G
Garrett Makosky
Guest
- Thread Author
- #1
In the fall of my senior year at the College, I was sexually assaulted by a classmate.
I immediately wanted to tell my mentor, who is a mandated reporter through the College. I knew that once she made her compulsory report to the Title IX office, the office would call me in to discuss the incident and encourage me to open an investigation or a formal case, options I did not want to pursue. I figured I would schedule the meeting, say what I had to say to get the Title IX coordinator to stop pressuring me to file a report I knew I did not want, and go about my day. It was worth this formality for my mentor to know what was going on in my life.
This was not what took place.
For the sake of ease and anonymity, I will refer to the mentor whose support I sought as the reporter and the classmate who assaulted me as the respondent. I am the complainant. In the name of transparency: I am limiting what I choose to share due to liability concerns.
The reporter, as she was legally required to do, informed the Title IX office of the incident. In the report, she included some serious concerns regarding the respondent’s mental health around the time of the incident in an effort to support the respondent, to whom the reporter was also a mentor.
The Title IX office then sent an email to the respondent in which both the reporter and I were explicitly named in an egregious disregard for our privacy and safety (see Figure 1). At this point, the Title IX office had not reached out to me to offer any resources or support. Neither the reporter nor I were notified about the email being sent to the respondent.
Figure 1. The email sent to the respondent from the Title IX office, in which both the reporter and I are explicitly named. (Image courtesy of Garrett Makosky.)
I was surprised and confused when the respondent confronted me about the email he received from the Title IX office. He was heavily intoxicated at the time of the assault and did not remember it occurring. In the middle of a public foyer of an academic building I was forced to explain to the respondent, who had previously been a friend, what he had done to me.
I will never forget the terror of searching for the words to gently tell a friend that he had sexually assaulted me without potentially triggering a dangerous mental health episode. The Title IX office put that responsibility on me, when their duty should have been to support me through my experience.
The decision to send that email stripped me of the agency to heal on my own terms and timeline. What could have been a mediated conversation with the help of my therapist and the Office of Intimate Violence Prevention & Response became a retraumatizing public retelling of events, followed by the unfair obligation to care for my assaulter’s emotional well-being and a rushed resolution before his mental health possibly deteriorated. Any chance of reconciliation between the respondent and I was obliterated, and the previous mentor-mentee relationship between the respondent and the reporter was similarly demolished.
Sending this email was in direct opposition to the Title IX office’s own policy, outlined on their website, which, at the time, stated that “students considering reporting an incident, or in the process of reporting and/or adjudication, will always be told, in advance, what information would need to be disclosed, to whom, and why.” The page, which has since been heavily amended, went on to describe the circumstances in which confidentiality may be overridden, none of which applied to my situation.
The possible repercussions of revealing the identities of the complainant (in this case, me) and the reporter are myriad, with retaliatory violence being the most salient. In justifying its email, the office pointed to the reporter’s concern for the respondent’s mental health. The office claimed that in this case, given the concern for the respondent’s well-being, immediate disclosure of reporter and victim names was “necessary.” This is despite the reporter having explicitly asked to maintain confidentiality when she initially emailed the office expressing her concern for the respondent.
Concern for the mental health of the respondent does not justify such a breach of confidentiality policy and victim privacy. In fact, learning that both a perceived friend and trusted mentor reported behavior to a school authority that you may not remember might actually augment an already critical mental health state. And even if revealing the identities of the complainant and reporter somehow helped the respondent, why prioritize the health of the respondent over that of the complainant?
Why did the Title IX office do such a thing? At the very least, why wasn’t I notified in advance, as their protocol so clearly states?
The reporter scheduled a meeting with members of the Title IX office to demand an explanation for this breach of protocol. But rather than admitting fault, apologizing, or attempting to repair the situation, the office doubled down. In that meeting, the office made three shocking and conflicting claims, each of which not only stand in direct conflict with the protocols outlined on the website, but, to me, defy common sense.
