Naomi Wolf on
The Silent Treatment.
I called Dean Brodhead again and asked him if anyone had known about Bloom’s approaches to students. He said that in his tenure as dean, “no one came to me” with a formal complaint. I said that was not what I was asking. We went back and forth. Finally, he said in exasperation: “Am I saying that no one ever went to anyone in the whole of history? I am not in a position to answer it.” I asked again. Eventually he exclaimed, “Naomi, please understand I am not in a position to say. I am not telling you there might not be students who share your thoughts or even your experience about this. I am saying they did not come to me.”
I asked Dean Brodhead how often the committee met last year. “It met more than no times and not many times.”
“What’s ‘not many’?”
“This isn’t a court.”
“Are these matters of public record?”
“No, they are not. To open the matter to public record is to expose the person who made the charge.” Not true; many universities make statistics about sexual-misconduct complaints available without naming people. “How do I know as a concerned alum, since these proceedings are confidential, that there are actual penalties?”
“I am an honorable and truthful person. These things are dealt with.”
“But how many complaints are brought?”
“I can’t answer that . . . I’m not in a position to give you the statistical information. I have no . . . the number of cases . . . I have not gathered a statistical abstract.”
“Can the student’s attorney be present?”
“The process is not designed as a judicial one . . . We do not have attorneys present.” I told him my story—again—and asked what he would do.
“Harold Bloom is someone I almost never see,” he said.
“Are you not concerned about other young women?” I asked.
“Do you want me to call him?”
“I am asking what you think is appropriate,” I said.
Because of the time lapse, he said, he would not have even an informal conversation with Bloom on behalf of students today. Then, as if he had never heard of the letter that had begun my first conversation with him months before, Brodhead noted that I could send him a letter.
“I’m going to have a successor,” he said with relief. “You can send a letter to my successor.”
The struggle continues:
To President Levin,
I heard what you said about me at the recent meeting you had with Concerned Black Students. When they brought up last year's upside-down flag harassment, you quieted their concerns by saying that 1) you had met with me, 2) that I'm fine, and 3) that the incident is now "swept under the rug."
Who gave you the right to speak for others? Oh, I forgot, that's your job - you do it every day. Without their consent, without their knowing, in fact oftentimes against their very wishes and well-being. Such is the job of being president of Yale, being best friends with W. Bush, being responsible for crushing efforts to create democracy and equality at this very institution, a top-down, for-profit corporation in disguise as a non-profit school. What are the longest-lasting, most hidden, and most dangerous lessons that most Yale undergraduates learn?
But I digress. We talked about all this at our meeting in the fall. I told you, and Nina Glickson, most of my concerns with Yale. You responded to each concern with a shallow justification. When faced with the question of why there's only one tenured black woman faculty, you both denied it, then tried to come up with names of others, but failing to, because there are no others beyond Professor Hazel Carby. You ended the meeting by telling me that once upon a time, you too were idealistic and had "similar" values to mine. Please - don't exploit empathy to bring attention to you being helpless in your role as Yale president, helpless to change the system which has made you what you are, all the while knowing about the consequences - of Yale threats against graduate student organizers, of Yale investments in unethical corporations, of Yale police racially profiling New Haven residents. You were mostly just relieved that I, at that point, was not going to press charges or raise a further ruckus about how Yale dealt with the upside-down flag harassment and ensuing incidents.
You reassured Concerned Black Students that I was fine (which you determined from your one-hour meeting with me, most of which was taken up by you rationalizing the discrepancy between your "real self" and the role you are expected to play). What do you know about being fine? Being terrified of being beaten up for your political beliefs? Being arrested by the Yale police for no reason except your skin color? Being raped, only to have your rapist go forth, free and anonymous, while your charges are dismissed, and you suffer from trauma of deep violation and violence the rest of your life? Being bombarded by hate mail and controversy because you, a faculty member, wrote an editorial with an anti-war stance? Of course I'm fine. I am breathing, going to school, going about my usual business. But I'm not fine, in that I will forever remember the moments waiting inside my bedroom for them to go away, knowing that it is like this, a hundred times worse, for countless others who have suffered harassment, discrimination, and assault at the hands of Yale, and the racism, sexism, homophobia, and classism it simultaneously cultivates and neglects to address. I'm not fine, in that I know that those men who visited my room, and others who have raped, assaulted, and harassed here on campus, will go on to live lives of privilege granted to them by their Yale degrees, anonymous and unburdened by the consequences of their actions.
You think that because the five men who came to my room went through internal disciplinary procedures, that it's now all "swept under the rug." It was NOT an isolated incident. Similar incidents, and daily acts of discrimination - based on gender, race, sexuality, religion, and political beliefs - happen all the time at Yale. And there are no structures of accountability, of support, of testimony, of justice, of prevention. Who is affected, marginalized, silenced? Students, faculty, and staff of color; women; non-straight people; New Haven residents; people who stand up for what they belief in. There is so much at stake. The harassment, assault, and discrimination continue, in all their forms.
So: 1) your meeting with me does not in any way excuse you from addressing the demands of Concerned Black Students; 2) do not speak for others when you, being "on the top," never have to imagine what it's like to be "on the bottom"; and 3) what happened will never be "swept under the rug" as long as Yale continues to perpetuate structural and cultural inequalities.
Speaking for myself,
Katherine Lo
