ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, December 6, 1995 TAG: 9512060079
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG
SOURCE: ALLISON BLAKE STAFF WRITER
A father stood before a Virginia Tech auditorium packed with more than 200 people Tuesday.
He has two daughters who attended Virginia Tech, he said, and one of them was ``sexually victimized.''
``I think we have a chilly climate for women to deal with sexual victimization,'' said the man, who didn't want to give his name.
The state's largest university has been on edge after a former student went public a week ago with allegations that a football player sexually assaulted her. She suggested that the university went easy on him because he's an athlete.
The case, tried through the university's judicial board in the spring and summer, has raised a variety of issues as the university has scrambled to explain as much of the other side as privacy laws will allow.
Provost Peggy Meszaros, who reduced the sanctions against Tony Morrison because he ultimately was found guilty only of abusive conduct - specifically, using offensive language - called Tuesday's open campus meeting. She stood alone on stage, explained her actions, then took questions for more than two hours.
Top administrators - including President Paul Torgersen and his wife, Dot - faculty, staff, students and alumni attended the meeting.
``I am well aware, as are you, that we have not yet succeeded in creating an environment free of harassment and violence against women, but this must be our goal for Virginia Tech and for society at large,'' Meszaros said.
But audience members had a lot to say.
``I feel devalued, unsafe here, like I will not be [heard] as a woman,'' graduate student Beth Stevenson said.
``It bothers me to know an issue like this doesn't come up until it has to do with a student athlete,'' said football player Jay Hagood.
And the University Judicial System, where the case was heard, was questioned repeatedly. Is it set up to handle such cases? And why wasn't this case taken to a criminal court?
``What am I supposed to tell any of the other residents who come to me?'' asked Cheryl Britton, the resident assistant last year in Christy Brzonkala's dorm. Brzonkala is the former student who says Morrison, a highly recruited linebacker for the Hokies, assaulted her after she went to his dorm room late one night in September 1994.
``Why should I even enforce policies in general, if this is what happens?'' Britton asked.
According to an account of the case released by the university, and contained in a letter dated Dec. 5 from Meszaros to faculty, staff and students, Brzonkala brought allegations of sexual misconduct against Morrison in the spring - seven months after the alleged assault.
At the first hearing in the Judicial System, the hearing officers ``delivered findings under the auspices of the sexual misconduct clause'' of the abusive conduct policy, according to the university's account. Morrison was suspended for two semesters, but he won an appeal because ``sexual misconduct'' was not defined as an offense in the student handbook in September 1994.
At a second hearing, where both he and Brzonkala were represented by attorneys, he was found guilty of abusive conduct ``because of language used toward Brzonkala.'' He was suspended for two semesters.
Meszaros reduced that to deferred suspension, which essentially means that if he is found guilty of another offense by the University Judicial System, the suspension takes effect immediately.
Morrison has not been charged in criminal court. Brzonkala, who lives in Fairfax County, didn't return to Tech this fall because, she said, she didn't want to run into Morrison on campus.
Aside from the particulars of this case, audience members wondered about the sanctions in the student code that govern sexual assaults.
And women's studies professor Virginia Sietz asked if the university could provide a sexual assault education program as part of freshman orientation - since, she said, the initial weeks of freshman year are the time most assaults occur. Meszaros said the university is planning a three-day, intensive educational program ``because you are exactly right - it's that early part of freshman year that students are most vulnerable.''
Audience members asked if that could be mandatory.
``Today's meeting, to me, is opening up a lot of strong feelings,'' said Bob Miller, a psychologist in the university Counseling Center. ``My hope is, it's a beginning.''
After the meeting, Meszaros said she ``really wrestled with whether to call this kind of Q&A session,'' or let the issue go until next semester. Classes are wrapping up this week, and final exams start Friday.
``My goal in calling this was to clear the air,'' she said.
LENGTH: Medium: 93 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ALAN KIM/Staff. Virginia Teach Provost Peggy Meszarosby CNBanswers a question from a student Tuesday at Squires Student Center.
Meszaros said that Tech - and
society at large - must do more to make women feel safe from sexual
crimes. color.