WORCESTER - Frustrated by what they see as the administration’s slow and inadequate responses to reported sex offenses on campus, students at the College of the Holy Cross staged a sit-in protest outside the president’s office Monday.

The Rev. Philip Boroughs received the students’ list of demands, which call for the leadership to be accountable for the alleged sexual misconduct of a professor at the college who has been under investigation by the administration.

Students said they would wait in front of his office until they got a response, and that Monday’s protest comes from a growing dissatisfaction with the administration’s overall handling of communication with students and the campus’s unaddressed “rape culture.”

The college said the administration was willing to meet with students.

“We want our students to make their voices heard, and we appreciate that this issue is a serious one,” the college said in a statement. “Fr. Boroughs has already expressed to the students his willingness to meet with them and have this important conversation, so the students ... make clear their concerns and we can continue to work together on solutions.”

But after a meeting with Rev. Boroughs in his office, several student organizers of the protest emerged just before 5 p.m. to say the administration had only agreed to some of their demands. The sit-in would continue, they said, adding they will have another meeting with college leadership Tuesday morning to continue negotiating over their demands.

“A lot of us were angry and decided to do this,” said senior Mia Yee, one of the organizers of the sit-in. “There are so many things that happened this year that students found out about very late ... I honestly feel like that’s to keep people in the dark.”

Jules Cashman, a first-year student, said the incidents, which also included a reported hate-based attack on a student on campus last fall, have overshadowed the positive things going on at the school this year.

“It’s very discouraging,” she said. “I’m from Worcester; I believe in Holy Cross. I think it can do better than this.”

All day Monday, hundreds of students lined the hallway inside Fenwick Hall, as organizers recruited passers-by to join them. Throughout the protest, students put on musical and dramatic performances. In one, senior Lizzie Flynn recited a poem about bodily autonomy from Eve Ensler’s play “The Vagina Monologues.”

Ms. Flynn said she came to Monday’s protest to help break the silence on Holy Cross issues.

“There’s been so much stuff going on at this campus that everyone’s angry about, but nobody’s said anything about,” she said.

The tide began to change last year. In November, for instance, an Instagram account called @SexualAssaultontheHill began posting anonymous accounts of the alleged rape culture on the Holy Cross campus. The breaking point that led to Monday’s sit-in was the revelation that the college had been investigating professor Christopher Dustin over sexual harassment allegations.

In a letter to the campus community released Wednesday, Rev. Boroughs said Mr. Dustin has been placed on administrative leave while the college’s investigation continues.

Students, however, were disturbed that they had only learned of the accusations against Mr. Dustin in a recent story in Worcester Magazine, as well as through word of mouth.

“It took (the college administration) seven days to address it after the article,” Ms. Yee said.

“This is just another example of how the school has failed to protect students,” said protest co-organizer Lorraine Mihaliak, a senior.

In their list of demands to Rev. Boroughs, the students said they wanted his administration to admit its failure to inform the campus about the allegations against Mr. Dustin, and to sever all ties with the professor pending the completion of the investigation. They also are seeking an external audit of the college’s Title IX office, which handles sexual harassment and faculty misconduct allegations, and to place under review specifically its student conduct officer, Associate Dean of Students Paul Irish. Lastly, they want to see a report of the independent counsel’s findings in his investigation, once it’s complete.

According to the students, the president agreed to the last two demands – at least “in spirit” that an audit of the Title IX office should happen – but not their call for Mr. Dustin to be fired, nor an acknowledgement that he should not have been allowed to work with students while under investigation.

In addition to students, several professors stopped by to support the protest throughout the day; some were willing to forgive student absences from their classes, and at least one held class at the protest, according to students.

The sit-in was also paid a visit by several Organ Scholar alumni who have accused the college’s former artist-in-residence, James David Christie, of sexual abuse. While those former students remained skeptical of the administration – and the Catholic Church as a whole – they said Monday’s protest was a promising and, at Holy Cross, practically unprecedented step from the student body.

“This is not what really happens at Holy Cross, at all,” said Sean Redrow, a 1998 graduate, who recalled how students’ relative isolation on campus contributed to some of the issues at the college.

“In my experience, there’s been such a culture of silence” at the school, said Adam Coshal, a current junior who also helped organize Monday’s sit-in. But he, too, was encouraged by the huge turnout, saying there were 215 students inside Fenwick as of an early afternoon count. “To see so many people ready to mobilize and sit in … it’s so heartwarming for me,” he said.

He and other students said there was a grassroots origin to the protest, which was not spearheaded by any one group.

“It’s discouraging,” said Ms. Mihaliak, a current Organ Scholar, that the college hasn’t changed its ways in many respects. “But things like today make me hopeful.”

Students staging sit-in protest here at #Holy Cross this morning outside president’s office. Frustrations over lack of transparency. pic.twitter.com/U7qOKaJsJ7

— Scott O'Connell (@ScottOConnellTG) February 4, 2019



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