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Partial Transcript: I grew up in a fairly boring Chicago suburb, and I felt quite constrained by this South Western suburb and moved to the city. And was basically, I would tend bar to earn money and then pay for school and I was at The University of Illinois at Chicago. And there, I met a guy named John Hayes...
Keywords: Antioch
https://ohla.info/ohms-viewer/viewer.php?cachefile=Antioch_College_IJW01.xml#segment305
Partial Transcript: ...you could be who you were with respect to like your sexuality or physical appearance and nobody cared about how you wanted to, I just loved that that it was. It was true. In the classroom. You could ask questions and really explore things, and creativity was encouraged and kind of socially and there were lots of interesting people saying lots of interesting things...
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Partial Transcript: I mean, there were definitely conversations about feminism and sexism and maybe sexual assault in some, some sense. I don't really remember having explicit conversations about about harassment or assault. There were obviously lots of local conversations going on as it always is and certainly questions about you know- think kind of feminism and just like that but nothing explicit.
Keywords: Antioch College; Consent; Gender; SOPP; Sexuality; Steve Schwerner
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Partial Transcript: Remember when I said I was involved in student activism before that, right? So, I was one of planners for that and I had been active in student politics before that. Before Antioch. And Antioch is like a place where there's a lot of back and forth and there's a lot of conversation, and people are opposed to us and different things. And I think that, what we need to show, is that this is a thing which has support. I actually think that April and I cooked up a plot...
Keywords: Accusers; Antioch College; Protests; Sexual Violence; Solidarity; Victims; Women
JUNIPER
Okay, it's going. All right, um, for the record, this is Isabelle, Juniper
interviewing Laurie Paul on October 16th. And so to begin tell me about your early life. And what brought you to Antioch.LAURIE
Yes, I was brought-I grew up in a fairly boring Chicago suburb, and I felt quite
constrained by this South Western suburbLAURIE
and moved to the city. And was basically, I would tend bar to earn money and
then pay for school and I was at The University of Illinois atLAURIE
Chicago. And there, I met a guy named John Hayes. And one weekend we went to
visit a friend of John's named Michael Glavin,LAURIE
who was at this college in Ohio.
LAURIE
So, we hopped on a Greyhound bus, I think, and took the bus to Antioch. And as
we- Michael, was living in there was a name for that house. It was like on the other side of the field kind of on the other side of the garden. It was just- well, I don't think the house exists- I'm sure it's been torn down. And there's this old house. It was- they were basically squatting and there are a bunch of people living in it. And we, so, moved right in and I think we ended up staying for longer than the weekend. It was like a week, and it's like this place is fantastic. I love the people that I met. I really liked the ethos of the College. I wasn't super happy where I was going to school. Illinois in Chicago and it was fine, but it was- wasn't very challenging the right kinds of ways. So, I went to the admissions office and said, I'd like to come to Antioch and they said okay, and they were very good. I received a scholarship, so I was able to pay for it. So I knew it was great but I still had to kind of earn money on my co-op so that I could cover like living expenses, but it was this great opportunity to attend the, you know, amazing liberal arts college with a wonderful driven cultural vision. And one that just, I just really felt like it suited me, but also kind of intrinsically in some (inaudible).LAURIE
So I just switched right away and it was great and I never looked back. So and
when I shifted to Antioch, I had always wanted to do philosophy and I had failed successful to do philosophy before that- actually at Antioch, again, I failed, to study philosophy successfully as an undergraduate. And that's partly because just the the kinds of things that at the time were on offer in philosophy were actually quite kind of- there was a philosophy in religion department and there was a lot of stuff on kind of meditation and theological that I just wasn't into. I kind of wanted to do somewhat technical philosophy involving with the nature of mind and metaphysics and the nature of time and that was what I was interested in at the time and it just wasn't available.LAURIE
So I shifted it to a double degree in biology and chemistry because I also like
science lat.LAURIE
But then I stuck around after I got my bachelor's degree and did a kind of
individualized master of arts program at Antioch had going at the time. I'm not sure it still exists. But it was basically a plan where you sort of do whatever you wanted more or less for a master plan and things like that, but definitely got the sense it was sort of do whatever you want, you know, as long as it's kind of interesting, you can do this. And so I did and my plan involved. I lived in India for a while, studying Buddhist philosophy and meditation. At that point, I was kind of ready to explore that and lived in Germany for a while.LAURIE
While in Germany was thinking about studying first, German philosophy, but doing
working with a guy named Clint Smith Divine. A very interesting kind of wild person, who was living at Antioch at the time as a kind of visiting professor and he was an expert in nature of time actually. And so that worked out really well. There's kind of more to the story. But I really had a fantastic time and in the process of getting the Master's Degree, I decided, I wanted to go to graduate school and I applied to graduate schools. (inaudible)JUNIPER
So, what was the environment on campus like at Antioch when you were here?