First, the Title IX office claimed that mandated reporters have no expectation of confidentiality and has now listed this policy on its website. Federal rules state that the recipient of a report “must keep confidential the identity of any individual who has made a report or complaint” in nearly all cases.
The College’s claim thus not only appears contrary to how federal law defines these terms, but also has significant implications for faculty members and other mandated reporters at the College, who may be concerned for their safety when required by law to report an incident of sexual misconduct. How are faculty supposed to cultivate close relationships with their students when their safety is not protected in vulnerable, honest conversations with them? Certainly, there are dire situations when breaking confidentiality is truly necessary. But one would assume that the office would tread carefully in these situations to ensure everyone’s safety.
Second, the office claimed that a respondent has the right to know the name of the complainant, insisting that it is within protocol to provide no prior notice to the complainant. Under Title IX, this does not apply to me regardless of whether I inhabited the role of complainant, as I had not filed an official report. Federal regulation also suggests that offices are required to “promptly contact the complainant,” which did not occur. I only was in contact with the office once I visited them after the confrontation with the respondent. And College guidelines imply that they are required to exercise a high level of discretion when identifying complainants. Most importantly, any identification puts complainants in a dangerous situation similar to that of reporters, and could seriously discourage any reports.
Finally, the office justified this apparent contradiction by claiming (without any basis in their guidelines) that I actually had no right to confidentiality because I hadn’t filed an official complaint. Of course I hadn’t filed a complaint, because I hadn’t even been contacted! And, because I had not filed a complaint, it was not necessary under federal law to reveal my name to the respondent.
In summary, the Title IX office claimed, over the course of one meeting, that the respondent was entitled to my identity because I was the complainant and that I had no right to confidentiality because I had not yet filed a formal complaint. In doing so, they seem to have contradicted both themselves and federal law.
Title IX, you cannot have it both ways. Either I am a formal complainant or I am not. Regardless, my confidentiality was grossly abused according to your own guidelines.
Aside from being logically flawed, there was significant evidence that the claims made by the Title IX coordinator during this meeting were not made in good faith, but rather part of an elaborate and desperate attempt to cover up their wrongdoing. Less than a day after I stormed into the office in severe distress over the email sent to the respondent without my or the reporter’s knowledge, the same Title IX coordinator sent an email to the reporter claiming that the respondent was “not aware” of the reporter’s identity (see Figure 2) — this is difficult to reconcile when compared with the previous email (see Figure 1).
Figure 2. An email to the reporter from the Title IX office in which they explicitly state that the respondent is not aware of the reporter’s identity, sent less than 23 hours after the office revealed the reporter and complainant’s identity to the respondent via email. (Image courtesy of Garrett Makosky.)
Possibly most ironically, in follow-up meetings, staff in the Title IX office continued to casually identify the respondent and me by first name in the presence of external parties, despite the reporter redacting sensitive documents to comply with the office’s own confidentiality guidelines.
Through their actions, the Title IX office demonstrated that they do not prioritize the safety of students or mandated reporters at the College. The reporter and I fought desperately to hold this office accountable for the harm they caused, including multiple meetings with President Maud S. Mandel, members of the College’s senior staff, its legal team, and private correspondence with attorneys. After nearly four months of this effort, the only outcome was a change in policy wording on the Title IX website. Neither the reporter, the respondent, nor I have yet to receive any acknowledgement of wrongdoing or apology. As far as I know, there were no official repercussions for anyone in the Title IX office. This fact is a deep stain on the integrity of the College as an institution and an insult to all victims of sexual assault on this campus.
I continue to consider how much worse this entire ordeal could have been. What if my assailant had been a violent person? What if he had owned or obtained a weapon, and felt compelled to retaliate? What if I didn’t have the supportive network of friends and professors who helped me navigate this? I am left feeling extraordinarily grateful for the advocacy of that reporter and concerned for students who may not have that resource.
