Occidental College, the Los Angeles school where thirty-seven
students and alumni filed a federal complaint last spring about rape on
campus, has quietly settled with at least ten of the complainants. Under
the settlement, negotiated by attorney Gloria Allred, the ten received
cash payments and are barred from participating in the Occidental Sexual Assault Coalition, the campus group that organized the campaign that has resulted in a federal investigation.
The settlement, reported by the Los Angeles Times
September 19 on page one, immediately provoked criticism. Danielle
Dirks, a criminology professor who has been active in the campaign, told
the Times that requiring “the women to remain silent and not
to participate in campus activism could have a chilling effect at
Occidental.” “Part of the reason so many women have come forward is
because other assault survivors have been able to speak openly about
their treatment,” Dirks said.
The settlement negotiated by Allred, Dirks said, “effectively erases all of the sexual assaults and the college’s wrongdoing.”
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