Blogging While Female

One of the first entries in this blog was about the release of the Butzel-Long report, the first report which condemned Eastern Michigan University's administration for mishandling the discovery of rape/murder victim Laura Dickinson.

Since then, a second report has been released, this one produced independently of the university by the Department of Education. The Dept. of Ed. report doesn't tell us anything different than the BL report, except that it lays out some specifics, namely that the University violated federal law a number of times, putting us at risk for fines and even the loss of federal financial aid funding (which would CRIPPLE the students of this university, as at least 60% of us receive/are eligible for federal aid. That would vanish if the ED chose to exert it's full power - which it never has before).

In the aftermath of these reports, three top administrators were fired/"let go" from the university: President Fallon, VP for Student Affairs Jim Vick, and the chief of public safety Cindy Hall. Fallon was outright fired, while Vick and Hall were "separated."

That all happened about two weeks ago, but EMU isn't out of the national news yet. On July 19, the father of Laura Dickinson appeared on Larry King. On July 27, Anderson Cooper mentioned the scandal on a rather sensationalistically-titled episode called "Crime and Punishment: Keeping Them Honest." And tonight, former president John Fallon and his wife appeared on Larry King for about twenty minutes.

Here are my notes from as it happened:
*Larry King mispronounced Ypsilanti, lol (notable because on Anderson Cooper, the reporter seemed to be trying very hard to pronounce the city correctly)
*Fallon says Vick told him Laura was half-naked, yet there was no sign of foul play? Claiming that Vick was purposefully keeping everything under wraps - sounds like he’s blaming it entirely on Vick.
*Fallon doesn’t seem to like the term “separated” for Vick’s departure.
*Claiming there’s an inverse relationship between the BL report and the personnel decisions made by the BoR. He’s the fall guy.
*Fallon’s wife, Sidney, is here as well. So far she’s just playing the supportive wife role, talking briefly about her husband’s integrity, etc.
*Ooh, his attorney is here as well. No legal action yet, but a suit based on fraud is being considered. She’s drawing a comparison between Vick’s behavior and the cabinets of large company CEO’s…I think I might have missed something here.
*Fallon came to the university when it was having “significant problems” and he was “determined to tackle them.”
*Sidney Fallon views this interview as part of the moving on process, bringing out the “other side” of the story.
*Neither Vick nor Hall returned calls inviting them to appear on the show tonight.
*Apparently the terms of Fallon’s severance isn’t final yet? He says “nothing is official” when King asks if he’s getting a year’s severance pay.
*Ooh, University House issues. Apparently living in that house was part of his contract.
*King asks the attorney if there’s any way parents can know the safety records of campuses. There’s a semi-complex list of steps to get the information from the FBI. I wonder if they’re going to mention that EMU has apparently been covering up crime stats? … Apparently not.
*”What do you want, John?” To clear his name, to regain his career. His “friends and colleagues from around the nation,” though they don’t know the details, don’t believe this can be true.
(originally published on EMUTalk.Org)

Really, it just seems strange that Fallon would appear on Larry King. For one, many of us thought that this story would pretty much be over, as it seemed likely that part of the separation agreements would include gag orders. Apparently that wasn't the case. Also, while Fallon thinks that "any reasonable person" would see the inverse relationship between the cover up and the personnel decisions made by the Regents, I would think that a reasonable person would hear what he's saying and say "Yeah, okay, but at the end of the day you were the president. You should have tried to get more information out of someone other than the VP." Who is going to have faith in a president that admits he's clueless when a brutal rape/murder occurs on campus?

Certainly not us.

Also, does it sound good for Fallon's career to admit that you've been president of three different schools in the last 5 or so years? We now know that some of the shady administrative decisions Fallon made at his last job were repeated here (appointing a provost without consulting the faculty. It's been discussed on EMUTalk, but the search function isn't turning anything up for me). It's not surprising that Fallon's career, by his own admission, is probably over. Heck, it's the one rational thing I've heard him say since the cover up was revealed.

