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It’s been 24 years since my mother passed away, and I can still feel her effervescent spirit envelope my being, hear the thick Bronx Rican accent behind her favorite mantra reverberating in my brain, “Nena, don’t ever let a man make mincemeat outta you!”

She would have turned 94 on June 5th. Earlier that day, my wife had asked me if there was anything I wanted to do to honor her. I first said I didn’t know; I’d been preoccupied by the recent death of a professor from my undergrad years.

In fact, I was much more than preoccupied by it. I was angered by the homage paid to him by former classmates, and an obituary which one friend opined had been written by AI. It all made him seem like a saint — a figure I, and many of my female peers, never knew him to be.

What would Mami say, I wondered? “Tell the truth, mija.” So I’m doing that here, with names changed to protect the survivors.

A week before our former professor died, I was having dinner with my best friend from college, Dina. Reminiscing about our early 80’s school days (and daze), the conversation soon turned from light-hearted to somber as we landed on a familiar subject: how our professor objectified, manipulated, degraded, and publicly humiliated many of us, in and outside the classroom.

Beyond the rumors that he and other professors had affairs with female students, I rattled off a few incidents that had shocked, hurt and confused me when they happened. But at the time, fear that I was making a mountain out of a molehill, and fear of retribution, helped me bury those and other memories — for years.

Memories like how he repeatedly berated me for slouching, branding me “Sloppy Shoulders,” and then one day said something to the effect that since I had a boyfriend and was “gettin’ laid” I was finally “showing some pride,” walking with my head held high, “tits up and out.”

Memories like the way he constantly made fun of another classmate, pantomiming to indicate she was big-breasted, subsequently labeling her “Bessie the cow.” How he, following auditions for a war-themed play he was directing, lambasted everyone in class, mocking each of our auditions in grotesque form to show how miserably we failed. It didn’t matter that he ended up casting all of us; the damage was done.

What dredged up the most pain was my recollection of him directing rehearsals for that very same war-themed play. Throughout the entire six-week rehearsal process, he fashioned himself a drill sergeant and treated us like boot camp recruits, referring to us only by our last names or derogatory terms, yelling directions, demanding we answer “Sir, yes, sir!”

He targeted a sensitive, gifted male classmate, Evan, whom he deemed “too soft” because he refused to subscribe to our professor’s machismo. It appeared that his sole purpose in life was to “toughen up” Evan, and he strived to do so in the cruelest of ways. Making us march around the auditorium for what seemed like an eternity, he would suddenly accuse Evan of falling out of step. He would then make us all repeat the marching formation over and over again, without a break until we “got it right,” regardless of the fact that it was late at night and we — theater students — were exhausted. Evan would allegedly fall out of step again, and again the group was punished. We might have to re-do the formation and/or do 25 pushups. Evan would have to do 50.

Over time, some cast members started to resent Evan, not realizing that this was not a lesson in method acting, it was psychological warfare, part of our professor’s sick strategy to divide and conquer.

As Dina and I continued our remembrances over dinner, she revealed to me a memory about our professor she never previously shared with anyone. With her permission, I am sharing her truth here.

It was 1982; she was a freshman, I was a sophomore. We attended a cast party at our professor’s house for a show he had directed. His wife and son were not at home; frankly, there seemed to be no trace of them anywhere, no photos, personal objects, refrigerator notes, nothing to indicate he had a family living there.

We’d all been drinking alcohol (the legal age at that time was 18); some of us had also smoked pot. After several hours, the party winded down; everyone left except for Dina and another female classmate, Maeve, who found themselves sitting alone with our professor. He began pontificating about how boys didn’t know how to satisfy girls. Then, in quite explicit detail, he described exactly how he would “make love” to Dina and Maeve.

Bewildered and unnerved, Dina and Maeve didn’t know what to do. This was, after all, our professor, director, teacher. He didn’t assault them physically; he used words. Dina assumed this must be the norm, that this is what college is, and what college professors do. She kept the incident to herself for 43 years.

