But how, some wondered, were colleges not providing equal access? Weren’t colleges already over 50 percent female? The “Dear Colleague” letter cleared up any confusion; there simply was a campus rape culture—again, that study said so—and by definition such a culture created a hostile and unsafe environment. Such an environment might well discourage women from applying in the first place, and that constituted unequal access.
Colleges were on notice. They had to get their acts together—or else.
In the years following, Devon and others built out expensive infrastructures to ensure compliance. Martika’s Title IX group, a subdivision of her Office of Diversity and Inclusion, had twenty-seven employees, plus outside counsel.
Devon had endured a single OCR investigation, something Martika was determined to never have happen again. It happened about six years ago. Members of the Beta Psi house sent their pledges down to the Womyn’s Collective, where they stood outside and chanted, “No means yes, yes means anal!” Someone filmed it, and it got lots of play on CNN. A team of officials from OCR was practically on the next plane. The ensuing investigation lasted seven months and cost Devon upward of a million dollars. (The Betas said they didn’t mean it literally, they were just trolling the feminists. They considered it good sport.)
Lots had changed in six years, and if a fraternity pulled a stunt like that today, Martika had no doubt the OCR death penalty would result, regardless of how the university handled it. Chop-chop. No more federal funds. How misogynist and exclusionary organizations like fraternities still had a presence at Devon was beyond Martika, but she was making progress on that front.
For any college to keep the OCR happy, it had to show results. Filing quarterly reports with no cases of assault wasn’t an option. While it might suggest the Devon campus was a halcyon island of sexual accord, the OCR would be suspicious. With assault rates at 25 percent, someone was doing something. Given this, the colleges had to encourage women to come forward. Victims had to be educated as to what constituted assault because often they didn’t fully appreciate their own circumstances. Lulu Harris, for instance, could not have given consent because, according to Yolanda Perez, she had been drinking.
At the outset, Lulu, like many others, had not been sufficiently knowledgeable to understand her own abuse. Recent campus “awareness” initiatives were helping. For instance, just because a woman was in a sexual relationship didn’t mean consent was given each time sex occurred. And even if an encounter starts as consensual, women have every right to withdraw consent during the act. Importantly, consent withdrawal can include nonverbal cues such as silence or passivity. Male students were being taught, under her office’s guidance, how to read such nonverbal cues. All first-years were now required to attend a two-day workshop on proper sexual procedures. The result of these initiatives was a 500 percent increase in reported incidents, an improvement Malik-Adams had used to great effect in her last compensation review.
The illegitimate billionaires now running the U.S. government were trying to say “Never mind” about the “Dear Colleague” letter, but most schools, including Devon, were having none of it. The machine was built, and it was doing what it was supposed to do: expose and remove sexual predators.
But Devon had never reeled in a professor. There had always been rumors, and Martika chased each whisper down every rabbit hole, but bagging a prize had proved elusive. In the world of Title IX, a professor was considered a big-game trophy. The Title IX head at Whitby College got the keynote nod at last year’s Equity and Inclusion Conference in Las Vegas after she toppled a fully tenured professor, one of some fame in physics circles. He had taken a grad student to an academic conference, and they ended up in a single hotel room where sex occurred. Both the professor and the student maintained it was consensual, but the power imbalance in their relationship made this impossible. The professor lost not only his job but also his pension. The publicity rendered him unemployable, and the last anyone knew he had retreated to Mexico for the lower cost of living.
Visions of keynotes played in Martika’s head as she looked up from her notes at Lulu Harris.
Yeah, No
LULU SAT ON a comfortable couch in Martika’s spacious office, along with two other people, introduced as Rhonda Stern, a Devon staff psychologist, and a stenographer. Lulu wondered how long this was going to take. She had an appointment with the ladies at the day spa.
“I know how difficult this must be,” said Martika. “I want you to know how courageous you are in coming forward. And what you’re doing—your protest—I can’t even tell you how inspiring it is for all of us.”
