Bethany Meadows
While statistics will never truly be accurate¹, about 25% of cis-women, 16.7% of cis-men, and 29.5% of trans*, genderqueer, questioning their gender identity, and gender nonconforming (TGQN) individuals are sexually assaulted in college (“Get Statistics”; Cantor et al.; Marine). Moreover, during the COVID-19 pandemic, interpersonal violence increased and made it harder for survivors to access support (Evans et al.). During the pandemic, many writers are within their own homes, but those homes, like the idea of writing centers as homes (McKinney; Dixon and Robinson; McNamee and Miley), may not be “cozy” or “safe” for survivors. Therefore, because of these exigencies, this article will 1) overview how writing center practitioners engage with survivors, particularly through mandatory reporting; 2) discuss how mandatory reporting creates tensions for writing centers, especially through the general absence of these discussions in our field; 3) give suggestions for what we can do right now in our writing centers with regard to mandatory reporting; and 4) provide questions to guide further research and reflections about mandatory reporting.
Writing center practitioners come into contact with survivors daily, whether we know it or not. We may even be survivors ourselves. Sometimes, a survivor may disclose their assaults to those they trust, including writing center tutors, who occupy positionalities of both peer and someone with power (Trimbur; Carino). Understandably, survivors may feel comfortable disclosing to a peer and reasonably expect the tutor, who has power within the university, to advocate for them in that system.
However, that system is dictated by federal and institutional policies, that in many writing centers, require a tutor to report the survivor’s assault to an administrative body. The question whether mandatory reporting is actually effective has been widely studied and debated outside writing studies (Holland, Cortina, et al., “Compelled”; Holland, Cortina, et al., “Advocating”; Newins; Holland, Gustafson, et al.). Most argue that mandatory reporting removes a survivor’s agency and is not safe for the survivor, nor effective for preventing future harm. Furthering the exigencies discussed above, mid-pandemic in August 2020, Title IX changed drastically, including loosening who is required to be a mandatory reporter. This shift allows universities to make their own policies about who is a mandatory reporter, and it no longer requires all employees to be one (Office for Civil Rights 64). Yet, most universities maintained the same mandatory reporting requirements as before (Lavigne).
Relatively little has been written in the field in regard to sexual violence and/or mandatory reporting within writing studies. This indicates a peripheral silence that will continue to silence survivors. For what has been written in the field, Prebel also complicates how mandatory reporting can also re-victimize and isolate survivors. Scholars in writing centers have discussed their experiences with sexual misconduct and violence in the center, complicating the ideas of reporting, violence, and trauma (Nadler; Dixon). Additionally, recent scholarship (“Position”; Ericsson) has tended to focus on individuals and institutions as the main agents of change for eradicting sexual violence, which runs the risk of reproducing institutional harm and betrayal. Therefore, to build on the scholarship that has discussed these issues, we need to
interrogate the tensions and silences within our own centers. Below, I offer key ideas and questions for us to begin this work.
What Can We Do Now?
To begin the interrogation of these tensions and silences, here are some possible considerations for our centers:
- Begin/continue these conversations. Sexual violence, mandatory reporting, and emotional labor are not problems that disappear or are ever solved. Instead, the first step for us should be starting this discussion in trauma-informed and empathetic ways. For instance, reflecting on how we talk about survivor agency, mandatory reporting, and sexual violence is a crucial first step to enacting radical change. These conversations need to happen cross-institutionally and also with the community, as enacting anti-rape culture extends beyond the confines of a singular academy.
- Improve writing center processes. In these trauma-informed ways of supporting survivors, this means that we also need to forefront empathy for all types of trauma and intersections, including but not limited to sexual violence, white supremacy, pandemic, etc. These processes include revising writing center policies and handbooks, partnering with community members, forefronting difficult conversations, disrupting oppressive systems, and so on. These are some initial opportunities, but certainly not all of them, as eradicating harm is the work for a collective, not an individual.
- Advocate for institutional reform. Many times, mandatory reporting training is provided by entities outside the writing center. Title IX offices and the people in them are overworked and designed for the protection of the university (Brown). Their rhetorical interests are sometimes different than those of us in writing centers. We have to consider how we bring in other institutional departments to talk about these topics and processes and reconsider how we supplement their material with how tutors can empathetically respond to survivors’ disclosures in trauma-informed ways.
What Do We Still Need to Do?
These are the tensions that must be felt, and here are some beginning questions without easy answers that I call on writing center practitioners to reflect upon:
- People from disempowered communities are at much higher risk of sexual violence. Additionally, many universities share Title IX reports with university or community police, which are white supremacist, ableist, genderist institutions. If, as Greenfield notes, we “have an ethical responsibility to intervene purposefully” (6), how do we do that?
- If we believe students have the right to their own language and voice, then why do we remove survivor agency with mandatory reporting?
- Statistical reports of survivorhood are never going to be accurate, and reporting doesn’t always change systems. How can we foreground care and community for survivors that don’t rely on the idea people must and/or should report?
- How have writing centers negotiated the ethics of mandatory reporting (e.g. studies that show it’s not effective/helpful for survivors, it can be re-traumatizing for survivors/cause secondary trauma for tutors, etc.) with the institutional requirement for the policy?
- How have tutors been trained and prepared for mandatory reporting in our institutions? Has that process always been the same? How is that process accounting for the possibility of “institutional betrayal” (Freyd)?
- Is the training for mandatory reporting and survivor disclosures the same? What are the implications of relating them as the same training for tutors?
