Solidarity Through Love and Support

No Red Tape is committed to supporting the health and safety of survivors of sexual and domestic violence at Columbia University. We feel that it is equally important to support our group’s members, fellow activists, and their families in times of need. In the face of any oppression and injustice, activist communities must come together in order to build power through love, solidarity, and compassion.

As an organization which fights to end rape culture, we recognize that sexual violence is intimately connected with different systems of oppression and forms of inequality, including limited access to healthcare. We acknowledge that people belonging to marginalized groups, such as people from low-income backgrounds and people of color, are disproportionately affected by health care inequality.

We are calling on the activist community and the greater Barnard/Columbia community to contribute in any way possible (donations, shares, kind words) to help a member of No Red Tape’s family, Nicole Tommasiello. Nicole’s Uncle Alfonso needs life-saving surgery. His doctors have told him that if his tumor is not removed, he will have only a few more months to live, and an even shorter amount of time before he becomes blind. Alfonso must pay out of pocket for all aspects of his surgery, including the equipment and the medical care he will receive after the surgery.

We believe that everyone has the right to live and should be able to receive the medical care they need.

Here’s the link to the GoFundMe! Please support in any way you can.

Sexual Assault Awareness Month Statement

[TW]

As we near the end of Sexual Assault Awareness Month, we have recently been taking the opportunity to reflect upon the anti-sexual violence movement and our role within it as activists and supporters. Accordingly, we feel that it is important for us to address the presence of interpersonal violence within activist communities.

We recognize that dating abuse and sexual violence can and do occur within every community, and activist communities are not an exception. Survivors who experience violence within these communities may be discouraged from coming forward because of concerns about damaging public perceptions of the movement or the reputation of other activists. However, the public image of an activist movement should never be prioritized over the safety and integrity of its members. Strong movements cannot be built if they perpetuate the silencing of survivors and allow violence to continue behind closed doors.

To all survivors of sexual violence, we believe you and strive to support you in any way we can. If you decide to turn to us for help or come forward with your story, we will connect you with resources and provide you with support to the best of our ability. Regardless of the circumstances of your experience or who your story implicates, we are here for you.

We believe that it is crucial for activist communities to apply a critical eye to ourselves when advocating for change. Sexual violence is a pervasive problem that spans all identities, settings, and social circles, and we recognize that we bear a grave responsibility, as an organization that combats sexual violence, to recognize the presence of violence within our own communities and continue to fight to end it in any way that we can.

Goldberg's Appointment to Interim Title IX Coordinator

We were disturbed to discover yesterday morning that Columbia’s Executive Vice President of University Life, Suzanne Goldberg, is now Columbia’s acting Title IX coordinator. Title IX coordinators are supposed to help students exercise their Title IX rights, but Goldberg has time and time again cast sexual and dating violence survivors aside in favor of protecting Columbia’s image.

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We find Goldberg’s appointment to Columbia’s interim Title IX coordinator, however temporary, to be an outrageous conflict of interest. In addition to creating and defending policies that fail to adhere to Title IX in their implementation, Goldberg serves as Columbia’s Rules Administrator, a job which gives her the power to discipline students who protest the gender-based misconduct policies she oversees. Now Goldberg is also the person students are supposed to turn to if Goldberg herself, or any offices she oversees, violate Title IX.

We demand Goldberg immediately step down from her role as acting Title IX coordinator and appoint an interim coordinator who has no vested interest in discouraging or inhibiting students from exercising their Title IX rights.

Columbia Response to Our Demands

"This current demand for on-campus 24/7 staffing is not a trauma-informed best practice."-Suraiya Baluch [head of SVR] in an email from Suzanne Goldberg.

Today, Suzanne Goldberg and the Columbia administration proved once again that they have no regard for the safety of students on this campus. In an email sent by Suzanne Goldberg, Suraiya Baluch (the interim head of Sexual Violence Response) provided an "analysis" of our demand which claimed that a 24/7 rape crisis center would not be a necessary resource for our campus. This will soon be posted on the Office of University Life website. Here are a few of the ridiculous claims made in the analysis:

1. Our demand for a 24/7 RCC misrepresents the work that SVR does.
(Note: We highly respect the work done by SVR's student and professional advocates and educators. However, we demand that the administration do a better job of providing crucial services for students. SVR does not currently have a physical RCC open 24/7.)

2. SVR's advocates are available 24/7.
(Note: If Goldberg and Baluch had been listening when we met with them in December, they would have heard from students who had to wait over an hour to speak with a trained supporter after first calling the SVR hotline.)

3. Columbia shouldn't have a 24/7 RCC because the "industry standard" is a hotline.
(Note: "Industry standards" aren't more important than survivors' experiences. Columbia has a $9 billion endowment and should have no trouble leading the way in terms of campus trauma response. Additionally, many colleges, including Dartmouth, have physcial buildings where students can get urgent healthcare 24/7.)

4. Survivors do not need a 24/7 RCC because seeking services can be anxiety-producing.
(Note: We are advocating for both a hotline and a physical RCC, so that students can seek help in whichever way feels best for them. Know what's anxiety-producing? Not being able to access direct services when you need them.)