JUNIPER
Um, well, it was, it was great. I mean gosh, was that like a 1989? And what I
loved about it was, you know, like, you know, I didn't- I had to like-I thought there was a lot of kind of openness for people with different kinds of bodies and different ways of being.LAURIE
Like, in the 80s, everybody was like, you know, everyone sort of had big hair,
shaved every bit of their body. Everybody was, you know, kind of in the outside world, or whatever, there was a lot of homophobia. There was just a lot of super uptightness. And I came to Antioch and you could do, you could be who you were with respect to like your sexuality or physical appearance and nobody cared about how you wanted to, I just loved that that it was. It was true. In the classroom. You could ask questions and really explore things, and creativity was encouraged and kind of socially and there were lots of interesting people saying lots of interesting things. Like very artistic things or something.LAURIE
Maybe not odd. Saying some kind of localized things and the social scene was
pretty fabulous. You know, I met people that- like people that I could get along with. Exposing me to music I'd never heard before.LAURIE
It was great. And I mean, also, I will say that John who I was- still dated for
a while. Also ended up transferring at Antioch, you know, we stopped dating- oh sometime, but but it was great.LAURIE
And so we sort of built up a culture of friendships. It was really special and
most of- live in California now, so. I went down a completely different path.LAURIE
But I'm still like when I get a chance every once in a while when I go back and
visit April (Wolford), but she's hoping to kind of- I make it to Ohio and visit me.JUNIPER
I think that'd be really fun. It's, it's nice here. I do like it.
LAURIE
I always loved Antioch. It was just a wonderful place.
JUNIPER
So, do you remember, or, were you aware of any conversations of consent around
that time when you, when you were here or like what conversations?LAURIE
Before?
JUNIPER
Yes.
LAURIE
Like all that happened?
JUNIPER
Yes.
LAURIE
I mean, there were definitely conversations about feminism and sexism and maybe
sexual assault in some, some sense. I don't really rememberLAURIE
having explicit conversations about about harassment or assault. There were
obviously lots of local conversations going on as it always isLAURIE
and certainly questions about you know- think kind of feminism and just like
that but nothing explicit.LAURIE
I had though- I should say before I came to Antioch, I was at the University of
Illinois, Chicago. I was involved in student politics there in fact I was the student body president for a while. I had done, been quite active politically a number of things and so I had a pretty clear sense of the way to think about certain kinds of expectations and stuff like that. I didn't see that much explicit conversation at Antioch, but I remember, for example, Steve Schwerner being very approachable and which is so disappointing with what happened later, but and a thoughtful good person and wanting to just be open. And there were a lot of us, what the main kind of topic was along in that vein, on campus, was about how there had been all these sorts of intense political events at Antioch- I think it was in the '70's. When it sort of fell apart and was trying to be rebuilt and Steve had this phone melted phone in his office. That was a relic of like, when the dean of students office have been fire bombed, I guess. And so this was this kind of symbol- yeah, so just kind of like the old school phone like the old kind that you would dial or whatever and and he had this, you know, and so anyway, so he had like what was left of this melted phone as a kind of symbol and also kind of respectful memento to those, like those times.LAURIE
So, and what he wanted to show by that was that he prided himself on being, you
know, committed to the students.JUNIPER
I'm sorry. I've just never heard the story about it getting firebombed.
