing.

  I’m not sure how Matty found me. I’d taught myself the first bar by ear and was playing it over and over, again and again, when I heard a distant door click shut. I swallowed, squinting into the shadows. The silhouette of a stranger materialized into Matty, coming toward me and taking a seat near the front of the house. I ignored him and resumed playing until my arm ached and trembled. I let it fall
onto my thighs.

  Matty spoke first.

  “Want to get dinner?” he asked. His voice echoed through the cavernous hall. I didn’t answer. He stood and walked down the few remaining feet of sloping aisle to the stage. He climbed it.

  “Let’s get dinner,” he said, taking the cello and bow from my hands and placing them properly in their case like the expert in everything that he was.

  I DIDN’T FEEL like seeing anyone, so we ordered Domino’s. We sat on opposite ends of his sofa, waiting for it to arrive.

  “You didn’t go home so that you wouldn’t have to tell your parents?” he asked gently.

  “Something like that,” I said.

  “You don’t ever plan to tell them?” he asked.

  I shrugged. “I don’t know why I would do that to them.” Then I added, with a snarl, “Apparently, there’s nothing to tell anyway because nothing happened. Wait, why aren’t you in DC?”

  His gaze drifted past me. “I might go up. Still undecided.” So he’d stayed for me. “But back to your parents.”

  “They’ll be here for Parents’ Weekend. Maybe I’ll tell them then,” I said to end the conversation. How long had it been since I slept? “Do you mind if I lie down and close my eyes while we wait for the pizza?” He shook his head, and I tried to ignore how sadly he was looking at me.

  I’D BEEN ASSIGNED a student advocate, my “source of support,” as Simone had described herself to me. Simone was a third-year and spoke to me as if she were my kindergarten teacher, as if instead of being raped, I’d been assigned to her class, in which we’d be learning shapes and colors.

  “Do you have any questions?” she asked in a voice that made me think nothing bad has ever happened to you.