The Article below was published in Vol. 136, Issue 8 of the Lake Forest College Stentor on April 30, 2021.
Cole Wimmer ’22
Staff Writer
On January 29, Lake Forest College first-year students received a less-than-glowing introduction to the Forester community. As part of the “college/party ethics” portion of freshman orientation, new students moving to campus acted as jurors in a hypothetical sexual assault case. Students were asked to determine if the case was “drunk sex [or] rape.”
The verdict of the hypothetical case was sexual assault and was meant to educate students about the importance of consent. The given scenario was based on true events, but the names of the perpetrator and victim were changed to Todd and Amy, respectively. To simulate the presentation’s usual forum environment while maintaining COVID-19 safety procedures, participants were split into smaller groups led by upperclassmen leaders. Groups participated through Zoom and via an anonymous third-party messaging app to deliver their verdicts and react in real time to the presentation by commenting on and liking other students’ contributions.
A number of students, under the shield of anonymity, showed their true colors, and rather than deliberating the case, made comments that were shocking and inappropriate in any and every context including messages like “free R. Kelly,” “if he’s guilty can we storm the capitol?” and “she got Harvey Weinsteined.”
According to school officials, the incident was investigated but officials were not willing to share any details. The above comments were relayed by first-year communications major Daniel Baumstark ’24 who witnessed the incident. Baumstark’s report was corroborated by junior English major Leo Koenig ’22. Both Baumstark and Koening reported that they saw messages like “free Todd” and “free the homie Todd, he didn’t do anything wrong.”
Koenig, a first-time orientation leader, added that among these messages were more disturbing comments like “they were both drunk so it doesn’t matter” and “she was clearly asking for it.” According to Koenig, he and other leaders were especially concerned with how this incident would affect the female students in their groups.
Jane Wood ’24, a prospective art major, began her first on-campus semester with this orientation program. The “disturbing” comments that Wood saw in the anonymous chat included “free Bill Cosby” and “she raped him.” There is a clear pattern among the comments seen by students, but also a wide variety of comments which may mean that the few students engaging in sending these messages were not quite as small a number as previously thought. No matter the number of offending students, they successfully derailed the presentation for the rest of the class. Wood reported that after the program that all she and other students could talk about was “how messed up the comments were rather than the actual information” being disseminated by the presenter.
Wood commended her student orientation leader and said that her leader “stayed calm the whole time” and told her group that “this wasn’t okay.” Although they put up a calm front, Koenig recalled the anxiety that he and some other leaders shared as they frantically communicated within their own group chat about how to respond since they could not find or stop those sharing the comments as they were being delivered through the anonymous third-party messaging app. The student leaders settled on debriefing their individual groups to “set the record straight,” both apologizing and assuring them that those few anonymous students did not represent the community that students will spend the next four or more years in.
Baumstark added that his group leader pledged that, if found, the offenders would face “major repercussions.”
Although Karl Turnlund, director of the Office of Residence Life and Deputy Title IX Coordinator at Lake Forest College, was not directly involved with looking into the orientation incident, he maintains the process of reporting and investigating Title IX violations has not been hindered by COVID-19 and the transition to virtual formats.
Turnlund and LaShun McGhee, the Title IX Coordinator at Lake Forest College, are prepared to reach out and strategize with students who voice a grievance, whether it involves this incident or the general convenience of Zoom meetings and how things transpire as a result.
Turnlund was the only administrator who initially agreed to be interviewed, although a last-minute cancellation forced us to conduct our interview via email. Turnlund shared information about the department, which students can find online.
As of this writing, it’s still unclear whether the investigation revealed any leads or whether anyone is facing repercussions. According to the Title IX department, the process of reporting and investigating is no different for in-person versus online incidents and it maintains actions and remarks like those made by the anonymous students in that app do not represent the Lake Forest College community and have no place on our campus or online.
