Dye Reverses Appeal Ruling, Expels Students
by Jacob Kramer-Duffield and Aaron Mucciolo

In a May 21 statement to the College community, President Nancy Dye announced that, following her review of the Barnard assault case, she would permanently expel seniors Ryan Catignani and Rick Kocher for their role in the crime. The two were arrested in March along with junior Nicholas Walker and College employee Markeith Reed and charged with assaulting senior Jeff Harvey in his dorm room. The assault is believed to have been instigated by comments Harvey made in his humor column in the Grape.

Dye’s ruling upheld the ruling of the original Community Board, and reversed the ruling issued by the second Community Board, which oversaw Catignani and Kocher’s appeal. The ruling on appeal had been a two-year suspension of degrees rather than expulsion for second semester seniors Catignani and Kocher. Dye upheld the punishment for Walker, a junior, who is suspended for one year. Reed was fired from his job at the College bowling lanes and is forbidden to be on Oberlin’s campus.

Despite campus-wide rumors to the contrary, the two-year suspension of degrees would not have allowed Catignati or Kocher to walk with their class at graduation. 

“They were never going to be able to walk,” Associate Dean of Students Bill Stackman said. “It’s not like you just don’t get the diploma. The degree won’t be awarded until 2003. You don’t have the ability to suspend them since they won’t be here next year. You suspend the degree. It’s what you do anytime you’re dealing with second semester seniors,” Stackman added.

Dye initiated her review following the last General Faculty meeting of the year on May 15. At the beginning of the meeting, she announced she would invoke a little-known and seldom-used part of the College ByLaws, which allows the president to “initiate, review, or act finally, with respect to any student disciplinary matter affecting in his or her judgement, the best interests of the College.” (Article XVII, Section 4) 
In announcing her decision to review the case personally, Dye was candid in discussing the effect the assault and subsequent rulings have had on the Oberlin community. “I have been at Oberlin for seven years and I have never seen the campus as unhappy as over the last several years,” she said. Regarding her previous lack of intervention in the case, Dye said, “I’ve had reason to question myself. I have come to believe that I am not serving the needs of the community.”

In the statement to the community, Dye further justified her “extraordinary step” by saying, “Because I have come to think that the widespread distrust that this case and its adjudication has generated could undermine not only the processes by which we govern ourselves, but also do damage to this campus community, I decided to review the case.” 

The review came in the wake of not only widespread campus dissatisfaction but also on the heels of student protests on the last day of classes, Friday, May 11. Students concerned with the administration’s handling of several recent violent events on campus marched through campus and, after finding Dye’s office locked, read a prepared statement in Cox.

“We want the administration to take responsibility for the three recent violent actions on campus,” said junior Ni’Ja Whitson, reading from the prepared statement. She specified these actions to be the vandalism in Zeke (see page 7), the rape reported at Drag Ball (see page 10) and the assault in Barnard (see page 4).
The group, numbering about 40, also spoke on the steps of Wilder, marched to Zeke, walked by Dye’s house, and eventually ran into Dye walking her dog at a ResLife picnic. According to junior Tiffany Foo, one of the organizers of the demonstration, Dye essentially ignored the group, but accepted a copy of statement before leaving.
“We really didn’t expect [the] administration to do anything, but it was the end of the year and I did not want to leave the school with them feeling that we were complacent and without acknowledging the significance of these incidents,” Foo said. “Since it was the last day of school, I wanted to give them something to remember the incidents by.”
While the protest clearly demonstrated the “ill-feeling and distrust” surrounding the incidents to which Dye alluded, it is unconfirmed whether it was a factor in her decision. When asked, Dye declined to comment, saying, “My statement speaks for itself.” 
Yet, between coverage of the rape and the assault in the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the harsh views expressed in the Review’s Perspectives section, reported pressure from the trustees to look at the Community Board decision and the protest itself, many feel that Dye had no choice but to reconsider the ruling.
“I feel a lot of her decisions to even take that on were the result of alumni calling. We’re a nice side note, but I really don’t think she was that concerned with us,” Foo said.
Harvey felt this collection of pressures caused Dye to take the action she did in reviewing the case personally. “Everything that happened in the two to three weeks between the overturning of the expulsion to when President Dye re-expelling them converged together and did make a clear statement to administration that the Oberlin students and the alumni were not going to tolerate this,” he said.
Despite the strength of the message and flyers around campus, many students did not know the protest was scheduled to occur. Junior Jorge Sanchez said the organizers did not want to impose on the campus as a whole due to the fact that the protest was scheduled just before Reading Period began. Regardless, “I think this was organized well and quickly,” Sanchez said.
“I had heard about [the protest] fairly early that week and my reaction was that the Oberlin spirit was coming to the forefront even if it was coming a bit late,” Harvey said.

 

 

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