SEXUAL ASSAULT at Brown University

Are the policies meant to protect students -- or the university?

by Jody Ericson

Something happened on the Brown University campus on September 3, 1996. He claimed they'd had sex, and it was consensual. She called it rape, and said he'd been violent with her before.

Those on campus who knew the couple say they were once intensely in love and talked of marriage. But according to a complaint filed with the US Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights (OCR), their nine-month affair had deteriorated, and he had become abusive -- beating her and, on one occasion, even burning her. That night, the complaint says, he forced her to have sex.

The case was originally taken to the Brown University Disciplinary Council (UDC), a body set up by the school to uphold its "tenets of community behavior," which include rules against sexual misconduct. When the UDC finds a "preponderance of evidence" that the tenets have been broken, it can impose penalties that range from probation to permanent expulsion. The UDC complaint was an obvious step for the woman. In this case, she feared it was her only option because she believed that the alleged perpetrator -- as the relative of a foreign monarch -- had diplomatic immunity. (Initially, the university said that the question of immunity was best resolved by the attorney general. Later, the university's legal counsel determined that the charged student did not have diplomatic immunity.)

But the case took another turn. The UDC flatly refused even to hear the case. The move, say critics, was not motivated by precedent. The UDC had heard -- and rendered decisions -- on allegations of sexual misconduct in the past. And, clearly, a rape would constitute a violation of the tenets of "community behavior" which the body is charged with upholding.

Instead, it appears to some that the case may have been dismissed for political reasons. According to documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, the alleged rapist told the woman that his father was a "generous contributor" to Brown. The charged student was also well-known to the administration as a relation of an influential, and extremely wealthy, foreign monarch.

What's more, he was represented before the UDC by Martha Sharp Joukowsky, a professor whose fieldwork has brought her into contact with the student's family. Joukowsky is also the wife of Artemis Joukowsky, a well-known and influential fundraiser for Brown who is also the university's vice-chancellor.

In OCR documents, Robin Rose, Brown's dean of student life -- whose office oversees UDC cases -- at first denied she had talked to Artemis Joukowsky about the case. But after she was asked a second time, "she recalled that they had had one very brief conversation in which he had said this was a very unfortunate situation."

University officials, however, vehemently deny that politics played any role in the case. The two students, explains Laura Freid, Brown's executive vice-president for external relations, had been "involved in a long-term relationship," and the facts of the case were sufficiently "complicated" that the UDC determined that it could not hear it. University officials say they are not at liberty to explain these "complications" in any more detail because to do so would be a breach of confidentiality. Furthermore, Freid explains, the UDC has the power to refuse to hear cases for any reason, particularly cases that concern felonies.

Regardless of what the UDC does, students are always free to pursue cases in the criminal-justice system. "The complaining student," Freid wrote in a statement, "was given the name and address of the state officials through whom she could pursue the case and was assured of continuing support and assistance from the Office of Student Life."

There is no quarreling with the university's policy of not discussing the confidential facts of the case. But in the supercharged atmosphere of a college campus -- this case has attracted widespread attention -- there are as-yet-unanswered questions. Everyone agrees that the case is complicated. But why did the UDC simply refuse to hear it -- rather than digging deeper? If there turned out to be no solid evidence of any wrongdoing, the university could make that finding, as it had in the past. Indeed, hadn't the UDC examined cases which were as serious -- and as murky -- in the past? Why was this case special?

Perhaps the most disturbing part of this story, though, is that the UDCbroke no rules in deciding not to hear the case. Simply put:it does not have to explain its actions. College judiciaries such as Brown's UDC -- despite their power to ruin a college career, or to let a criminal walk freely on campus -- are not legal entities and, for the most part, can do as they please. At Brown, the council can even refuse to hear a case -- and refuse to state a reason. And, say the UDC's many critics, it has a history of arbitrary decisions.

When students feel they've been treated unfairly by the council, their only option is to appeal to the courts -- or, in cases of gender discrimination, to the OCR. But judges are reluctant to second-guess a university's decision, and the OCR rarely punishes these institutions by yanking their federal funding.

In the end, the university's handling of this case may have further ramifications. Stunned by the UDC's decision, the alleged victim's parents filed a complaint a month later with the OCR, whose investigation continues. The parents have also written to numerous campus officials, including departing president Vartan Gregorian, asking for an internal investigation into the UDC.

In a written complaint to the OCR, the parents of the alleged victim wondered whether the university could have been objective "in evaluating conflict of interest in this web of mutual interests."

Calling the UDC ruling "a grave, possibly sinister miscarriage of justice," the young woman's mother, in a letter to Gregorian, says the incident is "in danger of erupting beyond university bounds."

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Jody Ericson can be reached at jericson[a]phx.com.