During a brisk week last April, I found myself going into the special collections reading room, where there was one box waiting for me. The archivist kindly let me know that this was all they found, and that normally there were more boxes. As the founder of the Swarthmore Survivor’s Collective, I had put in a request a week prior in anticipation of my planning for the renewal of Survivor’s Week after years of absence. This project would consist of a series of visual displays such as a clothesline with ribbons of various colors representing survivors of assault, a movie night, and a catered dinner for survivors, culminating in a Take Back the Night Open Mic. I had asked for any documents related to the history of Survivor’s Week itself, Title IX, and assault on campus in general.
I anticipated some of what was waiting for me: in spring of my freshman year, I had anonymously published an article to Voices about my experiences as a freshman Survivor unearthing this institution’s history with sexual violence. What I did not expect were documents dating back to the fifties. Documents where women took it upon themselves to record the pervasiveness of assault on campus, which was being ignored by administration. The archives had most records of correspondences from the 1970s, when students involved with the then-Women’s Center took it upon themselves to document what was happening on campus.
Spearheaded by the Women’s Center, these students organized a project where other women on campus could report their own assaults. I feel it is important to quote the document here in whole, as to give an idea of the nature of rape culture on campus and how far back it goes. From top to bottom, the type-written document reads:
“October 13, 1976
During September, there were two incidents reported to campus security involving Swarthmore Students who were bothered while walking on campus. Possibly there were other incidents that were not reported.
These incidents are part of a serious problem at Swarthmore. The Women’s Center is trying to collect information concerning incidents of this sort at Swarthmore in order to evaluate the effectiveness of campus security. Ultimately, we want to present a proposal to the Administration for security reforms. There is no record of this information except in the security reports, and we are unsure of how complete those are.
If you have been — or know of anyone who has been — followed, threatened, hassled, or otherwise assaulted, please let us know. Many incidents which have appeared unimportant of themselves have proved to be significant when they are connected with other incidents involving the same person or persons.
If you have information that will help us, please fill out the bottom portion of this mailing or contact us by telephone. Confidentiality is of course guaranteed.”
The threats these women were referring to included both student and community perpetrators, and involved being groped while walking to the dining hall, being followed to Wharton Hall by a man wielding a knife, and being jostled by groups of men when walking home to Willets. While it is unclear what changes came directly from this project, it is documented that for a brief time, administration responded by having a Security Guard stationed in Willets, to little relief from the incidents. Many documents were lost during a fire at the Women’s Resource center, and many of the remaining documents are singed at the edges.
The documents available at the archives very quickly jump in timeline to the ’80s and ’90s, when Survivor’s Week was at its most active and successful. One of the advertisements for the week events is an Orange Flyer with the title “Yes, it happens at Swarthmore, From the Martin Men’s Bathroom, ‘Best Ways to Get Laid at Swat.’” The document goes on to list items like “Find Bryn-Mawr” and “Date Rape,” and other items which are, if you can believe it, far too vulgar to repeat here.
The archive offers little historical information after this — much of the information regarding the recent Organizing For Survivors (O4S) movement took place online, and many of the links where advocacy happened are now defunct when accessed through the Swarthmore website. The redacted Phi Psi minutes, whose publication in The Phoenix led to a wave of campus protest and ultimately the disbanding of both Swarthmore fraternities in 2019, document the abuse that took place in the frat house. These are still accessible and are horrifying to read. I read them in my freshman year, and wondered to myself if I would have chosen to enroll here knowing what I know now.
After O4S and partly due to COVID, Survivor Advocacy died down significantly. It seems that a communal notion developed among among the Swarthmore community: where there are no frats, there is no sexual violence. The real truth, though, is that the lack of Greek Life only expedites and streamlines sexual violence, and its absence does not stop (or I’d argue even lessen) the violence as a whole.
In the wake of the bombshell release of the lawsuit of Jane Doe against the men now known as the Cornell Seven, assault on college campuses has once again become a moment in the zeitgeist — as it does every few years when someone decides to openly disclose the torture and violation they endured. The talk always becomes, “How could this happen? How could the college let this happen?” Survivors on this campus know that this violence happens here every day, just as it does on every other campus across the United States.
Swarthmore is home to dozens of Jane and John Does, who are far too often failed by policy meant to protect them. Sexual assault is an open secret on this campus. Most women you speak to will tell you that they themselves have been assaulted or that they know of someone who has, and most of these reports never make it to Title IX. This reality is seemingly a result of the frustration expressed by those who do choose to report to Title IX.
Jane Doe’s story is shocking to so many because of the degree of violence she endured. She is not the exception. The assault that happens here is often violent, too. The perpetrator’s friends often know about it and do nothing, as did the other brothers in the Cornell group chat when one of the perpetrators advertised “free pussy.” Survivors on this campus are often stalked and harassed by their perpetrators after their assaults, and mocked by their friends in public.
As in the case of the Cornell 7, The Swarthmore Dozens still go here. The problem does not necessarily lie in Title IX offices themselves, but in the federal policy, which claims to guarantee educational access for both parties and in reality results in a perpetrator getting their degree while victims often graduate late or not at all. Cases often end in protection orders where the perpetrator is not permitted to contact their victim or be in the same classes as them (when possible). In practice, though, victims have to see their rapists and abusers every day at the dining hall, since perpetrators cannot legally be required to avoid the dining hall. They also have to be in classes with their rapists and abusers, especially when majors are so small that certain courses are only offered at a specific time.
This guarantee of educational access means that Survivors are often pushed to live off-campus to avoid seeing their abusers, having to pay rent at an apartment, lose a significant amount of financial aid, and cough up $5,000 for a commuter dining plan that offers minimal dining dollars. The Survivor is punished. They often end up taking leaves of absence to avoid having to take classes with their abusers and end up getting reclassed, having to graduate late to wait out the graduation of their abusers. Some leave Swarthmore and never come back, like Jane Doe did at Cornell.
My assault happened before coming to Swarthmore. I don’t have to see my abuser regularly. Still, I am so affected by my assault that I have had to seek academic accommodations. Jane Doe is very likely going through the worst time of her life right now. Many women on this campus are too, silently, and many of them are not yet ready to show up to spaces like the Survivor’s Collective. Culture and policy maintains this silence. The men (and women) at Cornell who would do this are here too. They are in your classes, on your sports teams, living in your hall. Some of their friends know, and they choose not to do anything about it.
Title IX policy works to guarantee educational access, just frequently not for the victim. It is good that the world is talking about and mostly supporting Jane Doe. But the problem is not only at Cornell, or only in frats. When it comes to sexual violence, campus policy rarely works in favor of Survivors, evidenced on paper at Swarthmore for almost 80 years. We need to remember that Cornell is Swarthmore is Temple is UPenn is every other campus you can possibly imagine. It is time to shift the focus to the Jane and John Does, to have a real cultural reckoning as to why there is a pervasive narrative that bodies are public objects to use and abandon, as well as why our policies care about the well-being and education of perpetrators and not their victims whose lives have now been changed forever.
