By Nicosia Shakes and Maziki Thame
Nicosia Shakes is a PhD Candidate in Africana Studies at Brown University; and a past student and past-lecturer at the University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona. Maziki Thame teaches political science at the UWI, Mona.
As the University of the West Indies Jamaica’s Mona Campus prepares for the next academic year, it must contend with a recent controversy surrounding gender-based violence (GBV) at that institution. Since at least two decades ago, individuals, student groups and others have sought to highlight the issue and to petition the University administration for specific regulations to address it. In February this year, the problem received probably its most energetic and constructive public exposure to date. The impetus for this began on February 1 when The Sunday Gleaner printed a front page story by journalist Tyrone Thompson titled, “Halls of Horror: Gender Based Attacks Plague the University of the West Indies Mona Campus.” The story drew on the research of Taitu Heron, former lecturer at the Institute for Gender and Development Studies Regional Coordinating Unit. Heron’s study, “Whose Business Is It? Violence against Women at the University of the West Indies, Mona Campus” analyzes the prevalence of gender-based violence at the institution between 2010-2012 and found a total of 67 cases, including rape, different kinds of intimate partner violence, stalking and other forms of sexual harassment reported to campus security.
Heron’s paper was presented at a seminar attended by students, faculty and representatives of the UWI administration in 2013. Therefore, when the Sunday Gleaner story was published, it created public awareness of a problem with which groups and individuals at the UWI were already familiar. Thompson’s article included reports of responses from a representative of the UWI campus administration and the then President of the Guild of Students, who stated, “I’m not saying it doesn’t happen. It’s just the extent that I’m really questioning, but to be honest, that isn’t one of the things we are giving priority attention at this time.” Later in the week the campus registrar and other university administrators further denied knowledge of the issue and/or its seriousness. Eventually, in an effort to put to rest what was then a burgeoning scandal, the Director of Marketing, Recruitment and Communications, Dr. Carroll Edwards, responded to the Gleaner article in a letter published on February 7 and February 8 of the newspaper, rejecting Thompson’s labeling of the UWI as a “haven for those who assault and harass women”, and listing a few policies that the UWI had taken over the years to address campus security and conflict management. The letter also stated, “The University does not dispute the fact that incidents of violence take place at the Mona campus (in which males and females are both perpetrators and victims). The university is a microcosm of the wider society and many of our students come from communities where the breakdown of family structures has led to an inability to deal with conflicts in a non-violent manner.”
This statement is both classed and gendered in the way it analyses the problem. Which communities and which family structures are being singled out? The Marketing Director implies that campus violence is a function of its class make up – the often repeated explanation for violence in Jamaica is that poor men (and by extension their communities) are violent and the absence of fathers in the home (the “breakdown of family structures”) is propelling societal breakdown. If we are to tackle violence generally and gender-based violence specifically, we cannot begin by reproducing and relying on everyday explanations that often misdirect us. The role of the University is to break down falsehoods and half-truths, to get below the surface of everyday occurrences, especially as it relates to how we understand ourselves.
The prevalence of sexist campus cultures needs adequate discussion. It is not effective to simply emphasize that the UWI or any university and college campus is a microcosm of the wider society. It is true that students come to the University with attitudes shaped by their wider experiences. But if the University is to be the agent of change it sees itself as, it is imperative that it address gendered identities as a part of its agenda for change in the region. Caribbean tertiary institutions take great pains to celebrate their positive impact on society. They must also acknowledge their role in perpetuating and re-enforcing negative structures and behaviours. At UWI, students come into already operating cultures of sex, sexuality, masculinity and femininity on campus. Because these attitudes are often problematic and damaging to men and women, the University has a responsibility to challenge and transform the minds of those who pass through its halls.
One has to contextualize the UWI’s initial response in light of its concern for the institution’s reputation. Over the last two decades, several individuals and groups have been castigated by UWI administrators when they have spoken publicly about the problem of gender-based violence. One of the most well-known documented cases involves the student-led group, Society for the Upliftment and Advancement of Women via Education (SUAWVE) in 2007. The Marketing Director’s letter, and the general reactionary response of the UWI administration, led to more critical responses, including from the managing editor of Social and Economic Studies journal, Annie Paul in her February 7 Active Voice blog post, “Sexual Harassment and UWI: Can We Talk?”; UWI lecturer, Maziki Thame in her February 8 Gleaner article, “Gender Based Violence and the Relevance of Feminism”, and past student and past-lecturer, Nicosia Shakes in a February 11 Gleaner column, “UWI Blind to Sexist Violence”. In a lecture on patriarchy and leadership at Mary Seacole Hall on February 15, Professor Carolyn Cooper also critiqued the UWI’s response to the issue. Additionally, past students started a twitter forum called, #SpeakupUWI in which numerous persons detailed experiences with gender based violence – including sexual assault, harassment, and stalking on campus.
