Patrick Henry College officials respond, refute ‘New Republic’ story

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Patrick Henry College officials respond, refute ‘New Republic’ story

Thursday, Feb. 20, 2014 by Trevor Baratko

Officials at Patrick Henry College, the small, deeply-religious Christian school in Purcellville, responded to and repudiated Wednesday a longform report in the New Republic that accused the Patrick Henry administration of “victim-blaming” females in the cases of rape.

The New Republic story, entitled “Rape at God's Harvard” and published online Monday, highlights accounts from several female former students who reported assaults during their time at the school.

“ … other female students who say they reported sexual assault or harassment to the administration also left feeling that school officials blamed them instead of holding the accused male students accountable," the story, written by Kiera Feldman, notes. "The administration, they say, seemed much more concerned with protecting Patrick Henry’s pristine public image.”

In the school's response, sent to students, PHC officials stated: “Because you have invested your hearts, minds, and resources in this College, you should know that Patrick Henry College is absolutely committed to the protection and care of our students, male and female equally. When and if issues arise, we take each allegation seriously and try to conduct appropriate investigations with a spirit of emotional support while seeking truth. We may not perfectly achieve this objective every time, but this is our aim; this is our heart. The thesis of the article, that women are somehow treated less favorably than men, especially in difficult situations involving physical interactions between a male and female student, is categorically false.”

Click here to read the New Republic story

Click here to read the official Patrick Henry response

Related coverage:

Click here to read 2012's "Queer at Patrick Henry College vexes school's chancellor" - part of a Virginia Press Association award-winning package

Sexual Assault at God's Harvard

RELIGION FEBRUARY 17, 2014

Patrick Henry College was supposed to be a safe place. For these young women, it wasn't.

BY KIERA FELDMAN @kierafeldman

....
With just more than 320 current students and 590 graduates to date, Patrick Henry is a tiny school with an outsized influence as a training ground for the religious right and a pipeline to conservative jobs in Washington. The Bush-era White House had about as many interns from PHC as Georgetown, the journalist Hanna Rosin wrote in her 2007 book, God’s Harvard. Students in the school’s Strategic Intelligence Program can graduate with security clearances from their summer internships, making PHC a feeder school for the CIA, the FBI, the National Security Agency, various branches of the military, and intelligence contractors. Many students go there with dreams of becoming a senator or the Supreme Court justice who helps overturn Roe v. Wade. A prospective student pamphlet quotes George W. Bush, saying, “The College holds a vision for the future of America.”

The founder of Patrick Henry College, Michael Farris, came to prominence in the early ’80s as the head of the Washington state branch of Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority. In those days, home-schooling was illegal in most states. But within some conservative evangelical circles, the practice took off. Under their own roofs, the thinking went, parents wouldn’t have to worry about their children being inundated with evolutionary theories or arguments in favor of abortion. Farris, an attorney, formed the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) to wage state-by-state court battles for the right to opt out of public education and abolish child-protection laws that the homeschooling movement viewed as state intrusion and a threat to certain tough-love forms of discipline. (Farris did not respond to an interview request.)

At Evangelical College, Woman Who Was Assaulted Is "Responsible for What Happened to Her"

The XX Factor What Women Really Think Feb. 18 2014 5:59 PM
By Hanna Rosin

“Sexual Assault at God’s Harvard,” in this week’s New Republic, is a story I’ve long been expecting. God’s Harvard refers to Patrick Henry College, an evangelical school in Virginia filled mostly with home-schooled kids. I wrote a book about it in 2007. I remember during freshman orientation watching a sexual harassment video filled with cartoon-ish scenarios—in one, a boss corners his secretary in the library and says he won't promote her unless she goes out with him. After watching it, one of the freshman raised her hand and offered: “Women have a part in helping a man to lust. I think of Jesus’ words, not to stumble. Our part is to watch what we look like and act like, if we are too flirtatious.” Uh oh, I thought at the time. One day this attitude is going to come back to haunt them.

But the New Republic story only partly convinces me I was right. The central case involves Claire Spear, who was found by security guards late at night lying on a field and crying. She told the guards she’d been “violated.” The reporter then pieces together the details of what happened, largely from Claire. She and her friend John had been drinking with some friends at a nearby lake. He offered to give her a ride home, and before they got to campus, he stopped the car, climbed over the console, and started dry-humping her. “He didn’t remove her clothes, but Claire felt terrified and trapped with John weighing her down. Things didn’t compute. John was her friend; he was engaged; he was a Christian, just like her. In her confusion, she managed to tell him to stop.” John and Claire tell different stories about exactly where he then dropped her off, but Claire ended up back on campus, where the security guards found her.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

1. Patrick Henry, Police Respond To Assault Allegations

Patrick Henry, Police Respond To Assault Allegations

Posted: Thursday, February 20, 2014 4:30 pm | Updated: 9:30 am, Fri Feb 21, 2014.

The quiet campus of Patrick Henry College has drawn national attention this week after an investigative article by magazine The New Republic detailed allegations that the college administration brushed aside reports of sexual assault from several former students.
....

Thursday {February 20, 2014}, Purcellville Police Chief Darryl Smith confirmed his department received the report May 10, 2010, when a young man came to the police station and said he’d heard of a party involving under-age drinking where a Patrick Henry student was possibly sexually assaulted or raped. Smith said Purcellville Police’s investigation later revealed the party had been at Sleeter Lake near Round Hill, and the case was given to the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office because the incident occurred outside the town police department’s jurisdiction.
....

“We can’t force [PHC] to report to us,” Smith said. ... Patrick Henry is not subject to federal laws that would require it to report criminal activity that occurs on campus. Because it is one of four private colleges in the United States that {do} not accept any federal funding, the college is not subject to the Clery Act or Title IX.

The {Clery} Act states that schools must issue campus crime reports. Title IX requires schools to hold an investigation independent of a criminal investigation and ensure that victims can change dorm assignments and class schedules, get campus restraining orders, and receive help filing a police report if they choose to do so.

Clery Act

What colleges do not take federal money?

[mahatmakanejeeves]

2. “If you were telling the truth about this, ... God would have kept you conscious...."

Patrick Henry College to sexual assault survivors: “If you were telling the truth, God would have kept you conscious”

Posted on February 22, 2014 at 2:54 am by Epluribusunum

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The New Republic report itself is absolutely horrifying. Written by Kiera Feldman, a member of the Ochberg Society for Trauma Journalism, it is based on extensive interviews with four young women who reported sexual assault or harassment by male students to the college, only to be shamed, blamed, and discouraged from pursuing the matter further. Much of their testimony revolves around the behavior of PHC Dean of Women Sandra Corbitt, whose approach to each complaint was first and foremost to discourage police involvement and to bully the young women into silence by insisting that they must be at least as much to blame as their assailants. One student’s description of her physical experience strongly suggests that she was drugged. She provided a detailed account to the dean, but it seems that Corbitt had already decided what was true.

Listening to Sarah from across her desk, the dean was as polite as ever. But she didn’t seem to believe Sarah’s story at all. “If you were telling the truth about this,” Sarah remembers Corbitt saying, “God would have kept you conscious to bear witness to the abuse against you.”

Sexual Assault at God's Harvard