Issues with sexual assault reporting at Tufts Daily newspaper

[cazador]

This is lengthy, but I really care about this and would love people's feedback.

This week I wrote a Letter to the Editor of the Tufts daily newspaper, in response to a horrible editorial in which he asserted that some women "may choose to wear more conservative clothes if they know they're going to be walking alone late at night, or they may be

Comments

[amadea]

I completely agree with you that the editorial in the Tufts Daily is a really good illustration of WHY it's a bad idea to report on victims' dress.The editorial goes from the (as you say) broad, fairly ambiguous implication that women wearing skirts/dresses have been targeted by this particular attacker, to make a point that women might choose to protect themselves by dressing in a more conservative way. This move on the part of the paper is a great illustration of the way in which vague, seemingly innocuous statements can quickly be transformed into behavioral suggestions. And we already know how those suggestions can become imperatives. I think the editorial shows a striking lack of concern and awareness about that process. As you say, nothing in the original police report provides any information that might actually help a woman protect herself - it's not as though the attacker were targeting people in a very specific way, in which case one *might* be able to make a better case that this information is useful to community members in protecting themselves. Casting this issue as one of political correctness versus safety misses the point entirely - no-one's safety is being protected by reporting the information. In fact, the net effect on safety could well be a negative one, by perpetuating a culture of fear and misplaced blame.

That being said, I can also understand why members of the paper staff might have been deeply bothered by the use of an official bias incident report to express concern about the choice to report what was presented to the staff as factual information. That, too, can lead to a slippery slope, where official sanctions are used to control news content that offends or causes problems for a particular party or group. As you note, the newspaper had already printed a letter to the editor that was critical of the inclusion of information about victim's dress, before the bias incident report was filed. I don't know much about the Tufts bias incident report system or what potential sanctions can be brought to bear based on such a report. I do have some sympathy with members of the paper staff who felt threatened in their process of objective reporting by the idea that a student could try to bring outside consequences against the paper for reporting a piece of information that might have a negative impact upon them. I think the question of whether a bias incident report is a productive response to this kind of reporting is a really good question for both the paper and members of the community to ask. I don't think this editorial really addresses those isssues, though.

[cazador]

Thanks for helping me see things better from the perspective of the Daily's editor. As much as I disagree with his Editorial, I see your point on whether the bias incident report was the best possible approach to address the student's grievances. By the time I got involved, the bias incident reports had taken on a broader context, as direct action against both the Daily newspaper's reporting (or lack of) and the Tufts' administration;s lack of response to a student's concerns. The original bias incident report, though, was targeted specifically at the Daily.

The Daily's feature article, being a mere compilation of student quotes, could never be the basis of a bias incident report - unless the Daily consciously misrepresented the predominant student sentiment in its quotes (and no one is accusing the editor of doing that). What the editor is being taken to task for, though, is lacking the responsibility and compassion to stimulate a deeper conversation about sexual assaults on campus, which would be particularly pressing given the student body's reported general indifference to the issue. The original bias incident report did make that clear. But yes, it will be interesting to see how this community evolves from here.