As a white man who rarely, if ever, has felt unsafe on campus, I write this from an extraordinarily privileged position. Sexual assault disproportionately affects women and those who hold marginalized identities. When I shared this story with my female friends, I was not surprised to learn that many of them had stories regarding similar experiences with the Title IX office. I am speaking out now partially because of my privilege and also because I know that my story is not an anomaly. I have heard of many other students at the College being harmed by the mishandling of confidential information.
Working in the Title IX office must be an incredibly emotionally laborious occupation. I imagine that one can become desensitized to the intensity of the situations put on their desk. But this does not justify neglecting the safety of victims. My attempt at a restorative justice approach — one that centers the harm caused and focuses on repairing relationships through mediated conversation and rehabilitation rather than simply punishment — was completely undermined. The Title IX office decentered the harm of the assault by creating more harm and inadvertently punished both me and the respondent in doing so.
This experience elucidated the fundamental flaw of Title IX as a national statute: An entity that works for a powerful institution (like the College) cannot truly have the greater interest of students in mind. As is often the case, individual and institutional interests are grossly misaligned. What results is a system fueled by protection of institutions rather than justice, ease rather than diligence, and PR rather than accountability.
While the Title IX coordinator was at the center of this ordeal, I am unconvinced that another individual in her shoes would have acted differently. She did her job as assigned: She attempted to minimize the damage my sexual assault would have on the College by any means necessary, especially once placed in a bind after an error on their end. In writing this, I am objecting both to Title IX as a national institution as well as the College’s own implementation of the law. The Title IX statute favored the College’s interests, and our own Title IX office failed me, the respondent, and the reporter by refusing to take accountability for the harm they caused.
The College is an incredible place. As many people know, I was an enthusiastic tour guide on campus, and I still advocate for the school when talking with prospective students. I love the place so much it hurts, and I look forward to returning for homecoming in a few weeks. However, the College is no better than Cornell when it comes to handling issues of students’ safety. It is not an exception because of its cute cows, “Williams wave,” or quaint rural setting. As long as the College continues to protect itself before the safety of its students and staff, it is actively condoning the same rape culture it claims to reject.
Garrett Makosky ’26 is an arts administrator and orchestral conductor living in New York.
I immediately wanted to tell my mentor, who is a mandated reporter through the College. I knew that once she made her compulsory report to the Title IX office, the office would call me in to discuss the incident and encourage me to open an investigation or a formal case, options I did not want to pursue. I figured I would schedule the meeting, say what I had to say to get the Title IX coordinator to stop pressuring me to file a report I knew I did not want, and go about my day. It was worth this formality for my mentor to know what was going on in my life.
This was not what took place.
For the sake of ease and anonymity, I will refer to the mentor whose support I sought as the reporter and the classmate who assaulted me as the respondent. I am the complainant. In the name of transparency: I am limiting what I choose to share due to liability concerns.
The reporter, as she was legally required to do, informed the Title IX office of the incident. In the report, she included some serious concerns regarding the respondent’s mental health around the time of the incident in an effort to support the respondent, to whom the reporter was also a mentor.
The Title IX office then sent an email to the respondent in which both the reporter and I were explicitly named in an egregious disregard for our privacy and safety (see Figure 1). At this point, the Title IX office had not reached out to me to offer any resources or support. Neither the reporter nor I were notified about the email being sent to the respondent.
Figure 1. The email sent to the respondent from the Title IX office, in which both the reporter and I are explicitly named. (Image courtesy of Garrett Makosky.)
I was surprised and confused when the respondent confronted me about the email he received from the Title IX office. He was heavily intoxicated at the time of the assault and did not remember it occurring. In the middle of a public foyer of an academic building I was forced to explain to the respondent, who had previously been a friend, what he had done to me.
I will never forget the terror of searching for the words to gently tell a friend that he had sexually assaulted me without potentially triggering a dangerous mental health episode. The Title IX office put that responsibility on me, when their duty should have been to support me through my experience.
