Students Protest Sexual Assault Handling

By Anne Brandes and Erin Choi

In an effort to confront Exeter’s history of mishandling sexual assault, a crowd of more than 200 students gathered around Principal William Rawson on Thursday, May 9, to voice concerns, share personal experiences and pose questions in anticipation of Rawson’s responses.  

While the sit-in was originally set to take place in the Principal’s office, the number of students in attendance quickly exceeded the space available, and they relocated to the J. Smith quad, where they commenced a Q&A with Rawson for almost three hours.

Protesters stated that the sit-in was not a response to one particular case, but to the Academy’s fraught past concerning sexual misconduct, including the Rockingham Files and cases against former Exeter faculty member Rick Schubart. 

Some interpreted the protest as a culmination of student frustrations accumulated over many years due to personal knowledge or experience of the Academy not providing adequate support to survivors.

 According to Rawson, the administration has taken several steps to address sexual misconduct on campus in the past year, including the adoption of a verbal affirmation consent policy, training adults and students to uphold the consent policy and scheduling subsequent consent training for all student leaders throughout the year.

The hiring of Christina Palmer as the Academy’s first Director of Student Wellbeing two years ago was another significant step. 

 However, some students believe the Academy’s progress has been lacking. Senior Chinasa Mbanugo decided to help organize the sit-in to express this sentiment. “We … wanted to show the administration that the way that sexual misconduct is handled at our school is egregious,” Mbanugo said.

After listening to student concerns, Rawson affirmed that he is invested in promoting long-term Academy change. “Certainly, I heard the students’ strong statements that more needs to be done to address campus climate and more needs to be done to build trust in the process for reporting misconduct and handling cases,” he said. 

Rawson clarified the current Academy protocol for responding to reports of sexual assault: once Palmer receives a report, the school’s private investigator conducts an investigation supervised by Assistant Principal Karen Lassey. Meanwhile, Palmer supports the reporting party, while the Dean of Students supports the responding party. The investigator comes to a conclusion and makes a recommendation to the deans, who hold a meeting and share their recommendation with Rawson, at which point he makes the final decision under the Principal’s Discretion policy.

Several of the sit-in’s organizers felt that the volume of students who attended the protest exceeded their expectations. “The number of people who turned out was extremely indicative of the state our institution is in,” Mbanugo said.

Rawson said that he will continue heeding student voices in order to enact positive change. “Some of the issues are difficult, and some of my answers did not make students feel heard, but I care deeply and will keep trying to listen,” he said. 

Lassey expressed her appreciation for Rawson’s efforts. “I know he didn’t answer perfectly. I think it’s pretty hard to stand up in front of 200 people and say everything you want to say in the way you hope to say it,” she said.

How It Began

News of the Thursday sit-in spread quickly through Instagram stories late Wednesday evening. Many organizers and attendees appended their announcement, with a clarification that the protest was not regarding one specific case. 

At 12:50 p.m., students began to congregate inside the Principal’s Office; however, as more students joined the crowd, the line wound down the staircase and out of the building. After brief confusion, the protest was relocated to the quad at approximately 1:15 p.m.

In an effort to be more easily heard, Rawson stood on a chair and delivered initial remarks, in which he emphasized that his administration values all students equally. Then, Rawson proceeded to outline the current PEA policy for responding to reports of sexual misconduct.

Following Rawson’s opening speech, students began raising their hands to pose questions to Rawson regarding the Academy’s current process for dealing with sexual misconduct as well as Rawson’s understanding and definitions of consent.

Some students asked about the validity of the current process; specifically, many voiced concerns about Principal’s Discretion, given their impression that Rawson did not appear to have received formal training regarding consent or sexual assault. Rawson, however, expressed confidence in his training, which included a session on the subject at an National Association of Independent Schools conference this spring and independent reading before coming to Exeter. 

Senior Anna Clark recalled inquiring whether or not the investigation process aligned with the Academy’s affirmative consent policy. “You acknowledged that any sexual interaction that does not involve affirmative, verbal, non-coerced consent constitutes sexual misconduct,” she remembered asking. “Are you then saying that any reported case for which you decide on a non-disciplinary response was in fact based on a sexual interaction that did involve affirmative, verbal, non-coerced, continuous consent and that you do not believe the survivor?”

“To this question, Principal Rawson responded, ‘Yes,’” Clark said.

Senior Nat Love said that this was one of the most memorable responses from Rawson out of the entire protest. “I was so shocked,” she said. 

During the protest, others expressed that reporting students did not receive adequate support from the Academy during and after the investigation process, often citing their own stories. About an hour into the sit-in, Rawson asked the crowd if they perceived that sexual assault was happening on campus on a regular basis. The crowd responded with a loud yes. 

Collins noticed a shift in Rawson’s manner of addressing the crowd once he noted the protest’s significance. “I felt that there was a point in the afternoon in which he realized … we were there to see change,” she said.

