May this set an example of how to support a survivor for graduate students — and faculty — in other departments. And may the courage and moral compass of these students be a source of inspiration for the discipline at large:
(Comments closed here so that the conversation occurs in one location — with h/t and gratitude to Justin Weinberg of Daily Nous for doing the hard work of moderating.)
Tensions are running really high in philosophy right now. We’re in the midst of a sea change — on awareness of climate issues in the discipline, and on thoughts about what constitutes “good” philosophy. It’s a sea change that some philosopher-friends have quietly speculated may change the 2000-year-old face of philosophy itself.
One of the sources of the tension is the fact that certain prominent philosophers — I count at least eight in the past year — have been publicly accused of certain transgressions. Some of those philosophers have attempted to defend or explain their actions (or, worse, failed to accept that the fact that someone is offended means that there has been an offense), and, in doing so, have made the situation worse.
About six months ago, I wrote a piece called “On Apology,” in which I made a first pass at a few guidelines for apologizing. Conversations with colleagues on Facebook over the past few days have led me to think it might be helpful to republish part of that post at this particular juncture.
Here are the guidelines I proposed:
1. In order for an apology to be effective, it must be presented in a way that enables the offended to privately decline:
The offer of an apology should be made in a way that it does not further violate the autonomy of the offended. Specifically, it should be worded in a way that permits the offended to gracefully and privately decline the offer, without further conflict.
As Elizabeth Spelman explains in Repair: The Impulse to Restore in a Fragile World, for a victim who does not want reconciliation, an apology can be problematic if it is not presented in a manner that provides the offended an opportunity to reject it without further harm:
“My apology is a kind of subpoena, pressing you for an appearance, a response. Given what I have declared, and declared openly, about my deeds and my attitude toward them, shouldn’t you be pleased? Shouldn’t you give up any anger and resentment you have? Don’t you at least owe me some kind of response?… You have lost the moral high ground your anger might have afforded you. But more, it shifts the burden now to you.” (Spelman 2002, 99)
To issue a public apology without the express permission of the offended can be worse than not apologizing at all.
(Thanks to Alice MacLachlan for this insight.)
2. It should also aim to be a redistribution of power and a performance of vulnerability:
Apologies are important because they provide an opportunity for the relatively powerful to experience vulnerability, to comprehend one feature of the offense, and, through that comprehension, empower the offended. In other words, apologies can act as a channel for the redistribution of power, which is often a precondition for moving forward. As Aaron Lazare, former Dean and Chancellor of the University of Massachusetts Medical School, explains in On Apology:
“what makes an apology work is the exchange of shame and power between the offender and the offended. By apologizing, you take the shame of your offense and redirect it to yourself… In acknowledging your shame you give the offended the power to forgive.” (Lazare 2004, 42)
For this reason, apologies typically cannot accomplished through a single written message.
An effective apology is often a series of performative speech acts — an attempt to transform a social reality, rather than simply describe or ruefully acknowledge that reality. In the case of apologies for offenses that reflect an existing power asymmetry, to apologize in a way that reasserts that power is not transformative. In order for an apology to be effective, it must be a performance of vulnerability, not an extended expression of power.
So, for example, Madonna’s botched attempts to issue an apology for using a hashtag with a racial slur were unsuccessful because, even after dropping her attempts to defend the indefensible, the “apology” she offered was an expression of power, an assertion of her imagined role as an inspiration and bearer of messages of tolerance:
“MY job is to inspire and bring people together. My message has always been about tolerance and non-judgment. The last thing I want to do is bring chaos or cause separation in anyway. #revolutionoflove”
An effective apology in this case would have been a process of: acknowledging that a racial slur is an expression of intolerance; attempting to genuinely comprehend why outrage is an appropriate reaction, perhaps via dialogue with the offended or an effort to empathetically imagine the experience of those offended; and publicly admitting ignorance and explaining why the slur is offensive, with credit to those who helped her with the process of understanding. Given the complexities of the often intersectional nature of discrimination, harassment, and violence, dialogue and performative imagination is a particularly important aspect of our attempts to comprehend.
In the case of institutional, official apologies, a performance of vulnerability—as in, say, publicly admitting culpability despite concerns about the possible legal ramifications—is particularly important, given that the relationship is almost always asymmetrical. (And, for what it’s worth, any aversion to apology on a purported legal basis is probably worth questioning. Case law is rife with examples in which apology and remorse have resulted in the mitigation of damages and even punishment.)
3. If the offended is willing to accept an apology, it should be both public and private:
Apologies should be both public—provided that the apology is couched in a way that does not violate the privacy and autonomy of the offended, if the offended either does not want the facts known or does not want an apology—and private.
To issue an apology that is only public is like referring to someone who is in the room using the third person; it is to fail to understand that an apology, as a transaction of power and shame, must occur between the offender and offended. So, for example, in the case of Madonna’s apology above, a “real” apology would have been not just a public broadcast on her Instagram page, but also a personal apology addressed to each individual who expressed disgust in response to her use of a racial slur, and/or a letter of apology to associations representing the offended group.
To issue an apology that is only private, on the other hand, is like issuing a promissory note without any intent to pay. Transactions should have a public or verifiable element in order be a legitimate, enduring, and trustworthy exchange.
4. It must be grounded in an affirmation of a shared norm:
An apology should be an affirmation of a norm that the apologizer believes to be appropriate and binding. In order to serve as a basis for reconciliation, it cannot be a mere acknowledgement of a difference in belief or values, with a request for forgiveness based on a provisional acceptance of the difference. To respond to an offense by saying, “I think the restrictions that are being imposed on me are misguided, but I understand that my actions have been perceived as offensive and therefore apologize,” is to acknowledge that a transgression has taken place—but in a manner that places the onus for the judgment of unacceptability on an unshared belief or value endorsed by the offended, rather than on a shared belief or value. It therefore blocks reconciliation by calling attention to differences, rather than by recalling and reaffirming the legitimacy of communal codes of behavior or values that have been violated in the offense.