LAURIE
Oh yeah! I don't know all the deatils. I think this was Main Hall and but in any
case- yeah they firebombed, they firebombed.LAURIE
Yeah, so, there's this phone.
LAURIE
So, I mean, it's great that he had the-
JUNIPER
That's wow- it's nice to see that, like Antioch has always had a history of
dramatic action.LAURIE
Yes. Yes. It's also nice that what I'm really enjoying now is like there's such
a kind of conversation over the last- gender identity and it's and things are, people are so much more open about thinking about who they are. And I mean, I see, for example, especially like at the high school level people think about like what their sexuality is, and they get to choose and they get to and they get to kind of, you know, establish themselves in ways that at least in the past people never could at least not over the last couple of hundred years. Who knows about before the Victorian Age, I think there was a lot more flexibility back in the day.LAURIE
But that conversation to some extent was happening at Antioch. Not like it is
now, obviously, and not like- but there were, there were early, kind of currents and I'm so happy that I was at this place this was it was forward thinking in such an important way.LAURIE
So I actually probably want to come. I want to come back and see how the campus
has changed. See what the new issues are.JUNIPER
So do you remember like the turning point of when the conversation started happening?
LAURIE
Well, yeah, because- so what happened was, there was a German exchange student.
A visiting student who's name was Steffi (Hoffman) and she and I had become friends and she was new to the country. And so I just sort of like, I mean, I was sort of showing her around, I suppose. I can't remember- you know exactly. I don't know if t may have been that someone from student admissions connected us or, maybe we just met, I can't remember. But Steffi like would often come to me to kind of talk about things. Like, I've been on campus for years already. And what happened was one night, Steffi came to me and told me that she had been assaulted.LAURIE
And, you had to- we spent like, many hours sort of talking about it. She was
obviously just so upset and and then we said. What I said was you have to talk to the dean of students, you have to kind of report this, you have to go and talk with the dean of students. And so she did. And I'm sorry to say that she was just told to kind of- I don't remember exactly what what Steve (Schwerner) said but he basically said, I'm sorry, but there's nothing I can do.LAURIE
He didn't say anything like "it's not something to worry about", he just said,
well, there's just not, there's no documentation. So, you know, we'll get him to apologize and that'll be good enough.LAURIE
And Steffi is a pretty tough person. Very delicate person and she was like "this
is not good enough. This person cannotLAURIE
stay in the Antioch community. and because he's a, he's a, he's a predator."
LAURIE
And the dean of students like- the college just wouldn't do anything. Well,
everyone would kind of talk about it and it'll be okay and we'll forget itLAURIE
ever happened and move on. And Steffi's like, that's not okay.
LAURIE
And I said, that's not okay.
LAURIE
And I think- because there was this path like that the college refused to do
anything, officially whatsoever. Then Steffi and I, and April, and a few others. Got together and we were like we've got to do something about this.LAURIE
So we organized.