“Thank you, Dean,” said Lulu between chews. She was working over a piece of appetite-suppressant gum.
“Please, call me Martika.”
“Okay, Martika.”
“I want you to know that Rhonda here has a lot of experience with our survivors. She’s here to help you through this.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Lulu. I hope we can be friends,” said Stern.
“Nice to meet you, too.”
“I see you don’t wear your crawling clothes all the time,” said Stern, attempting to break the ice. She and Martika did their best to chuckle. Lulu was wearing a simple shawl from the Donna Karan winter collection.
“They get pretty torn up.”
“You know, I don’t want to get overly serious, but a lot of us are concerned for you,” continued Stern. “How are you feeling?”
“Fine.”
“It’s okay to say something if you aren’t. You should know that everything discussed here is completely confidential, and at no time will you be made to talk to anyone else or to the person who did this to you. This is a safe space. Both Martika and I and the whole university are bound by the same rules.”
“So nothing I say leaves this room?” Lulu continued to work over her piece of gum. She wanted to get through lunch on only a small salad.
“We will use what you say to establish what happened and make a case against your assailant, if warranted,” said Martika. “But the only person you need to convince is me. As Devon’s chief Title IX officer, I both investigate and adjudicate the case. This is completely normal, and it’s to protect your privacy. No one else will know what is said here. Do you understand?”
“I do. You’ve been very clear.”
“So … how are you feeling?” asked Stern. “This must all be so difficult.”
“Well, Rhonda, my knees are pretty shot and I’ve got hands like one of my dad’s landscapers, but other than that, not too bad.”
“But how do you feel? Emotionally speaking.”
“Oh, you know.”
“Perhaps you could tell us.”
“I feel peachy, Rhonda. I’m worried I’m a bit behind on my work, though.”
“You don’t concern yourself with that. We will contact all your professors and provide you with notetakers,” Martika said.
“With what?”
“We will have grad students sit in and take notes for you. It’s often done in cases like this. We mean you don’t have to go to class.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously. No one should have to go through what you’re going through, and we know that meeting your class schedule under these circumstances is difficult.”
“Well, that would be nice.”
“Is there anything else we can do to ease this process for you?”
Lulu sniffed an opportunity, and her eyebrows rose almost imperceptibly. “I’m sort of embarrassed to say … my room.… I’m stuck there a lot of the time now, and I have a roommate who is not very sympathetic, and it feels so … claustrophobic, like the walls are closing in. It’s suffocating.”
“Would you feel better in a single?” Martika asked.
“I think that would help.” Lulu allowed her lips to quiver ever so slightly. Song can suck it!
“Done. I’ll make one available for you.” Martika made a note on her legal pad. “Now, Lulu …
honey, I know this is difficult, but if you would, in your own words, tell us what happened that day. We’d like a contextual understanding.”
“Which day is that, Martika?”
“The day of the assault.”
“What assault?”
Stern and Malik-Adams looked at each other quizzically. “The day Professor Russell assaulted you. Can you tell us what happened? In your own words.”
“Nothing.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean nothing happened.”
“But you indicated to both Dean Choudhary and Yolanda Perez, your RA, that Professor Russell assaulted you.”
Lulu took out her spent piece of gum and cast about for a place to put it. Martika produced a napkin. “Yeah, no,” Lulu said, retrieving another stick of gum from her bag.
“I’m afraid I don’t understand,” said Martika.
“What’s that?”
“Are you now saying he didn’t assault you?”
“That’s what I’m saying.”
“But you were quite clear with Yolanda and Dean Choudhary that he did.”
“You know, Martika, I feel like they were putting a lot of pressure on me.”
“What kind of pressure?”
“To name someone. I mean really, they just wouldn’t let up. Yolanda—jeez, she wouldn’t shut up about it. Plus they practically threatened to throw me out for that stupid scepter thing if I didn’t hand them someone. I feel like they put me in an emotionally stressful situation.”