Similarly, the language of the apology must name and describe the offense in the way that the offended understands it—in terms that acknowledge that it is in fact an offense and demonstrate that the offender has acquired some level of comprehension of the underlying issues. Attempting to apologize for “non-consensual sex” with a “freshman” is unlikely to be effective, when what happened was the rape of a first-year student.
5. It should be mindful of the needs for restitution/reparation:
Restitution is the act of restoring to the rightful owner something that has been taken, lost, or surrendered. Reparation is the act of repairing or making amends for a wrong.
If we use case law as a model, then it is reasonable to think that whether restitution and/or reparation are a required in order for an apology to serve as grounds for reconciliation depends on the degree of the harm experienced by the offended. (Note that I said the degree of the harm experienced, not the degree of the harm inflicted. This is a subjective measure, not an objective measure of the harm, as substantiated by evidence such as the testimony of counselors and other experts, the victim’s narrative as relayed via correspondence at the time of the offense, etc.)
It may also depend on whether the offense takes place in an environment of systemic inequity or power imbalance. When an offense results in the loss of a job, opportunity, or other tangible benefit, an apology, arguably, must be more than words. As Nobel Peace Prize laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu remarks in God Has a Dream:
“If someone steals my pen and then asks me to forgive him, unless he returns my pen the sincerity of his contrition and confession will be considered nil. Confession, forgiveness, and reparation, wherever feasible, form part of a continuum.” (Tutu 2004, 57)
Many believe that when an offense is an example of the kinds of actions that perpetuate a deeply entrenched or systemic form of injustice, an apology that aims to reconcile must include both a commitment to both restitution in the form of working to try to restore the particular loss(es) of the offended, and reparation in the form of a commitment to trying to address the broader problem of the systemic injustice(s).
6. It should be sincere and non-obsequious display of empathy and/or affect:
Some victims point to an affective element that must be present for an apology to be a “real” or effective. The affective component of the offer, in order to be sincere, also should not be excessively beseeching—as was the case, for example, with New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s early January 2014 press conference, in which he apologized more than two dozen times for the George Washington Bridge incident.
Perhaps even more important than the affect is empathy. As one survivor of an instance of sexual misconduct in philosophy said to me last fall, “I don’t want him [the offender] to suffer; there’s already been enough of that. I just wish I could somehow make him see what I’ve been through.” To see or feel what a victim has been through requires an empathetic and vivid re-imagining of both the offense and the context of offense from the point of view of the offended.
I don’t know whether bona fide apologies regarding certain transgressions in philosophy are possible right now, particularly given that we appear to be struggling to agree on norms, and what is and is not bad.
But it can’t harm to at least be thinking about what an apology might look like, particularly if we feel inclined to apologize ourselves, or witness an attempt to apologize.
Comments closed to allow time for thought.
Professor Leiter has responded to my post from earlier today via an “update” to his original post, with a critique of Judge Flanagan’s ruling that goes beyond his original objection that Flanagan’s law degree does not come from a high-ranked law school.
In the update, Leiter argues that Flanagan’s ruling is flawed because: (1) “rape is always a kind of sexual assault, but not all sexual assaults are a kind of rape”; (2) the Sun-Times replaced the word “rape” with “sexual assault” in the headline once contacted by Ludlow’s attorney, which Leiter takes to mean that the Sun-Times “recognized the meanings were different”; and (3) contra Flanagan, Leiter feels that the “sting” of being accused of rape is not the same as the “sting” of being accused of sexual assault.
I’ll take each of these points in turn.
In response to (1): to argue for non-equivalence based on the assumption that rape is a subcategory of sexual assault is to miss the point of the paragraph in my original post which provides examples of various state laws. There are many states in which rape is not a subcategory of sexual assault, and indeed, many states – and many universities – in which the terms ‘rape’ and ‘sexual assault’ are no longer used at all, due to the fact that many state statues, university policies, and individuals have recognized that “mere” unwanted sexual touching, in which an individual’s sexual autonomy is violated, can be just as damaging as unwanted penetration. As any victims’ advocate will attest, many victims are so profoundly impacted by “mere” nonconsensual sexual contact – even fully clothed sexual contact – that they have been diagnosed with the full range of post-traumatic symptoms: PTSD, depression, anxiety, etc. (Recall that the undergraduate student involved in the Ludlow case was so distressed by the incident that she attempted suicide in the weeks following. Is the fact that Ludlow didn’t penetrate her really of much interest?)
In other words, to put some special emphasis on penetration is, quite frankly, bizarre, and jarringly out-of-synch with contemporary mores and sensibilities. In both U.S. culture and U.S. law, there has been a distinct shift over the past couple of decades, away from a focus on penetration, towards the protection of sexual autonomy. As one advocate wrote in a message to me earlier today, “what is the point of compartmentalizing violent sexual acts, when they’re all violations?” To insist that unwanted penetration is worse than unwanted sexual contact is offensive because it dismisses and belittles the reality of the actual experiences of most of the victims and survivors.
A brief review of trends in rape law might help paint the picture here. Not long ago, whether or not a sexual act was consensual was irrelevant to whether or not it was legal, and almost all acts of sex, with or without penetration, were illegal. If an unmarried man and woman had sex, it was fornication. If one of the two was married, it was adultery for the married party and fornication for the other. If a man lured a woman into bed through a promise of marriage, he committed the crime of seduction. If the couple were from two different races, they could be charged with miscegenation. If both were male, it was sodomy. Even married couples who engaged in consensual sex, in some states, could be charged with a crime if they used certain sorts of birth control to prevent conception.
