It’s a hell of a thing not to be believed.
By: Allison Beltramini
Tags: Metoo, Believe Women, Title Ix, Harassment, Higher Education

Coming forward after being sexually harassed on a college campus

At the height of the Me Too movement, I finally found enough courage to come forth and report that I had been sexually harassed on my third day of work as a college professor. Of course, this was 15 years after it happened. There were any numbers of excuses why I didn’t report it. A brand new faculty member, without tenure was a big reason. As the years passed, and I gained tenure, I’m sure I questioned if it was really that big of a deal and continued to remain silent.

An interesting thing happened though: in working on a project with another faculty member, the subject of workplace harassment came up. It was astounding to hear that her experience was nearly the exact same as mine, though it happened a few years before I joined the college. A male faculty member cruised by her office, late in the day when most people had already gone home. He took up the entire space of her office door so that she could not escape. She was a new, non-tenured faculty member. And much like what happened to me, he made comments to her face about her various body parts. Same male faculty member. Same situation. Years apart.

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. This guy was a predator.

I came to find out that it wasn’t just me or just her. He had made other vile comments at other faculty events about sexual acts to anyone he thought was listening, and there was also a harassment lawsuit brought by a student that was dismissed (I believe, it included a monetary settlement). He kept his job.

When I found enough courage to speak up, the college started a Title IX inquiry, complete with an investigator that interviewed the parties involved. I am embarrassed to say that I actually believed that this would be a fair and impartial process even though this investigator was being paid by the college.

It was a fairly humiliating process. I discussed this with very few people. I chose to lead my own silent protest by wearing black every day for an entire semester. It was only near the end of the term that one of my students remarked that I “sure do wear a lot of black.” I remained silent, again.

The mercy of it all is that after that awful spring semester, I was awarded sabbatical for the upcoming fall term. I’d like to believe that my sabbatical proposal was good enough to warrant it. So, I took the break and was grateful to work on a project that was really important to me.

The process of the investigation did not turn out as I hoped. There were no sanctions. No slaps on the hand. Only the assumption that I corroborated my story with my fellow faculty member.

It’s a hell of a thing not to be believed.

And it’s an even bigger shame when people you thought were your friends turned their backs on you because of what happened. I assume these individuals believed that this somehow sullied any positive interactions that faculty would have with administration during upcoming negotiations. Shame on all of them. In at least one instance, when a colleague tried to tell me that this predator was a “victim of a slanderous campaign” on campus as the rumors swirled, I was grateful to set him straight when I told him that I was one of the people who brought the case against him. Oh. He just assumed that it must have been militant feminists who were trying to “bad mouth” him.

I dare anyone to question my integrity. I dare anyone to think that I would ever speak anything other than the truth.

Why would I come forward when the only thing for me to “gain” would be to protect someone else from falling prey to this predator? I did not seek monetary damages, notoriety or anything else. I did not do any of this for my own benefit. And I sure as hell don’t need a pat on the back for it.

We have to believe women. We have to continue to see through the pain they work with, and through, every single day so that they can appear “normal” to the rest of the world.

Believe women. Period.