Harassment about power structure

"Let's talk about sex baby..." Where have you heard that before? If it was from an authority figure, would you know where to go? "Let's talk about you and me..." Sure, you've seen the media's version of sexual harassment, but recognizing it in real life is another issue all together. Before this sounds too much like one of those sex education videos from junior high, let's talk about why you should care about sexual harassment.

First off, sexual harassment exists, even in an enlightened place like Oberlin. Students have filed sexual harassment complaints. If students didn't believe in the truth of their convictions, they wouldn't bother to the pursue the issue because the process is obtuse and lenghty. Students wouldn't be saying they didn't know how far to push the issue. They wouldn't be saying they were made to feel uncomfortable and felt they had to react in some way. Students say they have been having problems at Oberlin for years. Obviously, sexual harassment is not a new phenomenom.

Yet whether students and faculty understand where to turn for help if harassed is not quite so obvious. Whether students and faculty know about the process outlined in the sexual offense policy isn't obvious, either. In fact, many students and faculty admit that they don't know very much about Oberlin's sexual offense policy, though it is a policy that students and faculty might find relates more to their lives than a lot of the other rules and regulations tucked in the back of Fussers. And it shouldn't take a case like Holtzman's to inspire students and faculty to start learning about how they, too, can protect themselves and about how Camille Mitchell, administrator of the Oberlin College Sexual Offense Policy, is there to help them protect themselves.

Everyone in the College community is responsible for helping to educate about the sexual offense policy. Not just those in a position of authority. The rest of us. Those of us who can read, who have opposable thumbs and can open Fussers to the appropriate page. As Oberlin students who consider ourselves semi-enlightened, we need to think about these issues and find out what we need to know. We don't need to be spoon-fed the information. We can find it, read it and process it ourselves.