This week Notre Dame University has had to respond to public scrutiny as to whether it has or has not responded to an allegation of rape by one of its football players. It seems that the family of the alleged victim, who committed suicide shortly after, is outraged, among other related issues, by the lack of the university’s communication with local police or any apparent investigation. An important aspect of this story is not whether a rape occurred (granted sexual assault, victimization of women, and teen suicide are all huge problems), but how our institutional response to allegations of assault, bullying, rape, sexual harassment, or victimization is to investigate and get down to the “truth” first and foremost.

Read the full article [here].

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One of the opinions shared by CFR Mediation Services that caught my attention was:

Looking at conflict response through a paradigm of conflict resolution, instead of right or wrong, it is easy to see how universities and employers do additional harm by seeing themselves as “truth-seekers”, by not allowing themselves to respond until they know the “truth”.

When universities and employers seek "truth," the investigation process is commonly an internal process with limited, if any, communication passing to key stakeholders.  CFR Mediation Services explains how this lack of communication contributes to feelings of powerlessness in those involved since "silence is often interpreted as not caring, not hearing, or punishing."