An Avoidance of Contact
Do you know the power of a single word? I do. I remember when I learned it too.
The word was “voluntary.”
“I didn’t know the Avoidance of Contact was voluntary,” I told the Title IX Coordinator.
“I told you this. because there was no actionable formal complaint, we cannot make him do anything,” She responded, “I just wanted to let you know that he seems to be getting frustrated, and if you don’t at least lighten the restrictions, he is within his right to drop it all together.”
After everything they did, having to avoid a few streets on campus at certain times of the week for the remainder of the school year, just so that I could go to class, was a rather light punishment. He should have been relieved this was all that ever came of this. It was such a light punishment, in fact, that I was completely distraught by the news of the outcome of my initial Title IX report.
I was unsure whether or not she had actually told me the Avoidance of Contact was voluntary, everything had been such a blur that first day I met with her and she laid it all out. My boyfriend accompanied me to the freezing cold admin building. We sat at a long, hardwood table in a room with large sliding doors. She offered us chilled water, imported from Italy. She had explained to us that Title IX is essentially a guideline that school’s must use to write their own policies, and USC may have its own policies that protect me. She herself seemed unsure.
I had known that in 2020, Betsy DeVos stripped survivors of their rights when she made it so that Title IX complaints could not reach the formal investigation stage based on misconduct that happened prior to enrollment. As if suddenly your abuser being on-campus doesn’t negatively impact your education just because it happened a few months before you were enrolled. I remember reading that news when COVID had kept us online and being frustrated, but I hadn’t ever considered it would apply to me.
From before I even understood the concept of higher education, I knew I wanted to attend The University of Southern California– that’s where Dad worked. I was fully determined to go from Day One. And after he died, I felt even more obligated to honor him in that way.
So imagine my horror when I was walking home one day, soon after we returned to campus, and spotted Him.
As I headed to the train station– I saw it. It was a face I hardly knew in-person, perhaps had said a few words to in passing. It was a face I could better recollect from my nightmares.
Immediately, I began heaving. I hadn’t realized he also went there. I called my best friend, who, when she could finally make out the words, turned right around and came back to campus. We tried to find the Title IX Office but couldn’t. I remember the blur of tears, running around, looking at Google Maps on our phones, and asking the Campus Care Crew where it was located. No one knew.
That’s because the Title IX Office wasn’t on-campus at all. It was located on the second story of a public Credit Union down the street, only accessible if you were let in by someone in the office, which you coordinated by making a phone call to a phone they never answered. I stood in the lobby of this public building, as men in suits and Mom’s in khakis passed me by, my face streaked with mascara and sweat. It was the first, but certainly not the last time, I would face this exact form of public embarrassment as I waited to be given the time of day from the Title IX Office at USC.
I finally saw them, had my meeting with the coordinator, and filed my report. I typed a multi-page document that went into detail on how his actions had fundamentally changed me as a person and how his presence would prevent me from continuing my education. Despite recognizing the impact of his presence, Title IX closed my case, citing Betsy DeVos’ 2020 changes to Title IX.
She told me my only form of protection was to set in place an Avoidance Of Contact (AOC). It was a document stating that we would both avoid each other, outlining which places on-campus were off-limits based on our daily routes to and from class. We couldn’t speak to each other or about each other– even someone else speaking to them because of one of us was a violation. This meant I couldn’t warn other students about who he was, in case someone approached him about it, a fact that caused a deep moral conflict within myself upon learning that he lived in a co-ed dorm.
On Valentine’s Day, he violated the AOC and I spotted him in front of a building on a street that was supposed to be my safe area. I missed classes all day as a result. I reported it. They told me they spoke to him, but refused to tell me if he received any punishment. I was scared. The legitimacy of the AOC relied on whether or not he was punished for violating it. If he learned that he could violate it without consequence, he would continue to do whatever he wanted.
Months went by in a cycle. Title IX would give me terrible, gut-wrenching news, I would react in a way that demonstrated the pain it caused me, and then I would be forced into meetings about my mental health and belligerence. I was finding myself being punished for not gleefully scooping up and swallowing a heaping spoonful of invalidation and retraumatization over the worst thing that ever happened to me. I was expected to just take it and remain calm.
I became feral. The most primitive part of my brain took control. I begged. I cried. I argued. The cycle changed me on an atomical level; I animporhed into some disturbing hybrid, hardly recognizable as a remnant of a person. I was reduced to a human-deer caught in the headlights of a never-ending pursuit of justice. Within just a few months, I had devolved into something I no longer recognized the more and more rejection I received from the institution I was told was supposed to protect me. The institution I had dedicated my life to desperately be a part of. Whose name was on the uniform Dad always wore and blankets I curled up with at night.
So, when I got the news that he wanted to lighten the Avoidance of Contact restrictions, I immediately said no. He had won over and over again. He had gotten away with everything. And I couldn’t let myself relinquish the one thing that gave me the ability to go to class. They said they could provide me with a campus escort, but refused further action when I explained that wouldn’t be enough, because the problem wasn’t him interacting with me, it was seeing him.
Because in reality, it wasn’t an Avoidance of Contact, it was an Avoidance of Trigger. It was actually an, “Oh My God If I See This Person’s Face I Will Want To Rip My Skin Off And I Will Need Immediate Mental Health Assistance.” And I did. Every time he violated it. Repeatedly. The Mental Health Office on Campus hated me. The Relationship and Sexual Violence Resource Program despised me. My therapist said she “didn’t know what to do anymore” and she dropped me as a client. The Suicide Hotline started hanging up on me. I was placed on a 5150 hold less than a month after Title IX told me my complaint did not qualify for a formal investigation.
I was absolutely miserable, and becoming more and more feral by the day.
I know the power of the word.
The word was “voluntary.”
The Avoidance of Contact was voluntary.
And as the end of April rolled around, he decided that he had served his time, and the Avoidance of Contact was lifted. The Title IX Office stopped responding to my emails, returning my messages, and letting me into their office once I highlighted the clause in Title IX that stated they were legally required to provide me with the proper accommodations so that I could complete my education. With less than a month of school left, my only year in-person on-campus at my dream school was snuffed out, not with a celebratory potluck, but with an email chain left on read.
I only ever returned to campus for my graduation.
-Anonymous