In other words, the only legal sex was heterosexual, copulative, marital intercourse involving exactly two cisgendered partners. Obviously such laws – though still in piecemeal existence in different states – would be woefully out of synch with contemporary mores, for all kinds of reasons. One of these reasons, I’d argue, is because such laws focus on regulating penetration, in the interest of protecting pre-marital virginity and enforcing the idea that intercourse is for conception, rather than on protecting the sexual autonomy of the individuals involved. And, though I don’t have space to press this point here, I’d argue that there has been a corresponding revolution in sex law over the past two decades (it’s generally not even called “rape law” anymore), in which sexual autonomy has emerged as a sort of fundamental right. Indeed, many of the state laws codify this right by placing sex crimes in which an individual’s autonomy is clearly violated – e.g., in which, say, the offender takes advantage of the fact that the victim is inebriated to initiate a sexual act, without or without penetration – in the category of first-degree criminal offenses. (Ohio is a good example of this.)
Just in case I didn’t make this clear enough in my original post: note that, based on the examples provided by Yale’s sexual misconduct committee, Ludlow’s actions – actions that he himself has admitted – would be grounds, if he were a student, for expulsion. The fact that he is a senior professor and the student was a first-year undergraduate student – i.e., that there was a clear power differential – only makes it worse.
In response to (2): I have no idea why the Sun-Times’ act of replacing the word “rape” with “sexual assault” in the headline would necessarily imply that they recognized a difference. If the editors felt there was a significant difference, presumably they wouldn’t have used the words interchangeably in the first place. A much more plausible explanation of the change is simply corporate risk management.
In response to (3): Really? A re-reading of the response to (1) should make it clear why claiming that rape is worse that sexual assault is not merely wrong-headed, but offensive to survivors who have been harmed by sex crimes that don’t involve penetration.
In a ruling earlier this week, an Illinois Cook County Circuit Court Judge, Honorable Kathy M. Flanagan, dismissed Peter Ludlow’s defamation case against Sun-Times Media LLC and two other media defendants, arguing that the terms “rape” and “sexual assault” are interchangeable.
Ludlow’s case was based not on the accuracy of the news reports in question, but rather on the use of “rape” in the headline as a fair representation of the complaint, which was described in both the news reports and the student’s complaint as “sexual assault.” In other words, Ludlow’s attorneys attempted to argue that, while he may have sexually assaulted a student, he did not rape a student.
“In common usage and in dictionaries, the terms ‘rape’ and ‘sexual assault’ are synonymous,” Flanagan writes in her decision, “The Merriam-Webster definition of ‘rape’ cited by [the plaintiff, Ludlow] has ‘assault’ listed as a synonym, and the definition of ‘sexual assault’ has ‘rape’ listed as a synonym.”
So perhaps citing Merriam-Webster wasn’t a particularly well-thought-out move by the plaintiff’s attorneys. Setting dictionary definitions aside, we might wonder: are sexual assault and rape the same thing, in the eyes of U.S. law?
The short answer to this question is “yes, in many states” – though please note that I am not a legal expert, and am offering this answer not as advice, but rather as an observation based on reading the relevant statutes and codes. Readers who need legal advice should seek the advice of an attorney.
Penal codes throughout the U.S. make use of a wide variety of classification systems for sex crimes. In some states, like Ohio, rape is defined as “sexual conduct with another… when [for example] for the purpose of preventing resistance, the offender substantially impairs the other person’s judgment or control by administering any drug, intoxicant, or controlled substance to the other person surreptitiously or by force, threat of force, or deception.” The state of Washington characterizes rape as one of many different types of sexual assault. And In other states, like New Jersey, the phrase sexual assault has simply replaced the word rape in the statutes, with different degrees of sexual assault and sexual contact. The New Jersey Criminal Code characterizes “intentional touching by the victim or actor, either directly or through clothing, of the victim’s or actor’s intimate parts for the purpose of degrading or humiliating the victim or sexually arousing or sexually gratifying the actor” as a crime in the fourth degree. In some states neither term appears in the law. South Carolina, for example, avoids mention of rape and instead refers to unwanted sexual intercourse and unwanted sexual contact as “criminal sexual conduct.” A very helpful interactive map with links to the relevant laws for each state is available at the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN) State Law Database.
In other words, it appears that Judge Flanagan’s argument that “sexual assault” and “rape” are interchangeable is quite reasonable, notwithstanding Brian Leiter’s ill-advised ad hominem attack on the pedigree of her law degree.
We might also wonder: are sexual assault and rape the same thing in the eyes of U.S. universities?
The short answer to this question, again, is “yes, at many universities.”
The story behind this is an interesting one. Over the past 10 or 15 years, universities have begun shifting to the use of “nonconsensual sexual acts,” in place of “rape” or “sexual assault.” The terms “nonconsensual sexual intercourse” and “nonconsensual sexual contact” were originally introduced when Title IX compliance consultants discovered that universities were reluctant to categorize acts of sexual misconduct – even acts that clearly involved force and penetration – as “rape” or “sexual assault.”
The use of “nonconsensual sex” and related phrases, however, is highly contentious. Many activists feel that calling an incident “nonconsensual sex” enables universities to avoid expelling or dismissing the perpetrator. In July of 2013, my own alma mater, Yale University, released the biannual report required by the Office of Civil Rights as part of a voluntary resolution in the wake of a Title IX complaint. In addition to 61 new complaints, the report revealed that there were four cases from previous reports in which there was “sufficient evidence” that an offender had engaged in “nonconsensual sex” – and yet all of the student perpetrators were allowed to continue pursuing their degrees. Headlines read: “Yale Fails to Expel Students Guilty of Sexual Assault,”and a Change.org petition rapidly collected more than 1,500 signatures.
In response, Yale administrators explained that nonconsensual sex does not always mean sexual assault, and produced an unprecedented “Sexual Misconduct Scenarios” document which provided a detailed description of different “scenarios” that would fall under the umbrella of nonconsensual sex – along with the corresponding punishments. (Much of the credit for this goes to philosopher Michael Della Rocca, who has just ended a three-year stint as the Chairperson of Yale’s University-Wide Committee on Sexual Misconduct.)