In the second week of February a very public, violent incident occurred, which confirmed and gave further momentum to the discussions: a female student resident on Taylor Hall was seriously injured by a male student resident on Chancellor Hall in a fight that occurred on Chancellor in full view of several students and the security officer on duty. Following the assault, the women of Mary Seacole Hall initiated a protest calling for an end to violence against women and the need for the University to address gender-based violence on campus. This protest was broadcast on Jamaica’s two main TV stations and reported in the newspapers. The female student suffered a fractured skull, and the male student was arrested, charged with assault and released on bail. The UWI has seemingly not yet made significant moves to institute its disciplinary mechanisms in addressing this incident or in assisting the injured student and her family in any substantial way.
On the heels of the injury of the female student, media coverage and student protests, the Principal of the Mona campus, Prof. Archibald McDonald, made a statement on the matter in his welcome address at the annual Mary Seacole Hall lecture on March 4. This statement is brief, but noteworthy:
The problem of violence against women is a universal concern that has marred human development for far too long. As principal of the leading tertiary institution in the Caribbean, a place where knowledge is shared, nurtured and valued, it is difficult to recognize that violence against women has not escaped our community.
As a male academic it is incomprehensible that members of our student body are being targeted and violated simply because of their gender. … As an institution we stand together in saying that we do not tolerate any act of violence of any member, male or female of our community. I stand here today as your principal to say that every life matters and young women’s rights should be beautifully viewed and recognized as human rights here on the Mona campus.
The final sentence of the statement was commensurate with the title of the lecture, “Young Women’s Rights Are Human Rights,” delivered by attorney-at-law, Tenesha Myrie-Condell. Earlier that day, The Institute for Gender and Development Studies (IGDS) Regional Coordinating Unit and Mona Unit had hosted a roundtable discussion on gender-based violence, attended by faculty, staff and a handful of students. These sentiments need to find their way more fully into the University’s approach to gender problems.
Since March, the University, at the highest level has been remarkably silent and media coverage of the issue has dissipated. Pockets of students and key individuals and departments along with international development partners such as UN Women and PAHO are in discussion with the UWI regarding the future of addressing sexual safety on campus. In May, a group of students – University Students Speak! – with support from UN Women, also made a submission to the Joint Select Committee of Parliament Reviewing the Sexual Offences Act, to address the specific circumstances of GBV in campus settings. The IGDS has also for several years been making efforts to establish an institutional gender policy.
Sexual assault and other forms of gender-based violence on university and college campuses are global problems. Recently, there have been growing protests in different countries around the issue. For example, in the USA, activists have lobbied the federal government to require that tertiary institutions put relevant mechanisms in place. The documentary film, The Hunting Ground released earlier this year, focuses on this movement.
The UWI needs to pay more significant attention to gender-based violence. As the region’s premiere tertiary institution, and very often its intellectual conscience, the UWI has the academic and organizational resources to serve as a model. The institution is deeply invested in analyzing and making recommendations on the problems of the wider Caribbean society, and that investment should similarly find its way into the University’s response to sexism against women. In recent years, policies have been put in place to address the disproportion in enrolment between male and female students. Caribbean feminists have given ample attention to the limits of the emphasis on “male marginalization” and the University is not adequately contending with their critique. This produces a situation in which the UWI can become an agent of female marginalization by attending to crises facing men, while not dedicating the same degree of urgency to addressing issues such as gender-based violence and masculinist leadership within the UWI’s power structures, despite the efforts of some individuals and departments.
The wider Caribbean, including the media must also hold the UWI to account on these matters. Prof. Sir Hilary Beckles, has been installed as the new Vice Chancellor for the UWI. Incidentally, Beckles is a scholar of gender in Caribbean history and therefore may have some academic perspective on the issue. His mandate and that of the University more broadly, must include addressing this issue.