On February 5th, a Saint Xavier student made a Tweet regarding an alleged on-campus sexual assault that happened to her and the way the school handled the situation.
Controversy emerged as the Tweet quickly spread throughout the SXU student community.
A significant amount of the responses expressed negative emotions, with many Twitter users sharing their extreme disappointment with the way the school allegedly handled the student’s case, as well as their lack of immediate response on the issue.
It took the school two days and tons of controversy to deliver a response. They wouldn’t release a professional-looking email response for a whole other week, and on February 7th they began their response with a Tweet and an update to the school’s Instagram Story.
To many, the posts felt quick and harsh. The posts reassured students that “SXU takes all allegations of assault seriously” and immediately directed us to submit any further concerns to the Associate Dean of Students/Deputy Title IX Coordinator. However, many people did not accept the response.
One Twitter user responded by saying “You’re only ‘taking it seriously’ days after the fact. The damage is done.”
Many of the school’s students generally agreed that the school’s initial response was not sufficient, and it felt like the response was dismissive.
Their response felt like the equivalent to, “We promise that we take these things seriously, now stop bothering us about it.”
The initial responses could’ve been improved tremendously with a small statement that was later added in the email response.
If the school simply mentioned that they cannot release more information due to Title IX protocol, the responses would’ve felt much more legitimate and the dismissiveness would’ve been softened greatly.
Administration could have done many things to improve the response, rather than just providing us with the rushed social media posts. Seeing the school address such a serious controversy via an Instagram Story was unprofessional. They did not do themselves a service by using those casual platforms for such a pressing matter.
Another issue was their delayed reassurance. Saint Xavier did not offer supplementary seminars on sexual safety until after the controversy following the student’s Tweet.
Although it seemed like a noble attempt to make amends, it led people to question the integrity of offering the seminars in the first place. If administration genuinely felt like offering the seminars, they could’ve “randomly” offered them when the assault was reported, rather than wait until after they were the subject of a school-wide controversy.
It is understandable that administration would not want to flaunt around a sexual assault controversy, but that does not change the fact that they waited until after the controversy blew up in their face and spread across every corner of campus.
Unfortunately, it feels like administration decided to save face rather than be honest with students. Hopefully administration will decide to be clear with students going forward, rather than seemingly wanting us off their backs.
Going forward, administration should strive for honesty over public image, even if it is uncomfortable for them.
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