5. Survivors do not need a 24/7 RCC because most survivors disclose to friends first.
(Note; Regardless of who a survivor discloses to first, students still deserve access to trained healthcare and trauma response professionals.)

The SVR "analysis" also includes footnotes that cite 2 papers from national coalitions and government agencies. It is unacceptable that government-produced data matters more to administrators than the testimonies of students who live and study on this campus every day. No Red Tape will continue to organize and escalate until every student has access to the direct services they deserve.

Email from Professor Goldberg

The following is the full text of the email No Red Tape received today from Professor Goldberg in response to our demand for a 24/7 Rape Crisis Center. This 'analysis' blatantly ignores student testimonies and contains many inaccurate claims, where we address here.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: "Suzanne B. Goldberg" <sgoldberg@columbia.edu>
Date: Mar 31, 2016 12:38 PM
Subject: Re: President Bollinger, Suzanne Goldberg, Jeri Henry, and Melissa Rooker, Demand a SAAFE Campus!

Dear Members of No Red Tape and other supporters of the SAAFE petition,

Thank you for your petition and recommendations.  I am just about ready to send you a comprehensive response to the full petition that follows on conversations we had in the fall regarding these same issues.  In the meantime, since you have raised the issue of a 24/7 staffed rape crisis center on campus as one that is especially pressing to members of the coalition, I wanted to share with you this data and analysis, which was prepared by Suraiya Baluch, Interim Director of Sexual Violence Response.  Because this issue may be of interest to others in the University community, we will also post this analysis to the Office of University Life website.  Please feel free to forward this to interested students.

Sincerely,

Professor Goldberg

Executive Vice President for University Life

Herbert and Doris Wechsler Clinical Professor of Law 

Columbia University

**

SVR’s professional survivor advocates are available 24-hours/7 days a week/365 days a year for immediate crisis counseling, accompaniment to on and off-campus resources including the hospital, NYPD, District Attorney’s office, courts, medical services etc.  In short, SVR offers comprehensive rape crisis services. We have great concern that the current inaccurate representation that SVR does not offer 24-hour services is harmful to survivors seeking support.  To misrepresent what SVR offers also is a disservice to the many student activists, student peer counselors and advocates who helped create, build and staff Columbia’s Rape Crisis Center for the past 24 years.

Additionally, SVR has responded to demands for longer hours in the past. During the 2014-2015 academic year SVR was open until 10 pm; utilization during the extended hours was extremely low.  SVR peak utilization times are generally 12 pm-6 pm and, in particular for walk-ins, from 3 pm-6 pm. 

The current best practice for sexual assault advocacy is for advocates to be on-call and available to respond immediately.  This is the protocol SVR follows because it allows for a personalized, private response; we meet the survivor when and where they are most comfortable, which is the definition of a trauma-informed response. Community and hospital-based sexual assault services use this model as do other university advocacy programs.  Our peer institutions such as Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Brown utilize similar 24-hour advocacy services initiated through a helpline. This is in keeping with the industry standard, which, as just described, is a 24-hour hotline with immediate phone access to certified counselors/advocates who can then respond on-site.

SVR has not had survivors request to meet at the SVR office in person when calling the helpline overnight. Overnight calls are typically for crisis counseling, information about resources and options and/or accompaniment to off-campus resources such as the hospital or NYPD. 

Most importantly, this current demand for on-campus 24/7 staffing is not a trauma-informed best practice.  A trauma-informed response takes into account the need for survivors to first name their experience as a violation, which does not usually happen in the immediate aftermath of an assault. Additionally, seeking services can be very anxiety provoking.  Providing survivors with immediate access via phone to an advocate aids in providing a sense of connection to university services and resources.   Both anecdotal and research evidence demonstrates that survivors will disclose first to friends.  In fact, students are most likely to disclose to a friend rather than to seek services in the immediate after an assault.  According to a Department of Justice survey, two-thirds of survivors disclosed to a friend, not to their family or school (Fisher, Cullen & Turner, 2000).

We have done due diligence in exploring the question of a brick-and-mortar 24-hour rape crisis center, including by reaching out to the executive director of NYS Coalition Against Sexual Assault and to a researcher (Bein, 2010) who examined the best practices of rape crisis centers in 20 states. This research identified no 24-hour brick-and-mortar rape crisis centers in the United States. Additionally, we did a benchmarking study of our peer institutions which revealed that no university has a brick-and-mortar 24-hour rape crisis center.

SVR is also focusing on exploring cutting edge service provision including improving access and service provision through technology (e.g., an online chat system, an app with Health resources and information).

References:

Fisher, B.S., Cullen, F.T., & Turner, M.G. (2000). The Sexual Victimization of College Women. National Institute of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Bein, K. (2010). Core Services & Characteristics of Rape Crisis Centers: A review of State Service Standardshttp://www.ccasa.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Core-Services-and-Characteristics-of-Rape-Crisis-Centers.pdf