One of the scenarios reads as follows:
Tyler and Jordan are both drinking heavily at an off-campus event. Tyler becomes extremely drunk. Jordan offers to take Tyler home. On the way, Tyler has trouble walking, and makes several wrong turns. Once in Tyler’s room, Jordan initiates sexual activity. Tyler looks confused and tries to go to sleep. Jordan has sex with Tyler.
There was no consent to have sex. A person who is incapacitated—lacking the ability to make or act on considered decisions to engage in sexual activity—cannot give consent. The UWC penalty would be expulsion.
It’s worth pointing out here that, in the past, it was rare for a university to expel a student who is found guilty of this or other forms of serious sexual misconduct. According to a 2010 investigation by the Center for Public Integrity, only 10 to 25 percent of students found “responsible” for sexual assault were actually permanently prohibited from returning to the university.
It’s also worth pointing out that a much-cited 2002 study of rapes on college campuses, in addition to a 2009 study of the DNA in 11,000 rape kits in Detroit, have demonstrated that: (1) as many as 6 in 10 rapists are serial offenders, and (2) alcohol is a very common tool for serial predators to use.
Not long after a UC Santa Barbara student went on a killing spree last Friday, his homicide-suicide message surfaced on the internet. “I don’t know why you girls aren’t attracted to me but I will punish you all for it,” he complains, “I’m the perfect guy and yet you throw yourselves at all these obnoxious men instead of me, the supreme gentleman… I take great pleasure in slaughtering all of you. You will finally see that I am, in truth, the superior one, the true alpha male.”
While we can hope that the killer’s misogyny, narcissism, and fascination with revenge are signs of an unusually demented mind, it is a mistake to dismiss the killings as a lone incident or freak behavior of an isolated miscreant. There is no such thing as isolated violence. Misogynists, sociopaths, even psychopaths are a product of a cultural illness – an illness that tells us that we should mind our own business; that boys will be boys and hopefully they’ll grow out of it when they become men; that we need to keep the silence and refrain from naming our fears and our perpetrators because, well, you know, we’ll be branded as crazy. Or worse.
In response to the UCSB killing and the murderer’s misogyny, women around the world are adding their voices to a Twitter stream, #YesAllWomen. As I write this, it is the top-trending hashtag, with 49,541 tweets and an average of 20 tweets per second.
Here are just a few of those almost-50,000 tweets:
One of the tweets most likely to resonate with all or most female philosophers (thanks, S.E.!) is this one:
I’m not the tweeting type, but it occurred to me that if I were to tweet, it would be to a #YesAllPhilosophers hashtag. Here are just a few of the tweets I’d probably write:
#YesAllPhilosophers because the accused was given a golden parachute to another better position, and the survivor, who got nothing, tried to commit suicide.
#YesAllPhilosophers because I can name four philosophers who read or gave copies of Lolita to the students they desired.
#YesAllPhilosophers because when I asked a provost whether the university would keep a known serial predator and pedophile on the faculty, she didn’t immediately say no.
#YesAllPhilosophers because I can name 34 philosophers who have been accused of sexual misconduct, ranging from “mere” drunken groping, to first degree sexual assault and child porn.
#YesAllPhilosophers because I was a student in a department where four faculty members were accused of sexual misconduct in five years.
#YesAllPhilosophers because I’m currently helping complainants at 10 different universities who have been adversely affected by the misconduct of 8 different philosophers.
#YesAllPhilosophers Because I can’t solve this problem alone.
Comments are closed on this post because I don’t have time to moderate – but those who want to comment can of course tweet using the hashtag #YesAllPhilosophers.
From William Carlos Williams, “Apology,” 1916:
Why do I write today?
The beauty of
The terrible faces
Of our nonentities
Stirs me to it:
According to the National Center for Education Statistics, there are currently approximately 13 million women enrolled at degree-granting higher education institutions in the U.S. And according to the White House Council on Women and Girls’ January 2014 report, 1 in 5 women are sexually assaulted while pursuing a higher degree. These two facts together mean that approximately 2.6 million women at college this year either have been or will be the victim of a sexual assault.
Most college victims are assaulted by someone they know, and campus perpetrators are often serial offenders. One study found that 7% of college men admitted to committing or attempting rape; 63% of these men admitted to committing an average of 5-6 offenses.
Although there are no hard statistics on the number of serial predators who are faculty members, anecdotal evidence suggests that this, too, is a significant problem. I have yet to work or study at a university where there was not a serial harasser or even a serial rapist on the faculty.
Conversations with colleagues in philosophy, in the wake of the revelation of sexual misconduct problems in the CU Boulder philosophy department, the case against a Northwestern philosophy faculty member, the recent dismissal of an Oxford philosopher in the wake of concerns about the university’s handling of an investigation, and other allegations of sexual misconduct in the Yale philosophy department—less than a year after a prominent philosopher at UMiami resigned in a much-publicized sexual misconduct case—have convinced me that the problem of faculty sexual misconduct in the hallowed halls of academia is far more widespread than even I imagined. In philosophy alone, I can name 33 faculty members who (still) hold tenured positions and who have been, at some point in their career, accused of sexual misconduct. I have also become convinced that in many cases both the offended and the offender are harmed, and often others in the university community, too—which means that the number of persons who are hurting is even greater than the number of instances of misconduct. We need to figure out how to collectively move beyond known conflicts and harms.
One of the steps in moving beyond is certainly to start talking about the policy question, about how to best prevent and respond to instances of sexual misconduct. But to merely engage in policy debates without acknowledging the individual humans who have been harmed by the problem would be to do more harm. In order to reduce the pain of those who have suffered, we need to break the silence; reach out to those who have been harmed; stop the practice of covering up faculty offenses with non-disclosure agreements (unless explicitly requested by the victim); worry first about the victim or survivor and second about the reputation of the university or faculty; and acknowledge that our complicity and failure to act has caused significant harm to an untold number of students.
We need, in other words, to apologize.
But what does it mean to apologize for an offense that one hasn’t committed? How could an apology from someone other than the offender reduce the pain of those offended?
