Student Protest Academy's Sexual Misconduct Reporting Policy

“Take back our childhood.” “Hold the Academy accountable.” “BELIEVE + PRIORITIZE SURVIVORS.” Boldly lettered on cardstock, these words embodied the stances of students on strike from classes last Friday as they demanded a response from the Academy addressing its history of sexual misconduct.

Following the publication of Nancy Jo Sales’ ’82 Vanity Fair article entailing the Academy’s sexual assault cases, student leaders of the Gender Sexuality Alliance (GSA), Exonians Against Sexual Assault (EASA), Feminist Union and Transitions collaborated to organize an Assembly protest September 17 on the Academy Lawn, where the leaders shared personal anecdotes and encouraged fellow Exonians to sign a petition asking to “hold the Academy accountable for supporting its Student Leaders” in regard to sexual assault cases. This petition voiced the “unfair burden that the Academy places on student leaders due to their negligence in communications surrounding sexual misconduct” and outlines specific demands and calls for accountability; it is published in full on page 8 in this issue of The Exonian. Later, students began a class strike, congregating on the steps of the Lamont Art Gallery for the remainder of the school day, demanding that the Academy recognize the levels of student distress and emotional well-being. 

Led by members of the Feminist Union, EASA, GSA and Transitions, the Assembly protest lasted for 30 minutes, with students, faculty, staff members and deans present. Student leaders delivered speeches demanding changes and expressing disappointments in the Academy’s sexual assault reporting policies. 

As senior Michelle Park read to the hundreds of students and faculty gathered on the Academy lawn: “To the preps and lowers: welcome to campus. I bet that this is not how you expected your first week of school to go, but this is Exeter for you.”

Assembly Protest Student Leader Speeches

Senior and Feminist Union co-head Siona Jain described sexism at the Academy. “When you are a woman at Exeter, you will be told your voice doesn’t matter even when the matter concerns you. When you’re a woman at Exeter, you will be judged, not based on what you bring to the table, but based on your stomach, shoulders, and chest. You may not be considered a scholar or leader when you’re a woman,” Jain said in her speech at the protest.

Upper and EASA co-head Riley Jones added to the discussion of the culture of sexual assault at Exeter. “Like many of you, I was given ‘the talk’ by my parents the night before I moved into Exeter. My mom sat me down and we made a plan. Always stand by the door. Never go into a faculty member’s home alone. Always tell someone where you are. Don’t walk by yourself at night. I assured her that I would be fine, that we would probably never see more allegations in the news, and that Exeter is a place where I will, above all, I will be safe,” Jones said. “But after every ‘Letter To Our Community’ that pops up out of nowhere in my inbox, I realize how wrong I was. Three years later I can tell you with certainty that I do not feel safe. I am scared.”

“At just 16 I have also been forced to pick up slack from the administration. To help new students process their own fear, sadness, and uncertainty,” Jones continued. “And so I do. I talk with them at night, in the common room, the hallway, and the bathroom. I listen to them while they cry. I listen while they question their decision to come here. I listen while they question their safety. I listen when they ask, ‘What if it happens to me?’”

“I am up here not because I want to be, but because this needs to end here. Because children should not have to pick up the burden left to us by the administration. And because we should not live in a community where we are scared,” Jones concluded.

Upper and Transitions co-head Priya Nwakanma echoed Jones’ sentiment in her speech, stating that students alone should not have to carry the burden of recent events. “Nothing about this week has been easy. There is a wave of quiet anger and a boiling sadness, and for some people, it’s their very first week here. They expected to spend this week walking carefully through Exeter’s historical hallways, upholding the reputation that the administration tries so hard to protect. Instead, they have been witness to the incredible grief of a community trying to reckon with itself.”

Nwakanma questioned, “How many people on this campus are called into Dr. Palmer’s office and treated not like victims, but like legal matters? How many people need to rehash each detail of their sexual assault until they’re once again intimately aware of every curve of the memory? How many people, in an attempt to reclaim their agency, have it taken from them all over again? The answer is already too many.”

Senior and EASA co-head Ana Casey assuaged other students. “You do not deserve to go through what we have been through and what this school has put us through,” Casey said. “You do not deserve to shoulder the responsibility that the administration refuses to acknowledge is actually theirs.”

“However old you are, you are too young to be doing the administration's job for them. You deserve to feel like a kid. You deserve to enjoy school and learning and friends without this burden,” Casey continued. “And so all of us are standing up here on the steps today to tell you that that burden that was passed down to us, will not be passed to anyone ever again. It ends with us.”

Upper and Transitions co-head Ki Odums demanded change to the school’s environment and the emotional burden students shoulder in supporting their peers in unsafe environments. “This is an outcry of change; change that is long overdue, change that allows children to be children and not feel the burden of responsibility to take on the role of an adult for their peers, and change that is necessary to create an environment where sexual assault is not a primary concern for students during their second week of high school. This has not been the first time where conversations about sexual assault have arose on campus: this is a continuation. We as students have had enough. We want this year to be the final year where students who are here to learn feel obligated to assume the position of primary counselors,” Odums said.

