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s University of Cincinnati students began filing onto campus to start classes this week, a battle was raging over a program run by the UC Women’s Center designed to aid sexual assault survivors.
The debate — signaled by public meetings, a protest and a flurry of social media posts — centered around the role of the RECLAIM Sexual Assault Survivor Advocate Program. A round of training for the program was suspended earlier this month, causing concern among students.
The program has been suspended in the past, most recently last year. Amid the backlash this year, the UC administration tells CityBeat that the program isn’t under threat — that it and the Women’s Center were merely looking at adjusting the program and that training will resume soon.
“It was never the intent to disband, dismantle, discontinue that program,” says UC Vice President for Student Affairs Debra Merchant. “That program is a valued program.”
But sources within the Women’s Center have a different version of events, saying they were told RECLAIM was cancelled.
RECLAIM participants say they were just a few days away from beginning the necessary 40-hour intensive training for the program, which offers sexual assault counseling and prevention strategies, when they received an email in early August from Paisley Scarberry, the Women’s Center sexual assault survivor advocate who oversees the training program, stating that the training was cancelled.
A week and a half later, on Aug. 17, participants in the program were called into a meeting with Merchant and Nicole Mayo, the school’s director of leadership and engagement, where they claim they were told the program would end.
“We had done all this work in preparation for the training, revamped the training, purchased all these promotional materials so we could promote the services going into the fall,” says Amy Howton, outgoing interim director of the UC Women’s Center. “When we were informed that the Women’s Center would no longer be providing these services, of course, we then had to communicate that to our students.”
The meeting set off controversy. The RECLAIM participants held a silent protest against the administrators, and photos of participants with the word “survivor” written across their chests and red tape over their mouths were posted on Facebook and other social media sites.
On Aug. 25, RECLAIM student advocates, community sexual assault organizations, sexual assault survivors and concerned University of Cincinnati students and faculty met in a conference room adjacent to the Women’s Center to discuss the future of the University of Cincinnati Title IX-funded advocacy program for survivors of sexual assaults.
“The only thing made clear is that RECLAIM would no longer exist,” said program participant Lauren Stoll at the meeting.
Student advocates fought back tears at times when talking about what they perceived to be the abrupt cancellation of the program’s training.
This isn’t the first time the future of the program has been in question. RECLAIM was suspended by the Women’s Center in the spring of 2014 after a shift in confidentiality laws around federal Title IX funds made it difficult to guarantee the confidentiality from RECLAIM peer advocates, according to the university. That suspension also caused anger from the program’s supporters on campus.
The previous suspension highlighted the tense role universities must play in a complex web of federal laws governing schools’ responsibilities to survivors and the rights of accused perpetrators of sexual assault. Last year, more than 50 universities and colleges were under federal investigation for mishandling sexual assault claims or discriminating against survivors. Locally, Xavier University underwent one such investigation in 2012.
As a result of the Title IX reinterpretation, RECLAIM lost a peer-run sexual assault hotline it once ran 24 hours a day. However, a paid staff position for a sexual assault survivor advocate was created. One rumored possible change to the program is a shift in that position’s duties, though for now a staffer, Scarberry, continues to perform the role.
Statistics published in 2015 by the National Sexual Violence Resource Center suggest that one in five women and one in 16 men experience some form of sexual assault while in college. More than 90 percent of the survivors of those assaults do not report them, according to the group’s data.
Those statistics have local incidents behind them. At least 18 sexual assaults were reported on or near UC’s campus during the 2013-2014 school year, for example, including at least one rape on campus near Nippert Stadium.
That has led advocates to be very protective of programs like RECLAIM in its current capacity. As the program stands now, it provides two distinct elements: education on sexual assault prevention and peer counseling for those who have already experienced sexual assault. Advocates say that second piece is vital, and they’re worried it will be eliminated or hobbled even if the program itself continues. That’s what happened when the program was suspended last year due to the Title IX concerns.
Sexual assault response providers outside UC’s campus have raised alarms about the possible elimination of peer advocates at the university.
Kristin Smith Shrimplin, executive director of community-based sexual assault support center Women Helping Women, wrote in an Aug. 30 editorial in The Cincinnati Enquirer, “It is important that as students begin their academic year — statistically the time of year that college students are at highest risk for sexual assault — a comprehensive service offering is readily available to assist and support survivors. In fact, it’s an integral element of students’ rights to safety and to receiving an education.”
UC says the tumult over RECLAIM stems from a misunderstanding and that the program isn’t in danger.
“Setting the record straight: RECLAIM will continue operating as is,” reads an Aug. 18 missive from the university’s official Twitter account. The statement was retweeted by Mayo, Merchant and the UC Women’s Center.
The day after UC’s tweet, the UC Women’s Center posted a screenshot of an iPhone note across its social media platforms that said, “The Women’s Center was never directed to disband RECLAIM or discontinue survivor support services. President Ono & the broader university community understand the importance of providing peer support as a best practice to students who experience sexual assault.”
But Howton, the outgoing interim director of the UC Women’s Center, has a different version of events. And she says UC administrators shifted course in response to student outcry about the possible cancellation.
“I think the administration, when they began to see the students’ reaction to the decision that had been made — and that was clearly articulated to the students that Monday on the 17th that RECLAIM was dissolved — they then reversed their decision and said that RECLAIM would continue,” Howton says.
Howton resigned from her position on Aug. 21 and will serve her last day Sept. 1. The day Howton resigned, Merchant, UC’s vice president for student affairs, posted the following message on the school’s Department of Student Affairs website and her personal Twitter account:
“No excuses. We could have and should have done better. RECLAIM will remain a peer based survivor advocacy program. We’re committed to training our peer advocates to deliver support of survivors of sexual and gender-based violence, provide advocacy, awareness and education. The Division of Student Affairs and the UC community is committed to the mission of RECLAIM.”
But as UC works to reschedule training, the program remains in flux.
Merchant says the Women’s Center is reaching out to the advocates to reschedule the training they were supposed to have last month. She says those who have already gone through the training are currently still qualified to be advocates.
The advocates say RECLAIM can’t exist without yearly training. The yearly update is necessary to be up to date with all the changes to best assist survivors, they say. Howton says the protocol is for all participants to go through the training annually, and the Women’s Center is currently struggling to set the training in motion during a busy time of year.
“There is such a need for campus-based survivor advocacy,” Howton says. “I think it’s important for the Women’s Center to continue to speak to that.” ©
This article appears in Sep 2-8, 2015.
