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At this writing, Melissa Bruen’s article on the sexual assault she suffered during the U Conn Spring Weekend has received close to fifty comments on the Daily Campus website. (Free registration required.)
Of those comments, more than a dozen are flames. Some are critical of Bruen’s journalistic integrity. Others suggest that she invented the story of the assault. Several commenters insult Bruen’s appearance, or the clothes she wore in the photograph that accompanied the article.
It should be stressed that Bruen is characterized in third-party reporting as having been bruised in the attack. She describes the attack as having taken place in front of a large number of witnesses, and herself as having run from her attackers barefoot and screaming. She reported the assault to campus police while she was still on the scene.
And yet she is accused by commenters of having made up the incident as a “cry for fame.” Her account is described as having troubling “loose ends.” One commenter who appears to believe her story refers to the assaults as “minor shenanigans.”
And then there are the insults. One commenter calls her a “fat ho,” another a “stupid BITCH.” The shirt she wears in the photograph is described as being “in very poor taste,” and her facial expression as “rediculous” (sic).
Most of the comments to the article are supportive, and many challenge the critics with cogent arguments. But the fact that Bruen was attacked so harshly serves as a reminder of the abuse that women who speak publicly about sexual violence face, and underscores Bruen’s courage in coming forward.
Ten days ago Melissa Bruen, editor in chief of the University of Connecticut Daily Campus, was sexually assaulted by two men on a campus walking path while others cheered. Last Friday she described the assault in a powerful front-page story in her own newspaper.
Bruen was grabbed on a well-lit campus path late on the night of April 25, during the U Conn Spring Weekend. She managed to get loose and knock her assailant to the ground, but as she punched him, a crowd of men gathered. Several of them restrained her, allowing him to escape.
When she told them that he had assaulted her, a man in the crowd asked “you think that was assault?” and pulled down her top. Other men then cheered as he grabbed her breasts. When she fought back again, she was quickly surrounded. Bruised and screaming, she was eventually able to break away a second time, and to find a friend who helped her notify police.
The assault on Bruen was one of three acts of sexual violence reported on the U Conn campus that weekend. Fifty-one arrests were made during Spring Weekend this year, but none of her assailants were among them. Bruen was able to give police descriptions of the attackers, but due to the large number of students on the walk at the time, the police were unable to identify them.
Bruen, a senior, will graduate from U Conn this Sunday.
Update: I have revised the above post to provide more detail on the two assaults. The Hartford Courant has run a story on the incident, which can be found here. Police are asking that any witnesses to the assaults contact them at (860) 429-6024.
Later Update: I have written a follow-up post on this subject, addressing the abuse to which Bruen has been subjected in web comments to her Daily Campus piece.
The editor in chief of the Quinnipiac University Chronicle and all of the paper’s other returning editors have submitted their resignations, and all of the candidates for editorships for next year have withdrawn their applications. The paper’s staff intends to launch a new, web-only independent campus paper.
The mass defection followed a university decision to place the selection of next year’s Chronicle editors in the hands of the university’s dean of students.
The Chronicle and the Quinnipiac adminstration have clashed repeatedly in the last year, and the new selection process was designed as a “trial structure” while the possibility of making the Chronicle independent of the university was explored. When the process was announced, editor Jason Braff, who had intended to stay on next year, withdrew his name from consideration, and all other editors and applicants followed suit.
The Chronicle has published its final issue for the spring semester. The university hopes to have a full slate of editors in place for the start of classes in the fall, but Braff and outgoing campus news editor Jaclyn Hirsch say they believe no applications have yet been submitted for any of the editorial positions.
On Tuesday of this week, in a 17-0 vote, the Quinnipiac faculty senate urged the administration to place the restructuring proposal on hold for one year. On Wednesday the Chronicle staff met to begin planning for the new web-based paper.
The Wichita State University Sunflower has been told that its 2008-09 student government funding will not be disbursed until a review of the newspaper’s activities has been completed.
The funds in question are from student activity fees, which amount to approximately half the paper’s total budget. The review, however, seems to have been initiated at least in part by university administrators rather than students.
Budgets for student organizations at WSU are set by a Student Fees Committee composed of five students and two administrators. The student members are appointed by student government, but the committee is chaired by Ron Kopita, the university’s vice president for campus life and university relations. Sunflower editor-in-chief Todd Vogts says Kopita questioned Sunflower staffers about the newspaper’s operations and editorial content in mid-March, two weeks before the Student Fee Committee recommended a formal investigation of the paper.
The task force that will be reviewing the newspaper’s operations will be appointed by Kopita, not the student government, according to a memorandum that the Sunflower received from Dean of Students Cheryl Adams.
The Sunflower‘s current fiscal year ends in October. Kopita has not guaranteed that the task force’s work will be completed by then.
Update: The Sunflower task force is the subject of an article in the Wichita Eagle.
studentactivism.net 
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