On Monday my first-year seminar gathered at the flagpole at the north end of the UC Davis Quad. In this course we walk, we notice, and we write. Before we set out, I talked with my students about Cornell and about what could happen to writing they shared with me.
A former Cornell student known publicly as Jane Doe alleges that members of a fraternity gang-raped her in October 2024, when she was a junior. Her allegations became public two years later, raising serious questions about the university’s response. Campus police investigated, but questions remain about what evidence reached the Tompkins County District Attorney and what he reviewed before declining to pursue charges. The Ithaca Police Department, a separate agency, learned of the allegations from news reports. No arrests followed the initial investigation. The criminal investigation has since been reopened.
I keep counting weeks. Jane Doe had started her junior year a few weeks before the attack. My third-year students have just started theirs. Women fill most of the seats in my writing in fine arts class this quarter, and most of the students who walk the Quad and the rest of campus with me on Mondays are women. Three thousand miles separate Ithaca from Davis. But the juniors in my class are at almost the same point in their college lives that Jane Doe was when she says she was attacked.
Here’s what I told my students. Under university policy, I am a responsible employee. Your journals may contain writing you never share with me. For the pages you choose to submit, however, I cannot promise confidentiality. If writing you submit discloses sexual assault, sexual harassment, or stalking, I am required to share that information with the university’s reporting office. I want you to know that before you decide what to submit.
The reporting requirement is meant to move information to people who can act on it. But it can also silence a student who wants to tell one person and nobody else. I cannot offer confidentiality, but I can explain the rule before a student decides what to share.
Then I named the alternatives. UC Davis CARE, the Center for Advocacy, Resources, and Education, offers free, confidential advocacy and support. I also pointed them toward confidential counseling and explained how to report concerns through HDAPP, the university’s Harassment & Discrimination Assistance and Prevention Program.
Explaining the rule does not remove the constraint. A student may still leave something unwritten, or keep it out of the pages submitted to me. But she should not discover the limit on confidentiality only after she has trusted me with her story.
News like this can return a person to a night she has tried not to remember. A student who has carried something alone for two years might set it down in her journal this week, at the end of a walk. I know from experience that journals can invite us to write about our most difficult moments, memories, and revelations.
After 36 years of teaching at UC Davis, mostly in small classes, I cannot read the Cornell reporting as a distant institutional story. As a university administrator, I am troubled by the distance between reporting an assault and receiving an adequate institutional response. A student can report an assault and still find that the institutions responsible for responding have failed to assemble—or act on—the full account.
As a faculty member, I welcomed the introduction of Cornell faculty’s resolution of no confidence in their university leadership. It also raised a question closer to home: how do professors remain responsible for students’ welfare without assuming that an institutional referral completes our responsibility? I can’t say what any Cornell professor knew or heard. I can say how I’d feel if Jane Doe had sat in my seminar. I would feel that her university had failed her. I would also have to ask whether I had done everything I could.
After our walk on Monday, my students and I sat down to write. I don’t know what they put on the page. But before they began, I had explained who would read the pages they submitted, what I would be required to report, and where they could find confidential support. An invitation to write about your life should come with that clarity. Every Cornell student deserved it two years ago. Every UC Davis student deserves it now.
Hottest October ever! Still, join us for the pub quiz tonight, won’t you? Last week we had 40 teams, which is a lot, so come early to grab a table (or call ahead for a reservation.) Also, take heed that the performance of the quiz may move along quickly — the entire quiz is under 900 words long!
In addition to topics raised above, tonight’s pub quiz will feature questions on airspaces, auras, battlefield, bestsellers, bloodbath, bloodhounds, bloodshed, bookworms, buttermilk, buttery delights, campfires, chemistry, cities, coastlines, costumes, dancefloors, dips, employees, eyesight, farmland, faults, faults, finales, fireplaces, flatbread, flights, footsteps, frontbenchers, frontman, German words, ghostwriters, grasshoppers, gunpowder, heartbreaks, heartthrobs, highland, Hollywood, humans, insects, islands, Merseyside, moonlight, mousetrap, nosepieces, pancake, pantyhose, paratroopers, peaks, pints of beer, playmakers, popcorn, prizefighters, prizes, rainforests, returns, rockstars, schoolgirl, screams, screenwriters, Silicon Valley, singers, smartphones, soldiers, soothsayer, statesman, steps, sunburns, sunlight, supernovas, superstars, sweetheart, teatimes, touchdowns, tourists, wildfires, current events, books and authors, and Shakespeare.
Thanks to all the patrons who have been enjoying fresh Pub Quiz content. Thanks especially to new subscribers Janet, Jasmine, Joey, Carly, and The Nevergiveruppers! Every week I check the Patreon to see if there is someone new to thank. I also thank The Original Vincibles, Summer Brains, The Outside Agitators, John Poirier’s team Quizimodo, Gena Harper, the conversationally entertaining dinner companions The Mavens who keep attending, despite their ambitious travel schedules and the cost of avocado. Thanks to everyone who supports the Pub Quiz on Patreon. I would love to add your name or that of your team to the list of pub quiz boosters. I appreciate your backing this pub quiz project of mine!
Best,
Dr. Andy
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- Internet Culture. What do we call the process of adjusting computer hardware settings to make components like the CPU or GPU run at speeds higher than their default factory specifications?
- Newspaper Headlines. Science Daily reported on September 29 that what organic compound made up of amino acids “may help build muscle even without exercise.”