LAURIE
There was sort of like, we started to talk about it. And so like, the kind of
informal- those kinds of conversations and we organizedLAURIE
a meeting and said, "okay. We need to kind of like make an official complaint,
we need to demand that the college do more and I think we did that at community meeting. My memory is hazy here, but I'm sure others have- I think April remembers better than I do where we had this community meeting. We sort of said this was what the problem was and it's about we were kind of reflected back at the community come stand here in solidarity with us. And yeah, it was kind of an amazing show of people saying yeah we are really concerned about this. We're not gonna' like this is something that has to change.LAURIE
And the next thing that happened was, as I remember, it was a kind of and I was
at that Adcil meeting, a bunch of us kind of came up and sat in on this, on this meeting, and I had been a member at some point earlier and I knew some of the (inaudible). And I remember just not feeling intimidated at all.LAURIE
This is like- this is as much as I remember. Basically, we went in and sat and
we said- and we were chatting. What are we supposed to do?LAURIE
And we were talking. Like we need some kind of explicit explicit policy. Where
just kind of consent because- when I said because one of the things that Steffi was she was so upset with herself because like, you know, like Steve asked her, "well did you say no?" And she was like, "I couldn't." See, this is the thing about Stephanie. She was very, in some ways like very delicate and, and assertive who's incredibly strong. She was like this kind of like a like a like a sheet of what like like like a wire, like wrapped around something kind of soft like wool or something like that, where you thought like she was all kind of soft and sweet, but she had this core that was intense. And so this guy had basically done this thing where he kept pushing her and pushing her, and then kind of against her consent, but her implied, implicit consent. It was clear with every fiber of her being she was saying no, but couldn't actually say no. So because should never explicitly said 'no', Antioch was like 'well we can't do anything', you know.LAURIE
And so we, so group of us, four of us said like we need a policy that is going
to make sure that this does not happen again, and then I believe there was like, lots of kind of conversation at different levels. And again, I don't remember all the details. I remember being involved in it all. I remember being involved policy in the wording of the policy where and there was a big question because, well, what are we going to do? Well, you have to have explicit consent for each step of the way. And of course we were made fun of for that, right? Like because it is like it's not very sexy to be like, 'can I touch this?' 'Can I touch this?' But there was just no- at least at the time we couldn't think of any- I don't know, we thought was to make people safe. And so if like, the policy was designed to kind of protect victims rather than protecting abusers, which is what Antioch seemed to be.LAURIE
(Inaudible) ...that made like, someone who wanted sex feel uncomfortable. It's
like, look, if you're uncomfortable about making sure that you have consent, there's something wrong with what you're doing. And this is what we said.LAURIE
And we were made fun of. I remember the local news coming in and covering
covering sexual assault policy and making fun of us. 'Oh at Antioch, you have to do this, ha ha ha'. So we were made fun of, and there was like a little bit of coverage at the time. And then it kind of died down until, I guess like, I don't like, a year later Brown decided to adopt their own policy. We very much suspected all over that our...(inaudible)LAURIE
And I remember sitting, and I was like talking to Steffi, and talking to some
others, mostly women. I don't remember talking about these things and trying to kind of get away for working with just, we're just going to have to basically demonstrate until we got change. And to their credit, like the college responded, right?LAURIE
Like and we've been made fun of in the local news. They did respond ...(Inaudible)
JUNIPER
So stepping so I guess stepping back a little bit. April, April told me that you
were involved with the community meeting demonstration. Do you know how that came to be? And what was that like?LAURIE
Remember when I said I was involved in student activism before that, right? So,
I was one of planners for that and I had been active in student politics before that. Before Antioch. And Antioch is like a place where there's a lot of back and forth and there's a lot of conversation, and people are opposed to us and different things. And I think that, what we need to show, is that this is a thing which has support.LAURIE
I actually think that April and I cooked up a plot where we would say that
everybody who's involved in this, come down to the middle of the room because it was this kind of bowl shaped room. And there were like, five of us, right? And we said like, well, we'll all go down there, and show that this is something that matters to us.LAURIE
I think we had gotten ourselves on the agenda because you have to, kind of, be
on the agenda. We got ourselves on the agenda and then we went down and I remember it was April and I'm not sure who else, but it was a small group. Like, a couple people, we went down and we said, we said, look, we're said 'look, we need a policy. This is happening. We didn't mention Steffi by name, obviously. And then we said we want people to show their support. And so if you support us come down and join us. And we had talked to other people, but there was no plan.LAURIE