Upper and Transitions co-head Lydia Osei criticized the administration’s actions: “All of us gathering here together shows that we aren’t and haven’t been taken seriously. It shows that students aren’t the focus and we’re not willing to wait any longer for the administration to care about the wellbeing of the students. It shows that we want change.”

Senior and EASA co-head Lyric Zimmerman called for an end to complacency. “No longer will I accept the expectation for greatness while it's paired with no respect. I reject the undue burden thrust upon me to teach children wrong from right. I refuse to normalize that which hurts others for the sake of an elitist ignorance. I say this to ensure that no one after us goes through what those before us survived. I am done with my fear of this institution in which I am expected to change. Here’s to the end of complacency,” Zimmerman said.

Upper and Feminist Union co-head Jennifer Finklestein recited an alumni’s call to action, which was directed to the Academy and its next steps. “I am grateful for the faculty and students who make Exeter the amazing place it is. I'm ready for Exeter to embrace this challenge for real, with honesty, transparency and dedication to getting it right. I hope Exeter can see this moment as the challenge that it is, and rise up to meet it.” 

Jain concluded her speech by addressing the administration. “To the admin, do better or pay me. I, along with all of the amazing activists on campus, deserve to be a kid. Hire a consultant, an advocator with sexual assault experience. Make the survivor feel comforted, cared for, and listened to. We come first.” 

Assembly Protest Organizer Reflections

A list of demands drafted by student leaders was signed at the protest and online, calling for changes in the Academy’s commitment to creating a safe environment for students. 

Jain explained the motivation behind the assembly strike. “Our main goal was to protest the undue burden on student leaders, the lack of trauma informed care, and survivor-centered conversations,” Jain said.

Senior Janessa Vargas described the burden students face when coping with sexual assault trauma on their own. “We have no experience working in advocacy. We have not been professionally trained to deal with survivors of sexual assault in their trauma and how to do that in the best way. We're advocating the best we can, but in no way the best possible way we could.”

Osei agreed, citing the need for support on campus. “A lot of students felt left in the dark and we felt a lot of pressure to be there and support students. The sexual assault policies weren’t being discussed too often by adults on campus and none of my teachers brought it up until the protest,” Osei said. “We are tired of the level of pressure on us, especially this early. It’s also important to recognize that this is not normal. We deserve to be heard, to be listened to and to be taken seriously.”

Zimmerman felt “incredible immense pride” when she stood up “I felt pride in that moment when I stood up there, speaking to everyone. Incredible immense pride. The support I felt in that moment, when the school watched me speak, listened to me, and how I articulated how badly this school did me wrong, did us wrong. That was a moment of euphoria. That I could physically see a difference being made, even if it was for 45 minutes.”

Jones added, “the article was a tough read and I was super shaken up, and I expected there to be more to the letter to our community email that we received, where they used all of this passive language of like ‘We're so sorry for the hurt that you feel that we have caused you,’ and it was really troubling that they referenced Dr. Palmer as someone to go see, even when the article was about her.”

“And so I expected that maybe we would talk about it more. And I went to a Student Listener that night, and I figured that we would have a conversation about it there, but we didn't,” Jones continued. “And so I think at the core, I was seen throughout the week by so many different students who had stories to share and concerns, and were scared that they weren't safe here. And the school did nothing to help prepare us or support us while we were giving those conversations,” Jones said.

Senior and EASA co-head Lila Busser spoke about how teachers expect student leaders to act like adults. “The school doesn't tell us what's going on. They don't tell us when they're making changes, or what the rules are, or why we can't know things, or what the legality is behind all of this, so they treat us like children in that respect,” she said. “But they treat us like adults in that they expect us to be able to uphold and support the community while also trying to support ourselves, take care of our academics, sports, extracurriculars, clubs that we co-head, being student listeners and proctors.” 

“And then also our social lives, being friends with people, loving high school. Like experiencing the things that we're supposed to experience when we're kids, which is what we are,” they continued. 

Class Protest

Soon after the assembly protest, some students gathered on the stairs in front of the Lamont Art Gallery, calling for a class strike. Senior Ela Andreassen, one of the class strike organizers, stated that the strike was “to support the people who are feeling like they were emotionally unstable to go to class and they weren't feeling completely right. And it's okay. Because some of the other people here are also supporting you and we're also getting the same punishment.”

Feminist Union and EASA club members were informed of, but asked not to be affiliated with, the class strike. “We already planned to meet with the administration and we worked hard to be so careful about the planning so it could lead to productive conversation. There were parts of the class strike that we didn’t think would lend themselves towards that productivity,” Casey said. “I think the ‘Dick me’ signs were really inflammatory and to people who are not affiliated with the school, it sounds weird.”

Busser built on that idea. “Especially since Transitions is run primarily by women of color and people of color, it's very easy for something like that to take away from the assembly strike,” they commented. “At the same time, I respect everyone and their actions.” 