The decision to send that email stripped me of the agency to heal on my own terms and timeline. What could have been a mediated conversation with the help of my therapist and the Office of Intimate Violence Prevention & Response became a retraumatizing public retelling of events, followed by the unfair obligation to care for my assaulter’s emotional well-being and a rushed resolution before his mental health possibly deteriorated. Any chance of reconciliation between the respondent and I was obliterated, and the previous mentor-mentee relationship between the respondent and the reporter was similarly demolished.
Sending this email was in direct opposition to the Title IX office’s own policy, outlined on their website, which, at the time, stated that “students considering reporting an incident, or in the process of reporting and/or adjudication, will always be told, in advance, what information would need to be disclosed, to whom, and why.” The page, which has since been heavily amended, went on to describe the circumstances in which confidentiality may be overridden, none of which applied to my situation.
The possible repercussions of revealing the identities of the complainant (in this case, me) and the reporter are myriad, with retaliatory violence being the most salient. In justifying its email, the office pointed to the reporter’s concern for the respondent’s mental health. The office claimed that in this case, given the concern for the respondent’s well-being, immediate disclosure of reporter and victim names was “necessary.” This is despite the reporter having explicitly asked to maintain confidentiality when she initially emailed the office expressing her concern for the respondent.
Concern for the mental health of the respondent does not justify such a breach of confidentiality policy and victim privacy. In fact, learning that both a perceived friend and trusted mentor reported behavior to a school authority that you may not remember might actually augment an already critical mental health state. And even if revealing the identities of the complainant and reporter somehow helped the respondent, why prioritize the health of the respondent over that of the complainant?
Why did the Title IX office do such a thing? At the very least, why wasn’t I notified in advance, as their protocol so clearly states?
The reporter scheduled a meeting with members of the Title IX office to demand an explanation for this breach of protocol. But rather than admitting fault, apologizing, or attempting to repair the situation, the office doubled down. In that meeting, the office made three shocking and conflicting claims, each of which not only stand in direct conflict with the protocols outlined on the website, but, to me, defy common sense.
First, the Title IX office claimed that mandated reporters have no expectation of confidentiality and has now listed this policy on its website. Federal rules state that the recipient of a report “must keep confidential the identity of any individual who has made a report or complaint” in nearly all cases.
The College’s claim thus not only appears contrary to how federal law defines these terms, but also has significant implications for faculty members and other mandated reporters at the College, who may be concerned for their safety when required by law to report an incident of sexual misconduct. How are faculty supposed to cultivate close relationships with their students when their safety is not protected in vulnerable, honest conversations with them? Certainly, there are dire situations when breaking confidentiality is truly necessary. But one would assume that the office would tread carefully in these situations to ensure everyone’s safety.
Second, the office claimed that a respondent has the right to know the name of the complainant, insisting that it is within protocol to provide no prior notice to the complainant. Under Title IX, this does not apply to me regardless of whether I inhabited the role of complainant, as I had not filed an official report. Federal regulation also suggests that offices are required to “promptly contact the complainant,” which did not occur. I only was in contact with the office once I visited them after the confrontation with the respondent. And College guidelines imply that they are required to exercise a high level of discretion when identifying complainants. Most importantly, any identification puts complainants in a dangerous situation similar to that of reporters, and could seriously discourage any reports.
Finally, the office justified this apparent contradiction by claiming (without any basis in their guidelines) that I actually had no right to confidentiality because I hadn’t filed an official complaint. Of course I hadn’t filed a complaint, because I hadn’t even been contacted! And, because I had not filed a complaint, it was not necessary under federal law to reveal my name to the respondent.
In summary, the Title IX office claimed, over the course of one meeting, that the respondent was entitled to my identity because I was the complainant and that I had no right to confidentiality because I had not yet filed a formal complaint. In doing so, they seem to have contradicted both themselves and federal law.
Title IX, you cannot have it both ways. Either I am a formal complainant or I am not. Regardless, my confidentiality was grossly abused according to your own guidelines.