“But, Lulu, what about this?” Malik-Adams pushed across the table the picture of Lulu that Perez had taken.
Lulu recoiled at the sight of it. “Ugh, that awful picture. I wish you people would lose it.”
“But you’ve clearly been assaulted.”
“Nope. Fell. Hit my head.”
“You fell.”
“Yup, fell.”
“Where did this happen?”
“At the Beta house. I was really shit-faced.” Lulu laughed at the memory. “Whew, yeah. Quite the bender.”
“So you’re saying you just … fell down.”
“Yup. Hurt like a sonuvabitch, Martika.”
Something was clearly wrong. Rhonda Stern decided she needed to intervene. “Lulu, we know how upsetting these things can be, but burying your emotions can only cause greater trauma down the road. Please believe me when I say you need to address this head-on to start on a healing path.”
“Nope. I’m good. Do you guys have any coffee?”
“Of course,” Martika said.
As she walked to the door, Lulu could scarcely contain her horror over the vast swath of gold spandex stretched like Saran wrap over Martika’s ass. It looked like two squirrels fighting over a Ritz cracker under there. Martika came back with coffee, and Lulu tried hard to think about something else.
“Lulu,” said Martika, striking a more serious note all of a sudden. “We’ve conducted a search of Professor Russell’s emails, and we know you met with him that day. We also have evidence that you were drinking with him. There is a picture of the two of you and alcohol is clearly visible.”
“Yup. May have had a pop. I mean, hey, Fridays, am I right?”
“So you acknowledge that Professor Russell gave you alcohol.”
“Well, not exactly. I just grabbed the bottle and had a belt.”
“You grabbed it.”
“That’s right, Martika.”
“And drank right out of the bottle.”
“Yup.”
“But the bottle was sitting out, correct?”
“Correctamundo.”
“What was a bottle doing out during a scheduled meeting between a student and professor?”
“Not sure he knew I was coming, to tell you the truth.”
“Was it after alcohol was consumed that he made an overture toward you?”
“I suppose so, but I kissed him, not the other way around. He’s pretty hot, don’t you think? I mean, ladies, have you seen that ass? That’s what I’m talkin’ about. He wasn’t interested, though.” Lulu shrugged.
“Forgive me, but after the accusations you made, this is all a bit hard to grasp.” Martika looked like she was starting to hyperventilate.
“Like I said, everyone was all up in my grill, so I felt pressure to name someone. Probably shouldn’t have done that, so sorry. Yeah.”
Martika’s and Stern’s faces betrayed states of extreme flabbergast. “But the Crawl,” said Stern. “Help us understand.”
“Oh, yeah, that. I think gender violence is a terrible thing. Don’t you, Martika? Just terrible. I thought I should make a statement, do my part and all. Don’t you think that’s a worthwhile statement to make?”
“Certainly,” Martika said, “but your clothes, when you crawl … they’re just like Russell’s.”
“Are they? I hadn’t noticed. Frankly, I just needed something sensible. You couldn’t very well expect me to ruin my Dolce and Gabbana, could you?”
The two administrators looked at each other. The interview had left the tracks. “Uh, Lulu, perhaps we could continue this another time.”
“Okay, Martika. Do you think I could get another coffee to go?”
* * *
Lulu’s walk back to Duffy traced much of her nightly route. Every face she passed gleamed with recognition, even admiration. Some said, “Peace, Lulu!” Others snapped admiration with their fingers. One person yelled, “Crawl on, sister!”
She glided over one chalk tribute after another. Part of her hated the chalk; it got into the cuts on her hands and knees and took forever to clean off. It also wafted up and coated the inside of her lungs, which gave her coughing fits. Still, it made for good reading. One chalking, done in Lenten purple, said SAINT LULU and had a little halo above it.
Totally worth it.