“Another thing is a lot of the faculty were really supportive of what we were doing and we were not striking against the faculty, we were striking against the way that the admin has taken care of the situation and all the situations before it,” she continued. “I think when you strike against faculty who are mostly on our side, it starts to erode some of that trust there and the support that they can make.”

Rawson Responds

Student leaders met with Principal William Rawson Monday to discuss possible policy changes and scheduled further meetings with other relevant faculty. “Currently our plans depend on how the administration follows through. I had a meeting with them Monday night along with several other co-heads,” Jain said. “They were very receptive, and I’m cautiously optimistic.” 

“We have work to do,” Rawson said in a speech to the Academy during the Core Values Project timeslot on September 21. “I hope the collaboration with students that followed the 2019 sit-in will provide a model for collaborative work with students now.”

In an interview with The Exonian, Rawson expressed his opinions on the efficacy of the strikes. “Students must judge this for themselves. My door is always open to hear concerns of students, and I always favor working together toward common goals. There will be times when we disagree on some issues, or times when competing considerations preclude some actions that the students would like the school to take, but I believe talking through the issues is the best way to achieve some common understanding under such circumstances.”

Community Reflections and Reactions

EASA advisor Barbara Desmond shared reactions of students shaken by the events. “I am hearing students express frustration that the school is not paying enough attention to the emotional impact of reports of sexual misconduct, from the past and recent past, on our current students,” Desmond said. “The students in my classes were sobered by the protest. They appreciated the chance to talk about it a bit, while also acknowledging and respecting that not everyone may want to talk about it in class.”

In response to the protest, English Instructor Patricia Burke decided to make space during Harkness discussions for her students on Friday. “My students had some in-class brainstorming for their next essay, and I added an open topic in case they needed to write about their experience at the protest or about the article,” Burke said. "This gave them a private space to process, reflect, or think about something else. I did not collect these."

English Instructor Mercy Carbonell supported students’ demands for changes and hoped for further changes in reporting policies. “I stand in solidarity with the organizers of the Community Healing on Thursday and the Protest on Friday,” Carbonell said. “While I believe in student activism and have witnessed the ways in which youth-based activism can make radical, essential change, I do not believe the labor should fall on students. As adults, we all must be trained in sexual assault prevention and must all practice trauma-informed care.”

“[Student leaders] should not have to be responsible for demanding change and raising awareness that will allow students to feel safe/respected. And yet what they created, designed & offered are acts of stunning courage, vulnerability, vision, purpose, and justice,” Carbonell said.

Charlotte Lisa ’21 and former Student Council co-President agreed that the students did some admirable and impactful work. “All the best change that I've seen at Exeter is because of student protests,” Lisa said. “I couldn't be prouder of students protesting and putting in that emotional work and emotional labor to do that.”

In response to Sales’ letter, Lisa expressed her opinions about the Academy not holding themselves accountable even after the article was published. “What the student leaders are asking for at this point feels a little bit like the bare minimum,” she said. “Like I think the academy needs to acknowledge the harm it's failure to handle the cases has caused. They need to hold themselves accountable. They need to support the student leaders.”

The student leaders also received incredible support from the alumni community, who were all equally angry with the way the school was handling these cases. “I think alumni I've spoken with are quite mad at the administration. If we were there, we'd be in the front lines of the protest, striking assembly,” Lisa commented. “We’re really worried about our good friends that are still there and having to deal with this, because it's so emotionally taxing. I think we've been sending out a lot of texts to our good friends. Like, ‘Hey, please reach out if you need anything.’”

Those involved in conversations surrounding the Academy’s handling of sexual misconduct did not just include returning students, faculty and alumni. New students offered their support as well. Prep Aiden Vieara-McCarthy said, “There have been events in the past few days at PEA [Phillips Exeter Academy] where kids have protested and have not gone to class because they're wanting to protest an issue that the administration has been dealing with. And I think that the school has a long history of sexual assault that hasn't gotten better over time. I think that what the students did was good. I think that they saw that they had an issue, they exercised their right to protest, and it was effective.”

Prep Sophia Jia said, “Throughout the admissions process, I've done a lot of research into the schools I applied to. And this is not only Exeter. I've seen a lot of stuff like this that has happened and that was one of my more major concerns when I was applying to boarding school. But I never thought that it was right in front of me, not until now.”

In an email sent to The Exonian, Sales expressed her gratitude and respect for student activism supporting sexual assault victims and redressing the Academy reporting policies on sexual assault:

“To the students of Exeter: I've been a journalist for almost thirty years, but I've never been more moved by the readers of any story I’ve done than I am by you. To see you rise up and take over this narrative and transform it in a positive way has been a wonderful thing to behold. Your support of each other, your commitment to change, and the clarity and grace with which you are doing all this is both stunning and humbling. I especially want to say thank you to EASA and the Feminist Union for helping lead the way. I also want to thank those of you who have reached out and expressed support for me personally.  I know some of you are also survivors, and to you I send back my support and love. Thank you for giving us all hope for the future. What you are doing is beautiful and important. Please don’t ever let anyone tell you otherwise.”