"a great complacency"

Good evening. (Yes, she wrote it out and everything! It had to come in under two minutes. Thanks to her co-conspirators!)

I am Lisa Alvarez, professor of English at IVC.

Earlier this year, I became aware that I (along with another faculty member) was the target of letters filed by a former student which were disturbing and threatening. You have received copies of my letter. I expect that when you read it, you quickly recognized its worrisome contents.

I was not informed of this letter until weeks after the fact and faculty and staff, not just me, became alarmed, and not for the first time and not because of the existence of such troubled students, but because of the failure of our institution to act swiftly and prudently.

The administrative response was so disappointing that I reached out to an attorney to file a complaint which asked for, among other actions, the implementation of policies to ensure this does not happen again, the formation of a Threat Assessment Team and a review of IVC’s Title IX Office.

Like the board, I recently received a letter from the district’s lawyer regarding my attorney’s request.

The district’s lawyer offered a defensive response that, along with an incomplete and distorted presentation of events which erased my own advocacy’s role in the actions taken and failed to specify large gaps of time between actions, most importantly failed to address my core concerns which are NOT financial compensation, but campus safety and college leadership.

In times like these, colleges must reconsider their approach to protecting students, staff and faculty. In times like these, the times often called Me Too, the assessment of credible threats MUST include the perspective of the target, so often women, the threat assessors so often men.

Many at IVC sense a great complacency and failure to take seriously and respectfully our very real concerns about our safety. Instead our concerns are routinely diminished and dismissed.

The board has an opportunity to do what we at IVC sorely need – lead. We hope you do.

Thank you.



They don't care.

They can't.

The old punk says it the nature of the institutions: it institutionalizes even the best.

The old teacher says they'll change when someone gets hurt, really hurt.

The former student reminds us people forget what it was like to be afraid, so surrounded they by comfort and seasonal wish songs and stipends.

The former child who grew up in neighborhood where people didn't care about anything or anyone, never called the police no matter how much the beaten child or wife was screaming, looked past the cigarette burns on the thin skin of a girl's hand and the first black eye and the second and the third,  tried not to think about the gun in the closet or the knife in the glove box, she knows that people only take action when they themselves are threatened.  You can get them to to do the right thing but not for the right reasons. But often it's too late.

You want sorry? someone says. You'll never get that. They don't do that.

*

For the record, the board unanimously rejected Rebel Girl's attorney's complaint.