It wasn't like this official thing where we were a whole bunch of people coming
down. We had talked to people, a lot of people, and people said, oh, yeah, you know, I think that's a good idea. And then, but when we started, people started, they started to come to the like- down and joined us in and there were like. Maybe there were five of us there, and there were like, fifteen of us there. And there were like twenty of us there. And I think there were like 30 or 40 of us or something. I can't remember how many. But it was, it became this wonderful thing. Then we're all down there like displaying themselves. Like, it's a kind of vulnerability that we were showing. Saying, 'look here we are. We're not afraid to say that this has support. Because the thing is, at the time there were all this shaming going like, you know, like why are you so uptight and know about sex or like, you know, oh, you don't, you know, this is the kind of vague area because at the time it was a big deal that there had been no explicit consent, right? Like, this notion of implicit consent was not well understood and part of what we were doing without even realizing it was defining a new notion of consent.LAURIE
And that's of course why we were made fun of as well because people were like,
well, this isn't consent. This is just a twisting of ordinary sexual interactions or something. And it was amazing. And then, as people came down, more people came down. It was, it was super empowering. Because obviously lots and lots of women in particular, right? I don't remember. I don't remember how many there were. Or like, I'm not sure that many people liked to define themselves as nonbinary. Or like that, but I think there were some a few men, but it was primarily women. But it was like this wonderful show of solidarity, like it felt that the community was backing us up.LAURIE
Steffi was a visiting student, so there was like a part of, 'well, she's not
part of the community'. Our community, she's just a visitor from Germany. And you know that action kind of, dispelled any hint of that. And I think it was this wonderful thing that was planning and also probably just a bit of kind of kind of, I don't know...(inaudible)JUNIPER
And so what was the- do you remember like other people's the people's reactions,
who weren't the women who were coming down. Do you remember how people reacted to that?LAURIE
In the meeting. It seemed good. I don't remember like bad or acrimonious
meeting. I think people were just kind of looking and to go back and forth. I don't remember the details. I mean, honestly, maybe there was, maybe there wasn't. But I definitely remember at subsequent meetings, like at the Adcil meeting. There were people were raising objections. Well, we can't this, you know, we don't want, you know, everyone was very very worried about basically somebody being unfairly accused or someone making a mistake and that's very standard. It. Obviously no one wants to be unfairly accused. That's important, but it was the same. It was the same old thing you always see where there's excessive concern with someone being potentially accused. And almost no concern for the people that were a victim. You know, the thought was, 'you have this responsibility to protect yourself'. As opposed to the person initiating sexual advances, having the responsibility to make sure that they won't make a mistake.LAURIE
And I think the female faculty, especially Jewel Graham, were amazing, they
really stood up, and I think it was partly because of people like Jewel in particular, she was an amazing member of the community.LAURIE
I think they realized that there was a duty they had to do.
LAURIE
What Antioch does is take risks and sometimes one of the interesting things
about you know, when you're doing something that isn't kind of widely accepted, you don't you aren't sure it's right. That you hope it's right. You think it's right, but you don't know for sure and that's very risky, you know, and so one of the things that you find when you're on the cutting edge of anything like intellectual or political whatever is that there's no guideline or kind of set of rules to follow, in some sense. You have to be, you have to be willing to have to be super careful, but also understand that even if it doesn't seem obviously the thing that everyone should do we should try it just seems right that are kind of more fundamental like more level and you have to kind of try to trust that and and be willing to be wrong.JUNIPER
Awesome, when you said Juliet, is that Juliet Brown?
LAURIE
No, Jewel, Graham.
JUNIPER
Oh Jewel, Graham. Okay, I'm sorry. The connections a little bad.
LAURIE
That's okay.
JUNIPER
Okay, that will probably be another name than for people I have to interview
because I want-LAURIE
She died a long time ago, but there will be people that remember her and she was wonderful.
JUNIPER
Okay.
JUNIPER
I've come across that a couple people who I had originally slated to interview.
I have learned have passed on.LAURIE
I think she's older even. Well, I mean it was like when I was, 22. Someone who's
55 seemed quite old so she could have seemed older.JUNIPER
So, were you involved with the Take Back the Night march that happened on Halloween?
LAURIE
Oh, I was yes. I was with Stephanie.
JUNIPER
Can you tell me about that?
JUNIPER
I don't remember much other than just walking.
JUNIPER
That's fair.