- How do we begin to disrupt these institutional processes and harm for “radical resistance” (McNamee and Miley)?
Overall, these are questions for us to begin the work of decoupling institutional requirements with more ethical, care-based approaches to trauma in writing centers. Mandatory reporting has a lot of tensions and generally is there to legally protect the institution rather than survivors. These questions, then, will not be comfortable or even have a “correct” answer—instead, they’re thoughts and feelings we must all sit with together through beginning the conversations, improving our processes, and advocating for institutional change. We are all accountable for creating this culture of change. Within and across writing centers, we can help to address the peripheral silences in our scholarship and practices to help create spaces, places, and praxis that resists rather than perpetuates harm.
¹ Statistics surrounding sexual violence have tensions and problems. First, survivors underreport their experiences of sexual violence to institutions due to a myriad of reasons (e.g., lack of trust in the institutions, fear of not being believed, self-blame, etc.) (Spencer et al.). Second, statistics vary by studies’ methodology as well as can never illuminate the full scope and stories of sexual violence (Pelletier and Zweig). Finally, many statistics and activism tend to focus on privileged positionalities (e.g., white, wealthy, able-bodyminded, virginal, straight cis-gender women). In regard to gender, many research only looks cisgender women’s experiences instead of including all men, women, and non-binary individuals (Patterson).
Works Cited
Brown, Sarah. “Life Inside the Title IX Pressure Cooker.” The Chronicle of Higher Education, 5 Sept. 2019, https://www.chronicle.com/interactives/20190905-titleix-pressure-cooker.
Cantor, David, et al. Report on the AAU Campus Climate Survey on Sexual Assault and Sexual Misconduct. Westat, 20 Oct. 2017, p. 288, www.aau.edu/sites/default/files/AAU-Files/Key-Issues/Campus-Safety/AAU-Campus-Cl imate-Survey-FINAL-10-20-17.pdf.
Carino, Peter. “Power and Authority in Peer Tutoring.” The Center Will Hold, edited by Michael A. Pemberton and Joyce Kinkead, University Press of Colorado, 2003, pp. 96–113, doi:10.2307/j.ctt46nxnq.9.
Dixon, Elise, and Rachel Robinson. “Welcome for Whom: Introduction to the Special Issue.” The Peer Review, vol. 3, no. 1, Summer 2019, http://thepeerreview-iwca.org/issues/redefining-welcome/welcome-for-whom-introductio n-to-the-special-issue/.
Ericsson, Patricia Freitag, editor. Sexual Harassment and Cultural Change in Writing Studies. WAC Clearinghouse, 2020.
Evans, Megan L., et al. “A Pandemic within a Pandemic — Intimate Partner Violence during Covid-19.” New England Journal of Medicine, vol. 383, no. 24, Massachusetts Medical Society, Dec. 2020, pp. 2302–04. Taylor and Francis+NEJM, doi:10.1056/NEJMp2024046.
Freyd, Jennifer J. “When Sexual Assault Victims Speak out, Their Institutions Often Betray Them.” The Conversation, 11 Jan. 2018, http://theconversation.com/when-sexual-assault-victims-speak-out-their-institutions-often-betray-them-87050.
“Get Statistics.” National Sexual Violence Resource Center, www.nsvrc.org/node/4737. Accessed 19 Mar. 2020.
Greenfield, Laura. Radical Writing Center Praxis: A Paradigm for Ethical Political Engagement. Utah State University Press, 2019.
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Holland, Kathryn, Amber Gustafson, et al. “Supporting Survivors: The Roles of Rape Myths and Feminism in University Resident Assistants’ Response to Sexual Assault Disclosure Scenarios.” Sex Roles, vol. 82, 2020, pp. 206–18, https://doi-org.proxy.bsu.edu/10.1007/s11199-019-01048-6.
Lavigne, Paula. “New Title IX Regulations Change How Colleges Must Respond to Sexual Misconduct Complaints.” ESPN, 6 May 2020, https://www.espn.com/college-sports/story/_/id/29144365/new-title-ix-regulations-chang e-how-colleges-respond-sexual-misconduct-complaints.
Marine, Susan. “For Brandon, For Justice: Naming and Ending Sexual Violence Against Trans* College Students.” Intersections of Identity and Sexual Violence on Campus: Centering Minoritized Students’ Experiences, edited by Jessica C. Harris and Chris Linder, 1st ed., Stylus, 2017, pp. 83–100.
McKinney, Jackie Grutsch. Peripheral Visions for Writing Centers. University Press of Colorado, 2013. JSTOR, doi:10.2307/j.ctt4cgk97.
McNamee, Kaidan, and Michelle Miley. “Writing Center as Homeplace (A Site for Radical Resistance).” The Peer Review, vol. 1, no. 2, Fall 2017, http://thepeerreview-iwca.org/issues/braver-spaces/writing-center-as-homeplace-a-site-fo r-radical-resistance/.
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About the Author
Bethany Meadows [she/her(s)] is a PhD student in Writing and Rhetoric at Michigan State University. She is working on earning specializations and certificates in Women and Gender Studies, Youth Development, and Community Engagement. Her main research interests include feminisms, sexual violence rhetoric, trauma-informed teaching & tutoring, and writing centers. She has been a writing center tutor for the past 7 years and a writing center administrator at both Ball State during her Master’s and at Michigan State. Outside of academic work, Bethany enjoys volunteering for local community organizations. Additionally, she enjoys finding and attending live music performances and concerts.