Editor’s note: This story contains mentions of sexual assault.
Despite facing a rape allegation that camp leaders were aware of, an OU student was hired to work at Camp Crimson — a situation one national expert said administrators had limited options in preventing due to privacy laws and Title IX regulations.
Courtney Foster, Norman Women’s Resource Center assistant director, said a freshman orientation setting can be particularly vulnerable for students entering college for the first time, and involving someone even accused of rape can be dangerous due to the nature of the crime. Though the camp has recently been reformatted, she said the extended mentor-mentee relationships between staffers and campers it still boasts add increased risks.
“It’s a crime about power and control, and so it’s dangerous to open up a perpetrator to other potential victims that are around them,” Foster said.
Rachel Smith*, a former Camp Crimson small group leader, told camp leaders and subsequently The Daily that she was raped at a party by Samuel Jones*, her boyfriend at the time, on Nov. 30, 2018. The Daily, which knows both students’ identities, will use pseudonyms for both at the request of Smith.
Smith said she told former Associate Director of Student Life Bridgitte Castorino in March 2019 she had been assaulted by Jones. Smith said Castorino told her there was nothing she could do to prevent Jones from being at Camp Crimson that year, and Jones was later hired again to participate in Camp Crimson in 2020. Smith first contacted The Daily in the summer of 2020.
Smith said she initiated a Title IX investigation against Jones — who had by then been chosen as a 2019 small group leader — after meeting with Castorino. Smith said the process was riddled with issues and resulted in only a no-contact order, as the office ruled five weeks after it started its investigation that it couldn’t determine the events of Nov. 30 were non-consensual.
K.C. Johnson, a Brooklyn College history professor who has conducted research focused on campus due process, said universities normally issue no-contact orders pre-adjudication, which apply across campus. He also said university administrators have “considerable discretion” pre-adjudication, which could allow for limitations of a student’s on-campus activity until the case is ruled on by the Title IX office. Schools can additionally decide to make accommodations for students involved as needed.
Johnson said if the case has been adjudicated and there’s a finding of no responsibility, imposing a punishment on the accused student — such as preventing them from participating in Camp Crimson — would almost certainly be a due process violation.
“The argument that the accused student would make in those circumstances is, ‘You investigated me, you adjudicated me, you found that I did not do anything wrong under your procedures and now you’re punishing me for an accusation that you have determined did not meet the Title IX standard approved.’ And I think it would be very, very hard, under those circumstances, for the university to win,” Johnson said.
Smith’s case was decided using the preponderance of evidence standard, which uses anything “above a ‘fifty-fifty’ likelihood of guilt” to find the responding party responsible, according to regulations posted by the Department of Education on Nov. 16, 2018. Some advocate for the more rigorous competing “clear and convincing evidence standard,” which calls for evidence to be “highly and substantially” more likely to be true than untrue, as Title IX proceedings are quasi-criminal and can result in the loss of a college degree and long-lasting reputational harm. Still, according to current regulations, institutions are allowed to choose which standard they apply.
OU Director of Media Relations Kesha Keith said findings of reports and investigations are kept confidential to protect the parties involved, but no sanctions are implemented if a person isn’t found responsible for the alleged conduct.
Jones told The Daily on Jan. 19 that after reading the report at the end of the Title IX investigation, he found both he and Smith gave the same account of events on the night in question. He said he maintains he didn’t rape Smith, and he also said the Title IX office didn’t find his actions to violate any university policies. Though Jones said he understands Smith’s anger about his subsequent involvement in Camp Crimson, he said he thinks camp administrators made the decision based on his merit and thought he would bring value to the organization.
Director of Student Life Quy Nguyen wrote in a Jan. 13 email on behalf of himself and Castorino that because of federal protections, the two are limited in how they can discuss matters related to individual students. He wrote, however, he “can confirm for myself and staff that in all instances any and all accusations are taken seriously, and we strive to make sure that proper protocol is followed.”
Based on his understanding of the case, Johnson said although camp administrators weren’t legally able to keep Jones off the Camp Crimson staff, he believes they could have done more outside the legal system to keep Smith from having to see Jones while at camp and on social media.