As Dina and I finished our dinner, I thought about how I’m a college professor now and Dina’s a teacher, striving to educate and empower our students. We both know what happened to her should not be the norm, not what college professors or any person should do. In the 80s, we didn’t know any better; only 23 women were in Congress (2 in the Senate and 21 in the House) and the #MeToo movement and awakening was decades away.

“I’m so sorry, Dina, so sorry you went through that…and he got away with it…” I trailed off, trembling in anger and sadness.

“We were all young, and impressionable,” she uttered.

For the rest of the evening, we tried to put our professor out of our minds. But the memories clung to the air like poison ivy intertwining climbing vines. Outrage and anxiety still clenched my heart; I did my best to make small talk. I noticed Dina’s demeanor change; she became more pensive and withdrawn despite my nervous attempts to shift the conversation to more carefree topics.

Eleven days later, around eleven o’clock at night, Dina texted me that our professor had died. She seemed upset and perplexed by the outpouring of loving tributes flowing from classmates to him on social media. I stared at her words for a while, too stunned to respond immediately. I couldn’t believe he was dead; it stirred up a new range of emotions and questions. Could we now let our memories die with him? Should we? I started to feel angry at myself for never confronting him.

I didn’t want to feel anything in that moment; I had been ready to turn in, after an intense yet joyous and inspiring second day of ArtFull, a community-building initiative and artists’ retreat for CLP alum. But Dina’s text reminded me of ArtFull’s morning session, when I had been immersed in the CLP core values exercise. It asks us to list our top five core values, then set one aside until we’re left with our number one top core value. Mine were honesty, integrity, community, peace, and love. I chose love.

I texted Dina, then found and read his obituary. I wanted to puke. We went back and forth for a while, trying to figure out what to do, what to say and to whom? We didn’t want to hurt the family or invalidate the good memories others experienced. We simply wanted to tell the truth.

Dina decided to address the issue in a heart-wrenching, honest message to former classmates, reminding us that “Silence around harm protects no one.”

I first thought about posting something on social media or writing an Op-Ed for a local paper. Then I turned to family and friends for advice. Everyone was supportive; some asked me what I hoped to gain by going public, others cautioned me to be prepared for discouraging or hurtful responses. Lara suggested The Circle, and I accepted because its purpose resonated with me: “a virtual leadership circle for all of us building inclusive, compassionate, just, healthy, thriving communities. It is here to support inspiration, learning, reflection, listening and connection — to ourselves, each other, and the worlds around us.”

People are complicated; our professor was revered by some and feared by others, especially young women and female-identifying students. Our truth — including students who graduated in the early 90s who shared their experiences with me and Dina — is that he exhibited a pattern of predatory behavior, playing mind games and grooming students. He wielded a position of power and abused his authority by preying upon vulnerable young people.

The larger truth is that the onus should not — cannot — be on victims and survivors. Bystanders, witnesses to predatory behavior need to step up, stop normalizing and accepting it, and call it out for what it is. I realize that’s the ongoing tragedy in a patriarchal society, especially today when a sexual predator presides over the country and many others fill the seats of Congress, sit on the Supreme Court, run for mayor, produce films, direct plays, make music or hold any position of power in any field.

Yet, we, as leaders, cannot give up. We need to continue all our efforts to change the culture, by:

  • Learning to recognize, identify and interrupt predatory behavior;
  • Refusing to tolerate it;
  • Destigmatizing the process of reporting sexual assault and harassment;
  • Supporting people even if they choose not to report;
  • Believing survivors when they come forward with their truth;
  • Advocating for survivors;
  • Creating legislation to empower and protect survivors.

In the wise words of Maya Angelou, “Do the best you can until you know better, then when you know better, do better.”

Over forty years ago, Dina and I didn’t know any better. Today, we do, and so we endeavor to do better — for ourselves, for students, for survivors everywhere.

Learn more about Janis at her website

To get in touch with Janis directly: info@janisastor.com

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