Those who placed the anonymous posters around campus labeling a '99 a rapist did a great disservice to both the students involved and to the Dartmouth community as a whole.
In no way do I mean to disparage the seriousness of rape and sexual assault. These are very serious crimes and must be strongly punished. There are, however, effective ways of dealing with sexual assaults. Dartmouth offers several avenues victims of assault can take; there are Sexual Abuse Peer Adivoors, Dick's House, Deans and the Committee on Standards, as well as the local police department. To anonymously attack someone's character is not an effective, or a fair, way of dealing with sexual assault.
Many Dartmouth students have doubts about the ways in which the judicial system works at Dartmouth. Students expressed concern earlier in the term when information was released that the COS had expelled students found guilty of academic crimes, but only suspended one found guilty of rape. This in no way excuses the actions of those who hung the posters.
In Wednesday's issue of The Dartmouth, Dean Pelton stated that while he found the posters to be "inappropriate ... .it is unlikely the College will take any disciplinary action against the person or people who put up the posters." It is exactly this kind of statement that undermines the College's role as a disciplinarian. The College must discourage all crimes, be they that of sexual assault or of libel.
And Tuesday's posters were definitely libelous. Webster's New World Dictionary defines libel as: "any false and malicious written or printed statement, or any sign, picture, or effigy, tending to expose a person to public ridicule, hatred, or contempt or to injure a person's reputation in any way." The posters offered no proof. According to both College and police officials, no formal charges have been filed against the male involved.
So what are we, as Dartmouth students, to think? Are we to believe the posters, and find a '99 guilty of rape without ever hearing when, where, or how the event occurred? Is the accused ever to know who is accusing him? What about the unnamed and alleged victim? Should our opinion of her (or him even) be shaped by the inappropriate and anonymous way in which this incident was made public? What does this person's unwillingness to go public mean? Is the victim's case to be damaged by the inappropriate way in which the accusation was made public?
Without knowing who was involved, or what actually occurred, Dartmouth students are forced to have an opinion. No one who saw the posters can ever look at this young man without remembering what he was accused of on that anonymous piece of paper. I did not see the posters, and I do not wish to know the student's name; but because it appeared on the front page of the newspaper for which I write, I cannot ignore it.
This flyer is part of a disturbing trend towards anonymous accusers on this campus. Last winter an anonymous group of students dumped manure on the lawns of Beta Theta Pi and Alpha Chi Alpha fraternities. Later that week a flyer was distributed claiming to tell the real story behind the Beta poem, the Alpha Chi script and events that followed a possibly slanderous quote made by Miranda Johnson '97 about the Alpha Delta fraternity [see "Students distribute flyer," The Dartmouth, Feb. 27].
In her March 5 response to the flyer, Johnson called for a conversation in which students discuss why events like this occurred on our campus. Johnson was right. There does need to be conversation about issues such as rape and sexism and racism on this campus.
A conversation, however, usually involves at least two sides. So far all that the campus has seen is an anonymous group passing judgment on an unproven crime. As long as some Dartmouth students feel the right to take a stand without revealing their identities, there will be no productive conversations.
It is very easy to stand up for one's beliefs in private and to one's friends. It is another to go public with one's convictions. I only wish that those who use this kind of anonymous flyer to mask their identities would have the courage to stand behind their convictions.
Maybe then we could have a conversation.
