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

["Viento, Wanda L" <>]

Hi All,

I wanted to provide an update on what’s ensued with our students since Adam Ritz was on campus last week.

One of our student newspaper reporters was in attendance and afterwards she told her editor that she would not write an “unbiased” piece, so her article was published under the Voices section of the paper. Here’s a link if you would like to read it. What that means is this article is now showing up on Google searches, and the more hits, the higher it goes.

http://www.msureporter.com/a-woman-s-take-on-are-you-invincible-speaker-and-sex-offender-adam-ritz-1.2159485

Some students are planning to meet tonight after our Take Back the Night march and rally to discuss action steps.

Som Mongtin (our Violence Awareness & Response Coordinator) and I met with the leader of our Men Against Violence group yesterday. We asked him for his reactions and thoughts. Primarily the male students who brought him here felt that he had a message for men and they thought that would be a good idea. We then walked through a process of deconstructing the messages, point by point. Before I was in higher ed, I was a social worker with a program that treated sex offenders, so I also listed the assessment points for him to understand how Ritz was not taking REAL responsibility for what he had done. The student asked several questions, which he said he was afraid to ask, but it lead to further discussion. We talked a lot about student development and ally development theories (he is a grad student after all). We talked about the crossroads that happen when you step up to be an ally but unintentionally perpetuate an ‘ism’ and get criticized by the people you think you’re helping. We processed a list of what he could have done instead—before and during the event to help him think critically about options the next time.  We also brainstormed what he should do now, especially as a student leader, to learn from this, to educate the other MAV members, and to take responsibility (Ritz’s alleged message) to heal relationships here. The MAVs have decided to open their meeting on Fri afternoon to have people come and give them feedback about the event and their participation in it. This will be hard for the guys but they do need to hear how their decisions affected others. They are supposed to post their invitation on the Facebook page that another student started, “Response to Adam Ritz.” As it’s Fri afternoon, I’m concerned there may not be many other students on campus.

We’ll see how Friday goes.

Wanda

 

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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