LAURIE
But I went with her she needed, wanted support. And I think she was involved in
organizing and I was not involved in in organizing it.JUNIPER
When the policy was being drafted, was there like a specific agenda or was it
more of like an organic was there like a core group of women who were drafting it? Or was it like sort of people coming and going with it?LAURIE
It was a core group and I honestly just don't remember anyone other than April
as part of it and steady, but Steffi was sort of indirectly involved. Yeah, just I mean it was just a kind of core group of people. I mean, there was feedback and lots of discussion with the initial proposal and that's how you have to write something like that.JUNIPER
And when it was so it was a when it was adopted in the community. Do you think
it was effective?LAURIE
Good question. I clearly no idea. I mean, I think I mean to say is, I think when
it was adopted, people weren't quite sure what to doLAURIE
with it and I think they felt shy about using it but then people slowly did. But
then I mean I I wasn't I didn't stay much longer at Antioch after that. And so it's hard for me to say how proactive it was.LAURIE
I mean that it became something for the culture that was, you know, a big deal
on that in a sense that we recognize now that we have a kind of sense of responsibility here that maybe didn't have before and that's good like it like that. You know, we understand now that the burden of proof in some senses has shifted. The nature of consent, how we understand consent has shifted.LAURIE
It was kind of fun and also sometimes I think not always well intentioned. Kinds
of like, I remember something like a little play a little joke about like kind of touching and stuff like that. But at the time, it really annoyed me because we were like, we really struggled to do this. ThisLAURIE
was really stressful and everyone's now we're trying to deal with like deal with
this and go to school and things like that. And so it felt like 'look we gave a lot of our energy and lives to this.'LAURIE
And also I'm actually a person, like I agreed to be interviewed by you, but I
actually just didn't go for the out in the face in front of thing. Really is something I like to kind of try to do good behind the scenes. I was like, no. I felt really exhausted, by this whole thing. I mean, I had been active in politics at the University of Illinois in Chicago and I should have- I didn't really enjoy it, you know, like you can feel moved like and want to do things. But then they have to feel comfortable like in speaking. The people who are speaking for themselves and others are and I'm not really one of those people who was like that in general and so I found the whole thing exhausting and so after it was passed originally, I just kind of wanted some space.LAURIE
I've gotten much better more comfortable about that. I used to be afraid to kind
of stand up in front of people here, which is weird for someone who wants to do political stuff. Some people can do it naturally. Some people have to learn. I had to learn. I mean, I teach now and I present papers, no big deal at all. But, when I was twenty-two, twenty-four, I wouldn't be able to. I was panicked.LAURIE
But that was kind of the reason why I felt good about this kind of group for the
community meeting because then no one by themselves had to kind of make the argument, you know.LAURIE
There was something else I was going to say, but I completely forgot what I was
going to say. But in any case, yeah, I'm not sure how effective it was, but I think it was and I think it will change. So as these kinds of like as I think other sexual offense policies were adopted across the country, it became less of a thing that people would object to.JUNIPER
You briefly mentioned earlier the media circus that happened around it. Would
you care to speak on that? A little more?LAURIE
I just remember seeing like both seeing it in the news but also seeing like
there was a television reporter on campus and there was like a truck pulled up and I remember seeing like somebody kind of sitting there like there were recording some sort of news item, and if I'm not sure- the couple in it. I'm sure it made it in, but I never watched. And I remember just kind of seeing this and and I think I was contacted by a few places like to make a comment and I said, no, you know, like they were trying to contact and get people to say things. And I don't remember ever talking to them.LAURIE
And the thing is, I don't know if this still happens, but when I was at Antioch,
you know, I mean people who were kind of around us, called us (inaudible) College. And it was this thing. We'd go out to Young's dairy or something like that. And it was like, we would just get stared at, you know, and it was just kind of thing where one tried to be open and kind of visible. You know, there were tensions. Right? I remember, I can't remember the name of- there's another college. That was the kind of quite conservative religious college close by. There was aJUNIPER
Oh Cedarville.