I offered some thoughts last fall, in an open letter to Katie Roiphe, about how asymmetries of power in certain kinds of relationships can affect our ability to give consent. What I didn’t emphasize at the time was the importance of respect for vulnerability – and of knowing how to achieve vulnerability. Apologies are important because they provide an opportunity for the relatively powerful to experience vulnerability, to comprehend one feature of the offense, and, through that comprehension, empower the offended. In other words, apologies can act as a channel for the redistribution of power, which is often a precondition for moving forward. As Aaron Lazare, former Dean and Chancellor of the University of Massachusetts Medical School, explains in On Apology:
“what makes an apology work is the exchange of shame and power between the offender and the offended. By apologizing, you take the shame of your offense and redirect it to yourself… In acknowledging your shame you give the offended the power to forgive.” (Lazare 2004, 42)
Now, clearly, not all apologies will effectively redistribute power. And ineffective apologies have, for some reason, become a sort of phenomenon in the U.S. over the past few months.
What makes an apology effective? Here’s a first pass at a few criteria:
1. A performance of vulnerability:
An effective apology is often a performative speech act — an attempt to transform a social reality, rather than simply describe or ruefully acknowledge that reality. In the case of apologies for offenses that reflect an existing power asymmetry, to apologize in a way that reasserts that power is not transformative. In order for an apology to be effective, it must be a performance of vulnerability, not an extended expression of power.
So, for example, Madonna’s botched attempts to issue an apology for using a hashtag with a racial slur were unsuccessful because, even after dropping her attempts to defend the indefensible, the “apology” she offered was an expression of power, an assertion of her imagined role as an inspiration and bearer of messages of tolerance:
“MY job is to inspire and bring people together. My message has always been about tolerance and non-judgment. The last thing I want to do is bring chaos or cause separation in anyway. #revolutionoflove”
An effective apology in this case would have been a process of: acknowledging that a racial slur is an expression of intolerance; attempting to genuinely comprehend why outrage is an appropriate reaction, perhaps via dialogue with the offended or an effort to empathetically imagine the experience of those offended; and publicly admitting ignorance and explaining why the slur is offensive, with credit to those who helped her with the process of understanding. Given the complexities of the often intersectional nature of discrimination, harassment, and violence, dialogue and performative imagination is a particularly important aspect of our attempts to comprehend.
In the case of institutional, official apologies, a performance of vulnerability – as in, say, publicly admitting culpability despite concerns about the possible legal ramifications – is particularly important, given that the relationship is almost always asymmetrical. (And, for what it’s worth, our legal aversion to apology is probably worth questioning. Case law is rife with examples in which apology and remorse have resulted in the mitigation of damages and even punishment.)
2. Both public and private:
Apologies should be both public, provided that the apology is couched in a way that does not violate the privacy of the offended if the offended does not want the facts known, and private.
To issue an apology that is only public is like referring to someone who is in the room using the third person; it is to fail to understand that an apology, as a transaction of power and shame, must occur between the offender and offended. So, for example, in the case of Madonna’s apology above, a “real” apology would have been not just a public broadcast on her Instagram page, but also a personal apology addressed to each individual who expressed disgust in response to her use of a racial slur, and/or a letter of apology to associations representing the offended group.
To issue an apology that is only private, on the other hand, is like issuing a promissory note without any intent to pay. Transactions should have a public or verifiable element in order be a legitimate, enduring, and trustworthy exchange.
3. Affirmation of a shared norm:
An apology should be an affirmation of a norm that the apologizer believes to be appropriate and binding. In order to serve as a basis for reconciliation, it cannot be a mere acknowledgement of a difference in belief or values, with a request for forgiveness based on a provisional acceptance of the difference. To respond to an offense by saying, “I think the restrictions that are being imposed on me are Puritanical, but I understand that my actions have been perceived as offensive and therefore apologize,” is to acknowledge that a transgression has taken place—but in a manner that places the onus for the judgment of unacceptability on an unshared belief or value endorsed by the offended, rather than on a shared belief or value. It therefore blocks reconciliation by calling attention to differences, rather than by recalling and reaffirming the legitimacy of communal codes of behavior or values that have been violated in the offense.
Similarly, the language of the apology must name and describe the offense in the way that the offended understands it—in terms that acknowledge that it is in fact an offense and demonstrate that the offender has acquired some level of comprehension of the underlying issues. Attempting to apologize for “non-consensual sex” with a “freshman” is unlikely to be effective, when what happened was the rape of a first-year student.
4. Restitution/reparation:
Restitution is the act of restoring to the rightful owner something that has been taken, lost, or surrendered. Reparation is the act of repairing or making amends for a wrong.
If we use case law as a model, then it is reasonable to think that whether restitution and/or reparation are a required in order for an apology to serve as grounds for reconciliation depends on the degree of the harm experienced by the offended. (Note that I said the degree of the harm experienced, not the degree of the harm inflicted. This is a subjective measure, not an objective measure of the harm, as substantiated by evidence such as the testimony of counselors and other experts, the victim’s narrative as relayed via correspondence at the time of the offense, etc.)
It may also depend on whether the offense takes place in an environment of systemic inequity or power imbalance. When an offense results in the loss of a job, opportunity, or other tangible benefit, an apology, arguably, must be more than words. As Nobel Peace Prize laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu remarks in God Has a Dream:
“If someone steals my pen and then asks me to forgive him, unless he returns my pen the sincerity of his contrition and confession will be considered nil. Confession, forgiveness, and reparation, wherever feasible, form part of a continuum.” (Tutu 2004, 57)
Many believe that when an offense is an example of the kinds of actions that perpetuate a deeply entrenched or systemic form of injustice, an apology that aims to reconcile must include both a commitment to both restitution in the form of working to try to restore the particular loss(es) of the offended, and reparation in the form of a commitment to trying to address the broader problem of the systemic injustice(s).
