Despite recent attempts to blur the hard lines of the John Silber Era, Boston University still refuses to promise judicial amnesty to sexual assault victims who admit to having consumed alcohol underage or used drugs on the night they were raped.
This travesty needs to be priority No. 1 for our student leaders. Every day that this status quo is perpetuated is one in which sexual assault victims at BU are unsure whether coming forward will result in disciplinary action. The numerous incidents on and around campus this semester show this is not an abstract problem. There are students regularly making the painful decision whether to report being raped, and they are making them without an assurance from BU that they will not face judicial action.
The Student Union limped into the fight this year. Its initial uninspiring volley was a barrage of letters to selected state legislators in the hopes of passing Senate bill No. 737, which would fund sexual assault response programs at state universities. This is well beyond stupid.
For one thing, as The Daily Free Press editorial board pointed out, BU is a private institution and therefore unaffected by bill No. 737. Also, even if the legislation in question was relevant, letter-writing campaigns are the stuff of interest groups, not elected leaders. Our Union should be asserting its power as an independent body worthy of respect. That’s the way to bring the administration to the table to hear student concerns. Piggybacking onto action at Beacon Hill is not. Union Vice President John Grant should keep a tighter check on what the General Assembly spends time voting on. The Union as a whole suffers when it is reduced to begging another body to act on its behalf.
Compared to the Union’s botched first play, the administration’s recent maneuvering on this explosive issue looks brilliant. On Oct. 10, BU held a forum titled “Assaulted Under the Influence” intended to soothe student anger over the issue, which had reached a boiling point when it was a central focus in the Union elections last April. The event was billed as a dialogue between the students and “key administrators.” Though the highest ranking administrator they could muster was Assistant Dean of Students Daryl DeLuca, the fact that they held the event gives the impression that they are ones being proactive when the opposite is in fact the case.
Union President Adil Yunis needs to redefine his administration as the one that is moving to force change and expose the BU administration as intransigent and defensive. To do this, Yunis and the Union should release a specific and detailed policy proposal. This would force the BU administration to accept or reject the Union proposal and therefore come down black or white on an issue for which they prefer shades of gray. It would also serve to educate and potentially mobilize younger BU students, many of whom would be outraged if they knew the ugly truth about the administration’s approach to sexual assault.
With new faces like President Robert Brown and popular Dean of Students Kenneth Elmore, Boston University is ripe for change — these new figures could abandon the current policy without having to flip-flop. Grant and Yunis need to take advantage of this opportunity by using, and expanding, the power of the Union to push through a concrete policy change guaranteeing an exception to BU’s infamous “zero-tolerance” policy.