LAURIE
Yes, Cedarville. So sometimes there would be exchanges. I remember I went to
Cedarville once for like kind of discussion exchange or something like that. That was all fine or whatever, but it was just kind of quite clear that, you know, Antioch kind of didn't fit into the rest, like Yellow Springs kind of didn't fit into that kind of ethos. Oh, you know that chunk of Ohio and so people felt like they weren't going to get a fair hearing, you know, it was really clear like, on display. Oh, look at this crazy college, crazy people. Look, they're doing this other thing again. This is a violation. I think it was like these violations of rights since, you know, everyone's very concerned obviously about the rights of somebodyLAURIE
who somehow, you know, had done something, that would be counted as a violation
of consent. Or somehow they would be wrongfully accused again, and so this was... I don't know. That's all I remember. That's all I did.LAURIE
Like I said, I wasn't really into the media itself. I felt it was better to just
kind of ignore... it wasn't going to be like a good exchange or productive thing.LAURIE
I mean, it's very rarely a case, frankly, that when the New York Times calls and
they want to interview, it's very rare they want to do like, we're doing a think piece or they want to kind of show it's some positive thing. They're looking for news, they're looking for readership. And that's what was going on with the media.JUNIPER
That's very interesting. And so you had mentioned you sort of stepped back after
it was passed. And I know April, I wanted to ask you about like something that April said. It was that when it was passed and then there came like a revision. It sort of became a prevention policy. More than a, just a policy. Did you, were you part of that?LAURIE
I don't think I was, I think I was really involved in the initial stages
drafting the thing. I was the person that, the person who Steffi came to first. And so I had to kind of act as someone who protected her and then also, you know, went like encouraged her to go to the college and went like on her behalf and various ways and that was my primary initial role. And then, like I said, I had some kind of expertise, this background role. I was helping with the drafting and the policy and kind of putting it together.LAURIE
But then after that, I did step back. It was like, well other people can come
contribute. And so it felt kind of natural to have...(inaudible)JUNIPER
Okay, thank you. So looking back, is there anything you regret or anything? You
wish, you had done differently?LAURIE
I wish I had been less stressed about like it, right? Like, I don't know. When I
said, like when you're trying to do something that people haven't done there's no kind of guidelines to follow. And I did feel both somewhat powerless, and I felt bad for Steffi. Like I'm not sure Steffi ever really got justice and certainly feel that I wish I had been more kind of aggressive about that.LAURIE
I do think that the kid that- I know, I remember now that they had that kicked
out for at least a year or so. Was put on probation. There was some justice, but I don't actually feel that she ever got the kind of follow-up counseling that she needed and I wish I had done more to make sure of that.LAURIE
There was a part of me that knew she needed that. And then a part of me that was
just kind of overwhelmed with all trying to do everything and and also I was just a student in this was something that maybe, you know, more expertise should do and so yeah, but now I mean now, you know, I have lots of students myself and I play... fairly, you know, I mean, I do quite a bit at the university level in my own position. I think that more should have been done for her now, and I would do it. Now I know, obviously, but when I was just a student I wish I had been kind of more comfortable pushing for that.JUNIPER
Do you have any advice there or is there anything you would want from, like,
contemporary Antioch students or even your students at Yale?LAURIE
It is it just in general like?
JUNIPER
Just in general or like consent ways or, you know, anything really.
LAURIE
Actually, I would- if some of my students from Yale could meet some students
from Antioch. I'd love that. That would be really interesting.LAURIE
I love my Yale students. They're really creative and really driven.
LAURIE
But actually, I do want to come back to visit April. I'd love to see what the
student community is like now. And also, just like, how the community as a whole has changed. I looked up and now the philosophy department is different and it's exciting, seems like maybe there are kind of people who do things maybe a little closer to what I do now. So there's kind of that intellectual connection that I didn't have before. So that's what...LAURIE
They're very complex in terms of social situations, and also like kind of the
climate at Yale, as I'm sure it is at Antioch. Me, I just hope that they can come talk to me if they need to.JUNIPER
Awesome. Do you have any last thoughts or anything?
LAURIE
No, I mean it sounds and so tell me what your plan is to do with all this
material and what is it going to be something that emerges from it or is, is this just an archival information?JUNIPER
Oh, yeah, I can tell you all about that. Do you mind if I stop recording first?