‘It made me feel really unsafe’
Smith said she and Jones started dating in October 2018 — her sophomore year, and his freshman year, after meeting at a Campus Activities Council event. She said she felt the events of Nov. 30 were wrong immediately after they occurred and met with an OU Advocates employee Dec. 1, 2018. In that meeting, the employee confirmed to Smith that what she’d experienced was assault.
Smith said she’d ignored emotions associated with the incident for months after meeting with the advocate. But during that time, Smith was also facing pressure from Jones to continue the relationship, she said.
“He was pretty emotionally manipulative, especially in that situation,” Smith said, “and made it sound like, by the things that he said to me, that he was going to kill himself if I broke up with him over this.”
Smith continued the relationship but felt increasingly anxious about the situation. She broke up with Jones in February 2019.
Smith said she first approached Castorino about her experience with Jones on March 31, 2019, after Jones arrived at the Camp Crimson training for which she was scheduled. Smith said she started panicking when she saw Jones, and another staffer tried to provide reassurance. Smith said she then told the staffer she had been previously assaulted by Jones.
Smith said the staffer took her to Castorino’s office, where she informed Castorino one of the other small group leaders had previously assaulted her.
In an email between Smith and Castorino from April 1, 2019, that was provided to The Daily, Castorino wrote:
I wanted to email you and check in on you regarding the situation yesterday. I have a packed schedule this week but would love to schedule a time to sit down and chat with you about it (if you would be comfortable doing so) and make sure we are taking care of you and the situation the best we can. I know Jennifer* was working with you yesterday, but I wanted you to know that I want to support you the best I can as well.
I also wanted to let you know that since I am a mandatory reporter on campus, I will have to file a report with Title IX regarding the situation. You can choose whether you want to go forward with an investigation or not. I’m not sure if you had already talked to OU Advocates or not, but I can help you get in contact with them if you would like as well.
Smith said she met with Castorino with an OU Advocate present April 3, 2019. Castorino said it would be very easy to move people around so Smith wouldn’t have to see Jones during the period when staffers have typically prepared for camp sessions, conducting small group leader interviews and trainings and doing committee work.
Smith said she met with the OU Title IX office for the first time later that day. Smith said she’d originally “waffled” about meeting with the Title IX office at all, scheduling appointments and then canceling them, but as she started to come to terms with her experience with Jones, she decided to meet.
At that time, the Title IX office was run by Bobby Mason and was criticized under his leadership, as several students felt they weren’t updated frequently on Title IX investigations they initiated. Several days after Smith’s meeting with Title IX investigators, Mason resigned to take a position as the chief compliance officer at Texas State University.
In that meeting, Smith said her investigator told her they didn’t have to make the investigation official — they could just call Jones in and tell him to leave her alone, but they didn’t “have to go to all the trouble.” Shaniqua Crawford, who succeeded Mason as institutional equity officer and Title IX coordinator in November 2020, said via email that federal protections limit how her office can discuss specific cases.
Smith said, during the investigation, her OU Advocate also had to call the Title IX office at least once to tell investigators the way they were speaking to her was inappropriate. Though Smith said she felt invalidated by her experiences with the Title IX office, she continued to meet with investigators once or twice a week for the next six weeks.
Foster said having an invalidating response when reporting sexual assault can add to the trauma of a sexual assault, as the No. 1 stated fear of victims is not being believed by others.
“It’s really bad policy to not have that response be positive and ‘I believe you and you did nothing wrong’ whenever someone tells you — that’s a critical time to believe them,” Foster said. “And at OU, there are definitely policies in place that are made to protect victims. And I think that (it’s) always a good idea to follow those policies.”
Johnson said being supportive of a complainant is the “human response,” and Title IX employees not involved in the adjudication process are often tasked with offering supportive measures to a victim.
“If, however, you’re talking about the investigator, and that’s the approach you’re taking, that in effect winds up flipping the presumption,” Johnson said. “(If investigators) say ‘I’m going to start by believing the complainant,’ that means in effect, the accused is presumed guilty. … That would be problematic.”
Smith said she ended up talking with other Title IX employees for most of the investigation, and on May 8, 2019, the Title IX office emailed Smith the results of the investigation.