For some adults in the community, the perceived scale of unreported cases was surprising, according to Lassey. “There seemed to be really strong agreement in the group that sexual assault is happening all the time, every day on this campus,” she said. “I found this distressing. Equally distressing was the sentiment that there is discomfort in reporting and the feeling that reports would be overlooked; it is critical that we address this disconnect.”

Impetus For Protest

A point of tension surrounding the protest was the question of whether one specific case fueled its organization.

Senior Hanna Pak explained that she attended the sit-in because of the way in which the Academy has handled cases of sexual assault in her four years at Exeter, as demonstrated by highly-publicized cases.

Others, like senior and EASA co-head Jane Collins, wanted to highlight the ubiquitous nature of sexual assault on campus. “I decided to attend the sit-in because I wanted to show my peers that I was with them, that I believed survivors and that everyone deserved a process in which they were treated fairly,” she said. 

Classics Instructor Matthew Hartnett doubted whether the sit-in was truly to protest a long-term trend. “There was a certain disingenuousness about it in that the stated purpose—to clarify policy—did not seem to be the aim of most of the questions and statements I heard,” Hartnett said.

Love, meanwhile, recalled how at the sit-in, Rawson, despite students repeating that they had not attended the sit-in because of a specific case, seemed to assume that anyways. 

Another concern, upper Nicholas Schwarz asserted, was the tone used by the protesters. “I think that the bottom line is most of what the sit-in set out to accomplish was a good thing and most of what it in fact did accomplish was a good thing,” he said. “I just think it’s worth pointing out it could have been significantly better in some ways, if the students who lacked self-restraint and were disrespectful had not directed their anger towards the wrong people.”

After the Sit-in

Principal Rawson continued to meet with students on Friday morning in the Assembly Hall in lieu of regular assembly programming. Additional support from Counseling Services, Religious Services and the Office of Multicultural Affairs was also available. The Q&A session with Rawson continued from 9:50 a.m., the beginning of assembly, until 11:35 a.m., the end of A format. 

At Friday’s assembly, Rawson verbally committed that his administration would set and announce specific goals with their timelines as to how they planned to help resolve student concerns. 

Senior and EASA co-head Grace Carroll remarked that some credit is due to Rawson’s ability to lean in. “I think he’s proven since the incident has occurred that he definitely has not tried to move away from the protest or tried to move on from it, which I think is really important,” she said. “And I do credit him there.”

On the other hand, Carroll noted that, at times, Rawson missed the students’ concerns. 

“He wasn’t validating the nature of the anger and the nature of the issues that we were trying to raise,” she said. “At its heart, this is not a question of students versus the administration. I think anytime it is phrased as students versus the administration, it’s going to hugely detract from the truth. Our intent in engaging in dialogue is to find a solution.”

Senior Niko Amber expressed that she wished Rawson had been more prepared. “I really wish that Principal Rawson prepared a statement for the assembly. I’m glad he’s answering our questions, but in some ways I think his answers to questions dug himself into a deeper hole because he wasn’t prepared,” she said. “I didn’t disagree with everything he said, but his tone was very defensive, which I found disappointing.”

Student-driven Initiatives

Students independently arranged events to digest the sit-in. One of these was a meeting led by EASA, the Martin Luther King Jr. Day (MLK Day) Committee and the student organizers of the protest. 

Lower Nahla Owens expressed that the meeting properly harnessed the student body’s post sit-in sentiments and channelled them into creating a feasible action plan for the Academy. “I felt that the club meetings after were incredibly productive in turning all of the hurt and anger and passion into a concrete list of doable requests,” she said.

Other student efforts after the sit-in include an art show and a video to broadcast stories of survivors. To create the video, lower Audrey Yin posted a Google form on social media and received over 40 submissions, 36 of which were stories. 

From her experience creating the video, she learned the extent of sexual assault throughout campus. “I learned that sexual assault can happen to everyone and can affect everyone,” she said. “Whether you support the sit-in or not, this is a people issue.”

Lower and co-producer JaQ Lai hopes to highlight the importance of students’ emotional wellbeing. “In my mind, this is an effort to emphasize that sexual assault is ultimately about the emotional impact on those who report instances of misconduct,” he said. 

A group of seven students presented a list of demands to Rawson, Lassey and Director of Equity and Inclusion Stephanie Bramlett at a meeting on Wednesday, May 15. The suggestions in the proposal include amending the definition of consent and implementing a zero-tolerance policy; for the Principal to undergo sexual misconduct training, should Principal’s Discretion remain; the creation of a council of Deans and Faculty, nominated and approved by students, to decide disciplinary outcomes, modeled after the current disciplinary process; the release of reporting statistics, including number of reports, fully realized investigations and the gender, grade and race of all parties involved; more clarity and agency for the involved students and the extension of Dean’s Leave to include continued emotional, not just physical, harm.

Campus-wide Reflection

In the wake of the sit-in, many parties on campus reflected upon the day’s events.

Pak questioned Rawson’s words at the sit-in. “A reaffirmation of the school’s values is not an answer to a question of how you’re going to change,” she said.