5. Empathy and affect:
Some victims point to an affective element that must be present for an apology to be a “real” or effective. The offer must be a non-binding and genuine offer to reconcile; the offender must genuinely mean to make an offer, both in the sense that s/he is visibly affected in a personal but non-self-indulgent sense, and in the sense that the offer should be made in a way that permits the offended to gracefully decline. As Elizabeth Spelman explains in Repair: The Impulse to Restore in a Fragile World, for a victim who does not want reconciliation, an apology can be problematic if it is not presented in a manner that provides the offended an opportunity to reject it without further harm:
“My apology is a kind of subpoena, pressing you for an appearance, a response. Given what I have declared, and declared openly, about my deeds and my attitude toward them, shouldn’t you be pleased? Shouldn’t you give up any anger and resentment you have? Don’t you at least owe me some kind of response?… You have lost the moral high ground your anger might have afforded you. But more, it shifts the burden now to you.” (Spelman 2002, 99)
(Thanks to Alice MacLachlan for this insight.)
The affective component of the offer, in order to be sincere, also should not be excessively beseeching—as was the case, for example, with New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s early January 2014 press conference, in which he apologized more than two dozen times for the George Washington Bridge incident.
Perhaps even more important than the affect is empathy. As one survivor of an instance of sexual misconduct in philosophy said to me last fall, “I don’t want him [the offender] to suffer; there’s already been enough of that. I just wish I could somehow make him see what I’ve been through.” To see or feel what a victim has been through requires an empathetic and vivid re-imagining of both the offense and the context of offense from the point of view of the offended.
Sounds like a pretty complex set of criteria, no?
Complex, but not impossible. Perhaps the best example of a strong apology, one that meets many of these criteria, is the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, which contains explicit and appropriate apologies, avoids any attempt to defend or explain the offense, focuses on healing and reconciliation of victims and survivors, provides a means of accountability for the future, acknowledges the need for restitution, and offers explicit direction in disciplining offenders.
We are at a watershed moment, with the recent passage of the Campus SaVE Act, which was slated to go into effect on March 7, a lawsuit filed on March 2 by a University of Virginia rape victim to try to block the implementation of Campus SaVE, the January 22 U.S. Presidential Memorandum to create the new White House Task Force to Protect Students From Sexual Assault, and the January 29 letter from 39 members of the U.S. House of Representatives to the Office of Civil Rights, calling for, among other things, the creation of a public database of complaint resolutions.
While Washington continues to debate the policies, I challenge the faculty and leaders of higher education follow the model of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Charter. Specifically:
I challenge the leaders of higher education to organize a Higher Education Leadership Council to draw up a specific apology and a set of commitments that go beyond the bare minimum required by laws such as Title IX and VAWA/Campus SaVE.
I challenge members of the Council and individual campus administrators and faculty leaders to agree not to enter into settlements which bind the parties to confidentiality unless the victim/survivor requests confidentiality and this request is noted in the text of the agreement.
I challenge members of the Council and individual universities to promote reconciliation for alumni and former students by permitting victims from the past to step forward to report previously unreported problems, particularly problems caused by faculty members who may still be teaching.
I challenge members of the Council and individual universities to agree to adopt policies which provide that for even a single act of sexual assault which is admitted or established after an appropriate process in accordance with university policies or relevant law, the member of the community is to be permanently removed from any position in which s/he is in contact with the victim and other potential victims, and, if warranted, dismissed from the university.
I challenge members the Council to commit to improving inter-university transparency and communication, so that a known perpetrator with a problem that has not been resolved through therapeutic professional assistance is not able to simply move from one university to another.
I challenge individual faculty to learn about—and question—individual campus policies and procedures, to seek knowledge about how best to respond if a victim or survivor does come forward, and to make ourselves available to students in a way that respects and supports student autonomy and agency.
I challenge the members of the Council—and all members of the community of higher education—to make our own the words of Vice President Biden when he drafted the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act: “…violence against women reflects as much a failure of our nation’s collective moral imagination as it does the failure of our nation’s laws and regulations. We are helpless to change the course of this violence unless, and until, we achieve a national consensus that it deserves our profound public outrage.”
The graduate students of the Department of Philosophy at Northwestern University, have by a majority vote, adopted the following statement:
We find the alleged behavior of gross professional misconduct recently leveled against a faculty member in our department to be deplorable. Further, we judge that the university has failed our community in the way that they have handled these allegations of gross professional misconduct. In addition, we stand in solidarity with the victim of the aforementioned misconduct, with victims of sexual harassment and violence globally, as well as with their advocates (whom we do not consider to be vigilantes). As students, and educators, we take seriously the wellness of every member of our community. The members of our philosophy department have been genuinely dedicated to promoting inclusiveness at Northwestern, as well as within the broader philosophical community. It is among our highest priorities that we create and sustain a safe environment for all members of our community. In the spirit of these affirmations, we are deeply saddened that a member of our department has been found to be in violation of these moral and professional obligations.
We feel, however, that it bears saying that the behavior outlined in the recent lawsuit leveled against Northwestern is not representative of our sense of the prevailing culture in our department. The overwhelming majority of our community — both professors and graduate students, male and female — are engaged jointly in a project of inclusiveness and mutual support.
Since 2011 our department has maintained a committee to promote and sustain inclusiveness among the graduate student community. Among their duties, the Climate Committee hosts the Annual Inclusiveness Lecture on implicit bias and other issues affecting underrepresented and marginalized groups in the discipline. That same year we also founded an initiative geared towards fostering female undergraduate majors: WiPhi is a female-only group of members of the philosophical community at Northwestern at all levels (undergraduate, graduate, and professors) who regularly meet. WiPhi also hosts the Annual Gertrude Bussey Lecture, in honor of the first woman to receive a PhD in philosophy from Northwestern. Additionally, our course listings represent our shared commitment to exploring issues of diversity and underrepresentation in the field, and in the broader community at large: Our department makes it a priority to regularly teach courses with substantial feminist philosophy content, as well as substantial focus on issues of race. We, the graduate students, feel that our community is home to several upstanding, vocally feminist, junior and senior faculty members. Our community is committed to fighting the sexism that has long been rampant in the broader philosophical community. And while we jointly feel compelled to express our deep sadness in response to the alleged behavior of a faculty member in our department, we also feel compelled to express our commitment to our community.
