Discussion List for campus-based and allied personnel working to end gender-based violence on campus.

["Viento, Wanda L" <>]

Hi All,

We’ve had several conversations recently about a convicted sex offender speaker out on the campus circuit. Adam Ritz was here on our campus last Thursday doing a presentation entitled “Are you Invincible?” I thought I would post for you what happened on our campus.

Our student government wanted to bring him to campus and asked us to co-sponsor some weeks ago. We had researched him and said it was not something we would support. We explained all the reasons why. They then went on to get a fraternity to support it and they asked our Men Against Violence group to support them. The MAV group has our violence awareness coordinator as their advisor and she spent a lot of time talking to the president about these concerns. He said it would be good publicity for them to sponsor something with student government and went ahead with it against our advice.

As students began to learn of Ritz’s background and message, we had them showing up in the Women’s Center asking questions, being angry, and even crying. We encouraged students to use their voices. They met with our conduct officer to make sure they understood campus rules and decided not to hold an outside protest but to hear what he had to say and then ask questions. The organizer told us there would be a question and answer period at the end.

The student government rep introduced Ritz and said there would be Q & A at the end and he proceeded to read parts of the student code of conduct about civil behavior. He started his presentation by reviewing his college career, being an athlete at Purdue, growing out his hair, and dropping off the football team in junior year to sit with “the Chinese” in the stands. He displayed numerous pictures of (male) athletes who got in trouble while drunk and lost their careers because of it. His message was that one bad choice because of drinking can ruin everything you want in life. He presented staged “newscasts” with audience members reading copy for him about these stories. Toward the end of the program he read a “newscast” that was about him being arrested for sexual assault. His expectation was that the audience would be shocked to learn this about him. He showed actual clips from news shows that were reporting about it, including footage of him running away from photographers and claiming “I am not guilty of rape.”

He then stood there and said he is despicable, deplorable, etc., etc. He said he was too ashamed to look us in the eye. He said he wasn’t here to talk about what happened or the case, but proceeded to talk about spending six months in prison (he pled guilty to a lesser charge). He talked about how “no one wakes up thinking they’re going to die today” and that he would never have thought he would have headlines linking his name to sexual assault. He was drunk and made “one bad choice” that ruined his life. He had a slide listing the consequences of that bad choice which listed his job, his marriage, his friends, etc.  He followed that up with a slide detailing all the money he lost—court cost, attorney fees, divorce fees, lost income, and (court-ordered) counseling fees. He did not list the costs to his victim or his victim’s family.

He talked about his experience in counseling and how horrible it was for him to be in an offender’s group (with a man on one side who had had sex with his daughter and on the other side a man who got his nephew drunk to perform oral sex on him). He continued to talk about other “bad” rapists and put up pictures of two men who had raped and murdered more than one woman. One student shot her hand up to ask a question and he said he was almost through and would answer questions later. She persisted and said it had to do with that slide and asked why he chose only men of color to represent “real” rapists and he said he didn’t notice color and went on talking.

He put up slides of him and his two daughters and talked about how he was afraid his wife (now ex-wife) would get a restraining order against him and he would never see them anymore. He said he deserved it and he would get a restraining order against himself. He left the picture of his daughters on the screen for several very silent seconds. When he had the slide about the consequence of his “bad choice,” he had listed suicide. He said he thought of it but he couldn’t do “that” to his daughters, but other offenders have. He didn’t not mention how many victims/survivors have resorted to suicide.

He wrapped up at the end by encouraging people to watch out for their friends and to be smart while drinking. The audience was ready to ask questions and the student govt rep stepped up to the podium and announced there wouldn’t be any Q & A, but they would hold a forum in three weeks to talk about
“things.” One student stood up and said they were told there would be Q & A. She directly asked Ritz if he would sit down and talk with them. Ritz said he “never” does a Q & A period “for a variety of reasons.” Our violence awareness coordinator stood and addressed the student govt rep. She asked him why he had told her there would be Q & A when she asked him directly earlier in the week, and he didn’t provide an answer (or why he announced it at the beginning of the lecture). People were outraged. About 30 students stood up and started talking about how unfair it was, how they felt violated, how they felt silenced. One student demanded her student fees back. The males in the fraternity encircled Ritz at one end of the room and blocked him from anyone who wanted to talk to him. The student govt president came to the back of the room to “listen” but when addressed he said things like “everyone has the right to speak their mind” and many students responded, almost in unison, that they weren’t allowed to speak their mind. He also responded with “then go vote” as students expressed outrage. The president of the MAV group was conspicuously absent. After some time, he reappeared in the room and the group turned to him and asked him to explain why he sponsored Ritz. He said he had no comment.

His whole presentation centered on the consequences of making “bad choices” while drinking. He said the message he wanted people to get out of his presentation is that he wanted to educate men about “how to be safe and not go to jail”—his exact words. He did not address how to take responsibility for your actions once you have made a “bad choice.” This was supposed to be directed at men and the male students who thought he was a great speaker refused to take responsibility for their choices when the hurt and angry women and men wanted to talk. The bottom line then is that even directly after his presentation, the sponsors were not taking responsibility.

Students are still assessing what they want to do and the have created a Facebook page—“Response to Adam Ritz.” If you have student thinking about sponsoring this speaker, you might direct them to speak to some of the students who are posting there.

 

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Wanda L.E. Viento, M.S.W., Ph.D.

Director, Women's Center

Minnesota State University, Mankato

218 Centennial Student Union

Mankato, MN 56001

507-389-6146

 

Everybody knows there is no fineness or accuracy of suppression; if you hold down one thing, you hold down the adjoining.  ~~  Saul Bellow