Love similarly expressed disappointment at many of the answers that Rawson provided as well as his tone. “He went into full lawyer attack mode,” she said. “That was the wrong message to send when you’re standing in front of students because as a principal and as students, we’re all working towards the same end of bettering the school.”

Meanwhile, lower Alec Tracey said that, while he was dissatisfied by some of Rawson’s responses, he acknowledged that it may have been a difficult situation for Rawson to handle. “I get that he’s trying to appeal to everyone as principal,” Tracey said. “It’s hard to say what the right thing to do was in that situation.” 

More than anything, senior Nkemjika Emenike hopes that the administration prioritizes each student’s wellbeing over the appearance of the administration. “I have seen the school try to cover up misconduct, and I don’t want to hear about it only when The Boston Globe points it out,” she said. 

All in all, senior Ingrid Bergill felt that the sit-in facilitated new dialogue that had not yet occurred during her four years at Exeter. “I think that one thing that the sit-in did accomplish is that we got more information about the process, and we got some answers to questions, though many weren’t answered because of legal issues,” she said. She described it as “the biggest step” she’s seen in her time at Exeter. 

English Instructor and EASA advisor Barbara Desmond commented, “I was struck by students’ raw anger and by Principal Rawson’s endurance and willingness to circle back and reconsider some of his answers,” she said.

Other teachers felt that the protest was not a forum conducive to constructive dialogue and as a result, will not facilitate trust in the community. “I just don’t think the whole setup was fair,” Hartnett said. “I think it was like an ambush in a way.”

Hartnett took issue with the questions’ spirit, as they did not consider the adults working to improve the Academy. “I was struck by the tone of many of the questions, which I thought was disrespectful,” he said. “It’s hard from where I sit because I see a whole lot of adults and administrators putting an enormous amount of care and thought and effort into getting these policies right and listening to students; they’re well meaning.”

Additionally, senior Zachary Spencer noted that some students may have presumed the intent of policies. “I assumed that … the schools policy is there for good reasons until we can determine otherwise,” Spencer said. “People, in their emotions, tend to jump to the worst possible accusation.” 

Modern Languages Instructor Amadou Talla explained that, after the sit-in, he hopes that the Academy community can rebuild trust. “I believe listening to one another is at the core of that work,” he said.

Looking to the Future

Upon reflecting on the state of the Academy, many have plans for future initiatives. 

For instance, counseling services have created an updated reporting protocol—in the works since before the sit-in—that outlines both the legal and administrative response following a report of sexual misconduct. “The updated protocol clarifies the steps that are involved to ensure clear communication, strong support and fair treatment of all parties,” Director of Counseling and Psychological Services Szu-Hui Lee said. “The reporting process is emotionally difficult and inherently complicated, so a roadmap is grounding.”

Other changes, both large and small, are on the table, according to Lassey. From collaboration between students and the administration, Lassey believes that the Academy will make efforts to improve. “I feel like we can have some really concrete action items mapped out before the end of the year as well as long term changes. We had a positive and productive meeting Wednesday afternoon with students who walked us through some very thoughtful proposals.”

While senior Sophie Bunnell, co-organizer of the sit-in, hopes that student proposals will be implemented, she will also look for a campus-wide culture shift. “There are a lot of changes I hope to see implemented on campus moving forward,” she said. “I think that, as long as we continue this dialogue and hold those in positions of power accountable, we can maintain the same pushing force behind this issue that we currently have.”

Alumni are also looking for changes in the Academy’s consideration of sexual misconduct. Phillips Exeter Alumni for Truth and Healing (PATH) sent a letter to Rawson outlining their concerns and actions they would like to see Exeter take. “Exeter has undermined the relationship with PATH that both parties facilitated, beginning with Lisa MacFarlane’s tenure,” the letter read. “Only by taking care of current survivors sincerely can Exeter claim it is working towards culture change to ensure that Exeter is a safe place for youth from all quarters and that Exeter itself is a true leader in the elite preparatory school world.”

Reflecting upon the sit-in and the following events, upper Khine Win remarked that she hopes the sit-in has strengthened broader campus awareness around sexual assault. “Everyone needs to be aware of improving themselves, and students need to remember that they have an active role in the culture,” she said. 

The next steps for the administration, Rawson described, will be developing a work plan to address school culture; education and training; reducing barriers to reporting; ways to support students through and after an investigative process and how the administration conducts investigations and makes decisions. “We want broad participation in this work from adults and students,” he said. “We all need to be a part of this work.”

Dean of Academic Affairs Brooks Moriarty pinpointed trust as one of the administration’s foremost concerns. “One thing that is clear ...  trust is a real problem,” he said. “We need to work on that.”

Rawson described his vision for Academy a year into the future. “A year from now, I want students to feel that, collectively, we did things that really changed the school for the better,” he said. “I want students to feel, starting right now, that the conversation has shifted, that we are creating more trust and that we are headed in a better direction.”