According to a March 2 press release, a University of Virginia rape victim has filed a landmark civil rights action in an effort to halt the Campus SaVE Act – a new U.S. federal law which is scheduled to take effect this week, on March 7.
The suit alleges that SaVE undermines women’s civil rights in various ways, including that it permits colleges and universities to mandate that victims prove their credibility under an exceedingly rigorous “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard. In contrast, the April 2011 Dear Colleague Letter issued by the Department of Education as a clarification/guidance for Title IX requires only that victims meet a much lower “preponderance of the evidence” standard.
Under SaVE, the higher burden of proof will only be allowed in cases involving violence against women, and will not be applied to cases involving violence against students based on other protected class categories such as race, disabilities and ethnicity. The victim alleges in her suit that it is unconstitutional to subject violence against women to weaker legal standards compared to violence based on these other categories.
Another objectionable provision in SaVE requires schools to apply state criminal law standards to violence against women cases on campus. Current law requires schools to apply more generous federal civil rights standards so that, for example, a sexual assault is proved as long as the conduct was “unwelcome.” Under SaVE, “unwelcomeness” will not be enough. The victim will have to prove that the conduct violated state criminal law, which in most states means the victim will have to prove both non-consent and that the assault involved the use of force.
Because the more generous standard of “unwelcomeness” will continue to apply to cases involving violence that occurs on the basis of race, disabilities and ethnicity, the victim alleges SaVE violates women’s equal protection and due process rights.
UVA is under investigation by the Department of Education (DOE) and the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) for allegedly mishandling a sexual assault case on campus where a female student was drugged and raped by a male student. Allegations include that a UVA nurse falsified medical records and reported there were no injuries consistent with sexual assault despite multiple findings of significant injuries; and that UVA lost or destroyed photographs of the victim’s injuries.
According to the press release, UVA has not expelled a single student charged with sexual assault in more than 10 years. In the case currently under federal investigation, UVA’s own Sexual Misconduct Board ruled that the victim was “compelling” and “credible,” yet the Board cleared the accused of all charges, ruling the evidence was insufficient. UVA later granted the accused a teaching assistant position on campus.
Many advocacy groups have expressed support for the funding provisions in SaVE that will go toward anti-violence training and education programs. Those provisions are not being challenged in the lawsuit.
“Ostriches. All of them.”
This was the explanation offered by an irritated colleague at another university last week, after complaining bitterly about collective departmental avoidance in response to the offenses of a male philosopher whose office is across the hall from his.
I have had more than one ostrich-like urge to bury my head in the past few weeks. And I think I’ve even succumbed to a few such urges. (Who wouldn’t rather go out for a run, or read that tempting new book on quantum gravity, instead of thinking about the problem of sexual misconduct in philosophy?)
So I get it. I understand why the philosopher’s colleagues are practicing the art of avoidance.
But I’ve also been irked by ostrich-y behavior, and have mentored others who have been deeply wounded by silence—so I understand and share the philosopher’s irritation, and am renewing my efforts to avoid avoidance.
For those who are looking for tips on how to de-ostrichify a department, the recent post on Philosophical Spaces is a good place to start. I invite anyone who has additional thoughts on how to cope with a departmental culture of avoidance to comment here.
What I want to focus on in this post, though, is not how to de-ostrichify, but rather a question that I have found myself returning to as the problem of sexual misconduct in philosophy starts to become more public:
What is it like to be the person in that office across the hall, whose behavior has prompted the rest of the department to run to the nearest sandbank? What is it like to be a philosopher quietly wondering if your own past or present offenses will be revealed?
It must, I think, be a lonely place to be.
A remark on Facebook a couple of days ago claiming that philosophers are suddenly refraining from comments and likes on Peter Ludlow’s posts prompted me to go out to his page, out of curiosity, to see if it was true. It does seem to be the case. But then I reflected on the fact that the same is true of my own Facebook page. Like Ludlow, I’m a political hot potato. In the wake of choosing to post openly under my real name about sexual misconduct problems in philosophy, friends in philosophy are suddenly refraining from likes and supportive comments in public arenas. Privately, though, they’re eager to connect; I have received almost two hundred private emails and messages of support. As, no doubt, has Ludlow.
So perhaps “lonely” isn’t quite the right word.
I’m not drawing a parallel between Ludlow’s recent online experiences and my own because there’s any connection between Ludlow and myself. There’s not, of course. What I’m trying to do is to use the example to show that we philosophers are oddly social and political animals, despite all the accusations of ineptitude. And right now many if not most philosophers are behaving like ostriches because it seems like the socially acceptable and politically prudent thing to do. That doesn’t make it the right thing to do.
About four months ago I had a long and difficult conversation with a philosopher who was accused of egregious sexual misconduct, and perceives himself as an offender. He has not come forward about what happened—to his colleagues, or even to many members of his immediate family—and the news about public instances of misconduct in philosophy has affected him, as an offender, just as profoundly as it has affected me, as a survivor and mentor to victims and survivors.
I have also had conversations with two other philosophers in the past month who have admitted to both engaging in sexual misconduct—and to feeling ashamed about it.
I obviously don’t know what it’s like to be in their shoes. But I can report what they’ve told me. In no particular order, here’s what I heard:
In all three cases, it was extremely clear that the offenders are suffering, too. And while the mere fact that they’re suffering doesn’t excuse egregious behavior, it does seem good reason to overcome our social insecurities and talk to the offender about the problem. Yes, we need to be thinking about victims—but one way to help victims is to deal with the problem and find ways to promote dialogue and, where appropriate, reconciliation.
In other words: avoid the ostrich behavior.
The messages that have been flowing in over the past few days, in the wake of Brian Leiter’s unexpected link to the Yale Daily News article about my involvement in a protest at President Salovey’s inauguration last fall, are not what I expected.