Aside from being logically flawed, there was significant evidence that the claims made by the Title IX coordinator during this meeting were not made in good faith, but rather part of an elaborate and desperate attempt to cover up their wrongdoing. Less than a day after I stormed into the office in severe distress over the email sent to the respondent without my or the reporter’s knowledge, the same Title IX coordinator sent an email to the reporter claiming that the respondent was “not aware” of the reporter’s identity (see Figure 2) — this is difficult to reconcile when compared with the previous email (see Figure 1).
Figure 2. An email to the reporter from the Title IX office in which they explicitly state that the respondent is not aware of the reporter’s identity, sent less than 23 hours after the office revealed the reporter and complainant’s identity to the respondent via email. (Image courtesy of Garrett Makosky.)
Possibly most ironically, in follow-up meetings, staff in the Title IX office continued to casually identify the respondent and me by first name in the presence of external parties, despite the reporter redacting sensitive documents to comply with the office’s own confidentiality guidelines.
Through their actions, the Title IX office demonstrated that they do not prioritize the safety of students or mandated reporters at the College. The reporter and I fought desperately to hold this office accountable for the harm they caused, including multiple meetings with President Maud S. Mandel, members of the College’s senior staff, its legal team, and private correspondence with attorneys. After nearly four months of this effort, the only outcome was a change in policy wording on the Title IX website. Neither the reporter, the respondent, nor I have yet to receive any acknowledgement of wrongdoing or apology. As far as I know, there were no official repercussions for anyone in the Title IX office. This fact is a deep stain on the integrity of the College as an institution and an insult to all victims of sexual assault on this campus.
I continue to consider how much worse this entire ordeal could have been. What if my assailant had been a violent person? What if he had owned or obtained a weapon, and felt compelled to retaliate? What if I didn’t have the supportive network of friends and professors who helped me navigate this? I am left feeling extraordinarily grateful for the advocacy of that reporter and concerned for students who may not have that resource.
As a white man who rarely, if ever, has felt unsafe on campus, I write this from an extraordinarily privileged position. Sexual assault disproportionately affects women and those who hold marginalized identities. When I shared this story with my female friends, I was not surprised to learn that many of them had stories regarding similar experiences with the Title IX office. I am speaking out now partially because of my privilege and also because I know that my story is not an anomaly. I have heard of many other students at the College being harmed by the mishandling of confidential information.
Working in the Title IX office must be an incredibly emotionally laborious occupation. I imagine that one can become desensitized to the intensity of the situations put on their desk. But this does not justify neglecting the safety of victims. My attempt at a restorative justice approach — one that centers the harm caused and focuses on repairing relationships through mediated conversation and rehabilitation rather than simply punishment — was completely undermined. The Title IX office decentered the harm of the assault by creating more harm and inadvertently punished both me and the respondent in doing so.
This experience elucidated the fundamental flaw of Title IX as a national statute: An entity that works for a powerful institution (like the College) cannot truly have the greater interest of students in mind. As is often the case, individual and institutional interests are grossly misaligned. What results is a system fueled by protection of institutions rather than justice, ease rather than diligence, and PR rather than accountability.
While the Title IX coordinator was at the center of this ordeal, I am unconvinced that another individual in her shoes would have acted differently. She did her job as assigned: She attempted to minimize the damage my sexual assault would have on the College by any means necessary, especially once placed in a bind after an error on their end. In writing this, I am objecting both to Title IX as a national institution as well as the College’s own implementation of the law. The Title IX statute favored the College’s interests, and our own Title IX office failed me, the respondent, and the reporter by refusing to take accountability for the harm they caused.
The College is an incredible place. As many people know, I was an enthusiastic tour guide on campus, and I still advocate for the school when talking with prospective students. I love the place so much it hurts, and I look forward to returning for homecoming in a few weeks. However, the College is no better than Cornell when it comes to handling issues of students’ safety. It is not an exception because of its cute cows, “Williams wave,” or quaint rural setting. As long as the College continues to protect itself before the safety of its students and staff, it is actively condoning the same rape culture it claims to reject.
Garrett Makosky ’26 is an arts administrator and orchestral conductor living in New York.