So my school, Eastern Michigan, has been in trouble for awhile now because back in December a student was murdered in her dorm room...and the school decided to frame it as a "death investigation" until February 23rd, when we were told that another student had been arrested in connection to her rape and murder.

Surprise, surprise: you're not supposed to hide such information from students. In fact, an investigation was started pretty quickly to see if the school had violated federal law. The investigation has been on two fronts: the US. Department of Education (responsible for enforcing the Clery Act) as encouraged by Security on Campus and by Butzel Long, a law firm hired by EMU.

Today, the Butzel Long report was released.

Tension and anxiety have been high on campus ever since February 23rd. NOTHING about this case was handled properly by the university. We were openly lied to, and this is simply the most serious incidence of the administration lying to us. Before I came here, there was the incidence of misappropriated funding for the President's House. Then there's the issue of a set of master keys being lost/stolen back in 2005. Long story short: keys were stolen, no one was actually told (although maybe they were supposed to be) and it took the University at least a year to get all of the dorms re-keyed (mine was re-done in July 2006) and there are still faculty offices that haven't been re-keyed and a number of thefts have occurred from locked offices. We also don't like the administration because they don't seem to be doing all they can do (or are unwilling to explain why they can't do more) in order to repair our aging classroom buildings. It's a mess.

The news that a fellow student had been arrested in connection to this rape/murder came as a complete shock to a lot of us. Corny as it may be, I still remember where I was when I first heard about it: I was in a van traveling with the forensics team to our state tournament. It was the first weekend of spring break, so while the abnormally-current-events-savvy forensics team was around to hear about this issue, a whole lotta people were already well on their way to Cancun and wouldn't hear about this for quite some time.

The eight of us or so who were in the van were absolutely livid. This was before we knew that it was obvious from the beginning that Laura Dickinson had been raped. We, having common sense, knew that you didn't go from "accidental death" to "rape/homicide" investigation over night. We were scared, knowing that the student had been with us on campus for the last two months.

Since February, the outrage has died down, but I have a feeling it's going to be rekindled once the general campus population has the chance to read the report. Especially this little bit taken from the summary:
Also that week, an initial DPS incident draft report (IDR)... was circulated to the Student Affairs office. The IDR contained specific and graphic information about Ms. Dickinson's room and the condition under which she was found. After several Student Affairs administrators discovered and read the IDR, they brought it to Mr. [Vice President for Student Affairs Jim] Vick's attention. Mr. Vick directed that the IDR be shredded (emphasis mine)

Who does that? Who in their right mind would think "Hm, a student has died on campus, this tells us what it was like when she was discovered...oh well, that's not important! Let's shred it!" Hey, it did say "draft" after all...

No, clearly this is an act of gross incompetence and best and criminal proportions at worst. I for one am extremely curious to hear Vick's excuse for shredding that report. Now, I have no idea if there would ever be a reason for that information to be released to the public...but I'd love to hear it anyway. (EDIT: I just read a report on EMUTalk in the comments section about this report. There was a press conference this afternoon where it was stated that Vick didn't want students working in the office to see the report and it's graphic details. Not a good excuse to shred the document)

Vick was placed on paid administrative leave back in March, so at the very least he's out of the picture. However, a cover up of this magnitude doesn't happen with just one person. Cindy Hall, chief of the department of public safety, has been implicated as helping to cover this up. The Butzel Long report concludes that President Fallon was never informed of the full extent of the Dickinson case, an explanation for which I can come up with four possibilities:
1) Vick and Hall were the only people who knew the extent of the case, thus were able to keep it quiet (nearly impossible, considering other Student Affairs administrators saw the IDR)
2) A whole lot of other people were involved in the cover up
3) Fallon never asked the right questions of the right people, leaving a "don't ask, don't tell" environment in Welch Hall
4) Fallon was willfully ignorant of the situation, refusing to ask the necessary questions and/or waiting for information to come to him.

None of these possibilities are very reassuring.