Sure, there are some of the expected: the “me too” from survivors who have been re-traumatized by the recent news of yet more problems in the discipline; the “are there any safe programs?” from advisers of graduate students; and the “am I walking into a nest of badness?” from junior colleagues with likely job offers who don’t want to be complicit in permitting a bad climate. (I can’t answer either of these last two questions, by the way.)
But the single most common message – and one I didn’t expect – has been this: “Philosopher X routinely engages in sexual misconduct. I want to stop it but I don’t know what to do about it.”
I’m beginning to feel like a cut ‘n paste machine responding to these messages, so I thought I’d pause and put together a quick post with suggestions directed at those who are teaching or studying at universities in the U.S.
First, before I get to the suggestions for action: dear reader, if you know a philosopher who was the victim of sexual misconduct and have not yet reached out to him or her with a simple message to say “hi, I’m thinking about you in the wake of the craziness,” stop reading this right now. Send a message. There are a lot of survivors out there who are feeling more alone and isolated than ever, and wondering whether anyone cares about the individuals who have been hurt, as opposed to esoteric debates about abstract issues and policies. Silence can do significant harm.
So, what can be done about a known case of sexual misconduct?
The immediate, first-step answer to this is of course going to depend on both the nature of the problem and the nature of your knowledge of the problem. The best resource I know of for general information about reporting a problem is the guide to reporting on Know Your IX.
Some of the colleagues I’ve spoken with this week, however, have already tried the reporting route, with no result. For those of you who have specific knowledge of a problem, either at your own university or another university, and who have reported without any resolution to the problem, here’s some good news: we are currently at a unique juncture in the history of responding to campus sexual misconduct in the U.S. You can make a difference. Here’s why and how:
March 7, 2014: Campus SaVE Act goes into effect
The Campus Sexual Violence Elimination Act (SaVE), included in Sec. 304 in the Senate version of the re-authorization of the Violence Against Women Act, is the most significant reform of policy on how college sexual assaults are handled since the Jeanne Clery Act of 1990 and the Campus Sexual Assault Victim’s Bill of Rights of 1992.
The SaVE Act takes effect on March 7, 2014, and requires, among other things, that: (1) universities include reports of dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking in their annual crime statistics (the first SaVE-Act-compliant reports are due in October 2014); (2) universities provide prevention and awareness programs, including bystander training, for all new students, faculty, and employees; (3) universities offer students or employees who are victims of misconduct a change in housing or work environment, including the option of a restraining order; and (4) universities permit both the accused and accuser to have an advocate of their choice – including, if desired, legal counsel – at institutional hearings.
Many universities are going beyond the Campus SaVE Act minimum requirement that all faculty be provided with prevention, awareness, and bystander training, and providing all faculty members with “mandated reporter” training.
If you work or study at a university in the U.S. and have not yet heard anything about the Campus SaVE Act, it’s time to contact your university administrators to request training and find out what the plans are to bring your university into compliance.
January 22, 2014: White House’s Presidential Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault
On January 22, 2014, President Obama met with cabinet members and senior advisers on his White House Council on Women and Girls , and then signed a Memorandum to establish a White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault.
Section 3 of the Memorandum reads as follows:
Action Plan.
(a) Within 90 days of the date of this memorandum, the Task Force shall develop and submit proposals and recommendations to the President for:
(i) providing examples of instructions, policies, and protocols for institutions, including: rape and sexual assault policies; prevention programs; crisis intervention and advocacy services; complaint and grievance procedures; investigation protocols; adjudicatory procedures; disciplinary sanctions; and training and orientation modules for students, staff, and faculty;
(ii) measuring the success of prevention and response efforts at institutions, whether through compliance with individual policies or through broader assessments of campus climate, attitudes and safety, and providing the public with this information;
(iii) maximizing the Federal Government’s effectiveness in combatting campus rape and sexual assault by, among other measures, making its enforcement activities transparent and accessible to students and prospective students nationwide; and
(iv) promoting greater coordination and consistency among the agencies and offices that enforce the Federal laws addressing campus rape and sexual assault and support improved campus responses to sexual violence.
(b) Within 1 year of the date of this memorandum, and then on an annual basis, the Task Force shall provide a report to the President on implementation efforts with respect to this memorandum.
Members of the Task Force are listed in the President’s Memorandum. All of the members of the Task Force are actively seeking recommendations. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder’s Office in the Department of Justice is particularly receptive to concerns and suggestions. Recommendations are due back to the President in 90 days.
Much of the Task Force’s focus is currently on student-on-student sexual assault. If you are concerned about faculty-on-student sexual misconduct, please take a moment to let a member of the task force know that it is also important to provide the White House with recommendations for preventing and responding to faculty misconduct.
January 29, 2014: House of Representatives Letter to the Office of Civil Rights
On January 29, 2014, 39 members of the U.S. House of Representatives sent a letter to the Office of Civil Rights (OCR), with content advice from members of ED Act Now, urging the OCR to issue a new Dear Colleague Letter of guidance (see, e.g., the April 2011 and April 2013 Dear Colleague Letters) to improve transparency of campus data, investigations, and enforcement data by, among other things, creating a centralized database, and also to provide additional guidance for responding to same-sex violence and gender identity discrimination.
You can help create the momentum required to keep Congress focused on this issue by contacting the representatives and/or senators for your state. Again, please let them know that your concerns are related to how best to prevent and respond to faculty sexual misconduct.
Because many offices receive 500 or more emails per day, it is often best to call first, and then send a follow-up email to a specific staff member.
Here’s the site with links to the list of contact information for the House of Representatives and the Senate: http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml Clicking on a name in the list will bring you out to individual web sites, which often have more complete contact information.
(Many Senators and Representatives, by the way, have already been touring universities in their districts, looking for input. If you happen to live in Connecticut, please contact both Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro and Senator Richard Blumenthal.)
Feminist Philosophers 