Today had been great fun. The hardest part was not laughing out loud, particularly at “contextual understanding” and “healing path.” She found digging a sharp fingernail into her thigh an effective way to keep a straight face.
A few days earlier, Sheldon had made a surprise visit. He arrived in his 750i, chauffeured by his usual driver, Pauly. Sheldon’s midnight-blue Savile Row suit, complete with folded handkerchief, stood out against the sartorial frumpiness of campus. His salt-and-pepper hair was combed straight back. He was the image of Manhattan success.
Word of the Crawl had reached him, of course, and he imagined his only child had … what? Been attacked by some professor and become a crazed feminist? He didn’t know what to think, but his alarm was real.
Lulu came clean with him, at least about Russell’s innocence. Sheldon didn’t need to hear about the hairy man-boy. He also didn’t need to hear about the Great Scepter Affair, either, although Lulu was now certain her growing fame had put that issue to bed.
“But you’ve accused him, this professor!” Sheldon was confused, which Lulu granted was understandable.
“Only to my RA and a dean. They kept bugging me for a name because they thought I’d been raped or something. I hit my head one night and had a big bruise on my face. Remember, from St. Barts? It was no big deal.”
“You told me you fell.”
“Exactly.”
“But everyone thinks you’re some tragic victim!”
“People think what they want.”
“And you’re telling me the truth.”
“No one raped me, no one assaulted me, and I told my RA as much at the time. She got angry. I think she was actually disappointed.”
“So … this crawl business?”
She couched the Crawl as kind of a performance art project, omitting that she wasn’t enrolled in any art classes. (Sheldon wouldn’t have noticed either way.) “I started doing it, you know, almost as a lark, and it just turned into this thing. It was all rather spontaneous. Can’t say I thought it through, exactly.” Okay, that wasn’t exactly true.
“Jesus Christ, Lulu, that may be the understatement of the year. Do you understand
Russell could sue you—sue us? You’ve made this look like it’s about him.”
“Well, like I said, I never actually said anything about Russell publicly. People assume whatever they like. I can’t be responsible for what people assume, can I, Daddy?” Lulu knew full well how to play to Sheldon’s affections. She did everything but bat her eyelashes.
“But I still don’t understand—the Crawl, any of this. Help me out here.”
“It’s something. People are responding. Do you know I hit a hundred thousand followers on Twitter yesterday? I barely started the account!”
That got Sheldon’s attention. Lulu knew that ninety-nine in a hundred fathers would have responded with bewilderment or even scorn, but not Sheldon. Sheldon knew the value of branding. “So … what now? You’re a feminist superhero or something?”
“Or something.” Lulu gave her best girl-next-door smile, the kind few fathers could resist. She could see Sheldon’s wheels turning. He was weighing the angles. It’s what he was good at.
“All right, then. I had a talk before I came over here with a Dean Chu … Chow…”
“Choudhary.”
“Right smarmy son of a bitch. He informed me that this is now a Title IX matter and wouldn’t tell me anything else. Said it was to protect your privacy. Hah, can you believe that? I’m your goddamned father. Who does he think pays your tuition? Anyway, I called the office, and one of my partners knows a top Title IX guy. Apparently it’s a red-hot field. Who knew? You and I are going to speak with him as soon as possible.”
* * *
And they did, to one Leo Silver. This was when Lulu learned she was bulletproof, at least where the school was concerned. She could say pretty much anything to the Title IX people and there would be no consequences. “They can’t touch you,” Silver said.
Ephraim Russell was another matter. While his rights under Title IX were virtually nonexistent, it was entirely possible he could bring a civil suit. Silver argued strongly that if Lulu hadn’t actually been attacked, she should immediately recant her accusations. Otherwise, any civil suit would be adjudicated outside Devon’s aegis, and there was no telling what might happen there. “Russell would have rights,” Silver said.
Campusland: A Novel Page 24