The campuses of Morehouse College and Spelman College are especially close. In fact, they’re right next to each other. Proximity aside, there’s a special bond between the unofficial brother-sister institutions – one so close that students and alumni affectionately call the pair “SpelHouse.” Recent events, however, threaten to weaken that bond and illuminate old tensions between the schools.
As a Morehouse alum, I can’t imagine my undergraduate experience without the presence of my Spelman sisters. For all intents and purposes, Morehouse and Spelman are one school with a population fused together from the very first week of their college careers in a ceremony where men of Morehouse and Spelman women recite a pledge to each other, promising to be good stewards of our intercampus relationship.
So I was, of course, stunned and disheartened when news broke last week that four Morehouse students had been arrested in connection with two incidents of sexual assault against students at Spelman. It’s a sad story to say the least. And while details of the events are still unclear, one thing we can be certain of is that the lives of all parties involved have been forever altered. The only consolation for me was reading that Morehouse police acted swiftly, identifying and arresting the accused. Hopefully, the truth will be parsed out and justice will be served.
Will the Morehouse-Spelman bond be broken?
But what is left in the aftermath of such a devastating blow to the connection between the institutions? As of now, students and alumni are engaged in long-standing arguments over institutional identity, media attacks on black men and violence against women.
On one side, it’s a common sentiment among members of the Morehouse community that the news amounts to yet more negative press. It’s one more story in a litany of exposés (remember The Mean Girls of Morehouse?) about the nation’s only institution of higher education uniquely dedicated to educating black men. One Facebook post featuring the story by a former classmate of mine is on its way to garnering 200 comments, mainly from other alumni asking him to take the news report down lest he further embarrass the college with negative publicity.
They have legitimate cause for concern. Morehouse men have been depicted in the media as everything from violent homophobes to crossdressers to common thugs shooting up the club. It’s worth noting that these characterizations fit in well with the narrative of pathology usually ascribed to black men. But now, when the school is under a microscope because President Obama is speaking at the college’s commencement this month, we are being portrayed as possible rapists.
I am not alone in feeling misrepresented.
“Morehouse does, more often than not, get a bad rap in the media,” says senior Tre’vell Anderson, who currently serves as a campus resident adviser and the managing editor of the school’s newspaper. “We are an institution already going against the grain of what black men are supposed to be. Any time something occurs that may contradict or tarnish that, every news station is posted outside of our gates. No one is around when we are participating in Denim Day at HBCUs, which supports ending violence against women… But the moment anyone does something that can be said to be in line with the stereotype of what we as black men are supposed to do and how we are to act, everyone comes flocking.”
Seeing the larger picture about “rape culture”
Anderson and other alumni with whom I’ve spoken also agree that, while important, there is a limit to our concern for the school’s brand in the face of rape allegations. Because, although the media’s systematic character assassination of black men is a very real phenomenon, it’s not the only thing that deserves examination.
The issue hiding in plain sight is that of a system which treats sexual violence against women — black women in particular — as incidental. In other words, it is no mistake the headlines related to the case have read, “Morehouse athletes arrested in connection with sexual assaults,” instead of “Spelman student alleges rape.”
Breanna Wilkerson is a sophomore at Spelman. She’s also a RA and a peer educator. Wilkerson says she heard the news that one of her classmates was assaulted weeks ago, and was “disgusted,” but not surprised. “Months ago I drafted a petition to ban misogynistic music from being played in public spaces at Spelman,” says Wilkerson. “The music that is supported on campus is the backbone and support a system of rape culture,” she said of certain forms of rap. “I was not surprised that sexual assault incidents were occurring in a space where it’s indirectly supported.”
Wilkerson says, however, that the responsibility to protect students from sexual assault falls on both institutions. “The Atlanta University Center has this infamous history of attempting to deal with traumatic cases after they’ve occurred. [The schools] fail to take preventative measures to ensure that their campuses are educated on sexual assault and rape culture, therefore they silence the issue. This hush-hush notion of ‘what happens in our house stays in our house’ is lethal. Because of it, incidents like these go on for a long time until the tea is spilled.”
Events reopens controversial wounds
The last time something similar to the current rape allegations made waves was in 2006 when Spelman students led a protest onto Morehouse’s campus demanding that attention be paid to the case of a student who had claimed she was sexually assaulted. I was a freshman then and along with other students felt blindsided by a scenario we could never imagine. We were either too comfortable with the image of intercampus unity promoted by the schools or blind to the reality of violence against women, even on our campus.
“Sexual assault is a societal problem, and is particularly present at college campuses all over the country,” says Marcus Edwards, who was president of the Morehouse Student Government Association at the time of the 2006 protest, and worked to facilitate dialog in the aftermath of the protest. “Accelerating the situation, Morehouse College is one of only four all-male colleges or universities in the country, and the Atlanta University Center is one of only two consortiums in the country where an all-male school and an all-female school are linked. So while sexual assault is a nationwide phenomenon, the dynamics of nestling a single-sex school next to an opposite-sex school amplifies the community reaction to these crimes.”
Edwards calls this a recipe for miscommunication, but also is an opportunity for deeper conversations about sex, gender, and violence.
We can only hope those conversations lead to results. I’m encouraged that they will. Since 2006, it seems the campuses of Morehouse and Spelman have moved light-years ahead in terms of handling these sensitive issues, even if the media hasn’t noticed. A week before the most recent allegations became news, newly-appointed college President John Silvanus Wilson, Jr. called a town hall meeting inside the school’s Martin Luther King Jr. International Chapel to engage students about sexual violence. A week before that, representatives from the organization Men Stopping Violence spoke on campus in honor of Sexual Assault Awareness Month.
Hoping “SpelHouse” can maintain unity
What’s most encouraging for me, though, is to hear my brothers speaking out on behalf of our sisters — checking ourselves, each other and speaking truth to the system of male privilege that permeates our campus and society at large. For those brothers asking him to remove his post from Facebook, my friend Kelechi A. Kalu says he can only feel sorry. “I am a human being first, then a man, then a black man, then a Morehouse man,” Kalu told me. He won’t be silenced by a need to protect the image of the college at the expense of speaking a truth that impacts his Spelman sisters.
I can’t agree more. And although I hope the young men at the center of this case get a fair hearing by the law and the media, I can’t help but be reminded of my four sisters, who are moving through a world that may often be hostile to them.
I also fondly remember my days walking back to campus late at night. It wasn’t uncommon for me to pass a Spelman student at a nearby MARTA train station. If they recognized my face or saw me sporting Morehouse paraphernalia, some would ask to walk with me.
I was honored to oblige, and hope that kind trust isn’t a thing of the past.
Follow Donovan X. Ramsey at @iDXR