Otterbein was the subject of a Columbus Dispatch article over the weekend — the headline ran “Otterbein able to keep sex-case particulars under wraps.”
Ed Vaughan, a theater professor, was put on leave after being accused of sexual imposition in May. Otterbein police would not release the incident report to Otterbein360.com.
The Dispatch article interviewed Robert Gatti, Otterbein’s vice president and dean of Student Affairs. In it, Gatti said that student privacy is the university’s main concern and also the reason for not releasing incident reports.
From the October 19 Dispatch article:
Protecting student privacy is the main objective, he said. Otterbein is a small campus with a little more than 2,500 students, and when something happens, “everyone knows about it,” he said.
Gatti said he felt certain the university made the right decision after talking to a young woman who was distraught after being contacted by the student newspaper the very same morning that she was sexually assaulted off campus.
“The student and her parents said they felt traumatized twice in one day,” he said.
I wanted to clarify this part of the story.
The sexual assault referred to happened on July 19, 2012 at approximately 4:10 a.m. Otterbein360.com ran a story at 8:43 a.m. of the same day — a screenshot of the police alert and general information about the incident was included, but no contact was made with the victim. At 10:46 p.m. an updated version of the story ran on the website. The updated story included quotes from an interview with the victim.
Student reporters first reached out to the victim’s mother around 9:30 p.m. the same day. Then, through the mother, the victim knowingly consented to the interview. And, per Otterbein360 policy, the victim was not named.
Otterbein360.com’s staff and its adviser were not contacted about the Dispatch article to explain this.
But that incident has nothing to do with the university’s refusal to release police incident reports. Rather, Otterbein claims that it is a private entity (defined by a 2006 court case), and is exempt from releasing records.
This is part of an ongoing conversation between Otterbein360.com — and formerly Tan & Cardinal newspaper — staff and Otterbein University.
In October 2012, Gatti wrote a letter to the editor in response to a story and its accompanying editorial.