According to the results obtained by The Daily, the only outcome was a mutual no-contact order prohibiting Smith and Jones from engaging in “person-to-person communication, written communication, telephonic communication, text messaging, communication through third parties, email communication, contact or reference on social media, and any other direct or indirect form of communication.” It did not explicitly ban them from being in the same physical space.
Smith said the order began informally at the start of the investigation but would continue formally through the fall 2019 semester — ending a year and a half before Smith would graduate and two and a half years before Jones would.
Smith said she could have challenged the verdict within five days of the decision, but she received it three days before leaving on a study abroad trip.
Nguyen told The Daily via email any reports received in his role are expected to be reported to the Office of Institutional Equity. He also said students have reporting options both on and off campus, including options for confidential reporting of sexual misconduct through the Gender + Equality Center.
When hiring full-time and graduate student employees, Nguyen wrote “a check for any internal violations is done by university investigative units, which include Student Conduct, OUPD and the Institutional Equity Office. In some cases, a complete background check is also done. In all cases involving misconduct allegations, we have a duty to protect the rights of all parties involved until a finding is complete. Once a finding is made, the University takes appropriate steps moving forward.”
When asked separately, Castorino said in a Jan. 15 email to The Daily she had nothing to add to Nguyen’s statement.
In January, administrators announced a transition to a single-session camp format, which they said will allow for a “common experience” for incoming freshmen. Castorino announced in February she would be leaving her position in the New Student Programs department to join her husband in Texas.
Keith wrote in an email the university has “a duty” to protect the rights of both the reporting and responding parties. She said interim measures — including a no-contact order, OU Advocates resources or counseling appointments — are implemented as needed, and appropriate administrative offices are notified to ensure compliance.
In the email, Keith also said reporting parties are offered supportive measures — like mutual no-contact orders, a change of class schedules or alternate housing arrangements — which are created to ensure either party isn’t deprived of their right to live, work and learn in institutional programs and activities. Protecting the reporting party against potential retaliation is also a primary concern in all Title IX investigations, Keith said in the email.
When a Title IX investigation is complete, a finding is made, and any appeals are considered, according to the email.
Crawford wrote in an email that no-contact orders are evaluated on a case-by-case basis, and mutual no-contact orders are put in place temporarily until there is an outcome. If needed, either party can request the extension of a no-contact order, and implementation is determined based on the facts of the case.
Johnson, the Brooklyn College professor who has studied campus due process, said the no-contact order likely would have been made permanent if Jones had been found responsible. Still, he said schools often extend no-contact orders for the rest of the students’ experience on campus regardless of the finding.
Title IX cases handled elsewhere could be navigated differently.
Texas, for example, has a law requiring additional precautions for students unable to enroll in an institution for a reason other than an academic or financial issue, like a Title IX violation. Oklahoma has no such laws mandating transcript notations.
John Dalton, the University of Texas Department of Investigation and Adjudication associate vice president, said UT implemented transcript notations as a “red flag” for some students.
The university uses transcript notations for students who are in the process of being adjudicated for a potential Title IX violation or who have been adjudicated and found responsible, Dalton said. He said these notations prevent those students from moving to another institution without that institution being warned, although the burden is on the other institution to find out what the violation is specifically.
Dalton said if students found responsible for a Title IX violation choose to remain on UT’s campus, they’re rarely impacted by their transcript notations. No sanctions or notations are put in place for students who are adjudicated and found not responsible, he said.
Johnson said the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, which protects the privacy of student education records, has an exception that allows the results of Title IX investigations to be made public through an open records request if there’s a finding of responsibility. He said in those instances, the university can release the student’s name, the outcome of the case and the sanction imposed.
FERPA prevents the release of Title IX investigation results beyond this, though, Johnson said. He also said if a student isn’t found responsible, releasing the details of their case could subject the university to a due process lawsuit.
Dalton said the identities of UT employees who’ve violated Title IX regulations are public records, and though the privacy of alleged student perpetrators is protected, community members can be informed of the number of cases found to violate regulations and their outcomes in aggregate.
Title IX response
After returning from her study abroad trip and showing up on the first day of her camp session on July 15, 2019, Smith said Jones was already there. She met with Castorino to explain the situation, but Castorino said since Jones was on school property, she couldn’t ask him to leave. At this time, the no-contact order between the two was still in place.
