Elizabeth Dunn, a senior at Middlebury College in Vermont, faces disciplinary action for leaking a list of “men to avoid,” including 30 male students and their range of associated behaviors from “emotionally manipulative” to accusing them of rape.
According to The Middlebury Campus, Dunn claims she created the list of men to avoid based on the stories of 30–40 survivors, but they did not grant permission to Dunn to release the list.
Currently, she is charged with respect for persons because she violated the survivors’ privacy and the fact that the accused men to avoid are unable to defend themselves against the allegations. She also withheld information about the survivors to the judicial office in Middlebury, which makes the list more suspicious than it seems.
Middlebury is not the first college to have a sexual-assault scandal reach mainstream media; Yale and Columbia have had controversial incidences as well.
According to the Daily News, Yale was condemned for not expelling a student, despite the fact that he/she engaged in nonconsensual sex. In addition, a student at Columbia created a list of men to avoid in their bathroom, which included two male students who settled lawsuits with the university.
Bill Burger, a representative for Middlebury, made a comment to the college newspaper, saying, “Middlebury is committed to supporting survivors of sexual assault and other sexual misconduct and to reducing sexual violence in our community.”
Both the Middlebury Campus and the Daily News put forth a conversation into the larger #MeToo movement and how these events correlate. Within the #MeToo movement, a list similar to Dunn’s men-to-avoid catalog exists.
Called the Shitty Media Men list, the register, which was created by Moira Donegan, includes the names of more than 70 men in a Google spreadsheet. According to Vox, Donegan claimed she made the list so that others could see the incriminated men and add other names if they chose.
The Shitty Media Men list was supposed to be private, similar to the list of men to avoid by Dunn at Middlebury, but it became public after Donegan deleted it.
Dunn herself made a statement in regard to the list of men to avoid and the #MeToo movement: “This list could and should be contextualized as part of broader movements against sexual violence such as the shitty men in media list, the Me Too hashtag, and other forms of activism.”
For more about the #MeToo movement and how its affected colleges across the country, click here.