“I couldn’t seem to get the point across to anyone higher up at Camp Crimson that this wasn’t an accident,” Smith said. “This wasn’t a coincidence. That was the first time he’d known where I was going to be in months. And, due to the fact that he was a really controlling person when we were together, that made a lot of sense.”
Smith also said she later found out two of her close friends on the orientation staff had gone to Castorino and told her she needed to make Smith’s situation and concerns a priority.
Smith said Jones kept trying to explain his presence by saying he was there to see other staffers, but she didn’t believe him.
“It made me feel really unsafe; it created a really hostile environment for me,” Smith said.
Jones said he has never made any conscious attempt to be in the same space as Smith or talk to her face to face. He also said while the no-contact order is intended to prevent contact between him and Smith, it’s not a restraining order preventing them from being in the same physical space.
Johnson said comprehensive no-contact orders that prevent both parties from being in the same space and communication of any kind are more common, but no-contact orders that prevent only communication are sometimes administered. While there is some debate about the extent to which no-contact orders apply off campus, Johnson said they’re always in effect on campus. He also said even though this particular no-contact order had a relatively uncommon structure, based on his research, the relevant officials could have easily gone beyond the legal framework to ensure both Jones’ rights and Smith’s concerns were considered.
A graphic comparing Obama era and current Title IX regulations.
Johnson also said according to Title IX regulations at the time, if a no-contact order were in place, the normal response before adjudication would have been for the accused student to “stand aside,” allowing the reporting party to choose which session they wanted to attend, and then agreeing to attend one of the four others. He said if the accused student was found not responsible post-adjudication — as was the investigation on Jones — the university wouldn’t be required to prevent them from attending a certain session, as the case would be closed, and the reporting party would have to attend one of the other sessions instead.
He said based on his understanding of the case, though, the university had the ability to go beyond legal requirements to accommodate Smith.
Smith said she found out Jones planned to return to her session later that week to volunteer and went to her OU Advocate to arrange a meeting with Castorino to ensure that didn’t happen.
Smith said her OU Advocate also met with Nguyen, and she said Nguyen met with Jones July 16 or 17, 2019, to tell him he should stay away from camp while Smith was there.
According to a timeline created by Smith for Castorino and Nguyen, and provided to The Daily, on July 17, 2019, Smith received a message from her advocate informing her that Jones had agreed not to come to any camp functions during her session.
After this, Smith said camp went as planned, with Jones staying away from her session.
‘They’re giving a platform to someone who traumatized me’
Smith said she was sitting in the Oklahoma Memorial Union food court at a tutoring session when she received an Instagram notification in the fall of 2019, announcing the 2020 Camp Crimson orientation staff. The post included pictures of 38 staffers.
She said she was shocked to see Jones’ picture among them.
She said she rushed out of the tutoring session and went to the GEC, where she told employees she had to talk to someone. A meeting was set up for her to talk to Castorino and Nguyen regarding the image, which as of April 2021 remains on Instagram.
During their meeting on Nov. 26, 2019, Castorino and Nguyen promised that Jones would be kept off any camp social media posts in the future, Smith said. She presented Castorino and Nguyen with the timeline at this time, which she said illustrated the two knew about Jones’ history and “didn’t care enough to keep from hiring him — none of that was a big enough issue.”
At the time of Smith’s meeting with administrators, Camp Crimson staffers were planning for in-person camp sessions, and Smith said Castorino and Nguyen told her Jones wouldn’t be at the session she’d attend. Smith said she’d heard that promise before.
Jones said as a result of Smith’s meeting with Nguyen and Castorino, he was told he wouldn’t be featured on the camp social media. He said he was told he wouldn’t be included in any orientation staff presentations or SGL trainings. He said he was also asked not to attend that year’s SGL reveal, and he said he agreed to take a week off from camp while Smith was working.
Jones said though he felt these accommodations were frustrating, he did his best to comply as far as he “felt was fair.” He said he pushed back on being excluded from the trainings, though, and he was able to participate in one before camp operations shifted online in April due to the pandemic.
“(It) frustrated me because I was hired for a job, and essentially they were telling me I couldn’t even do the job that I was hired for anymore,” Jones said.
Smith said she decided to participate in Camp Crimson again in 2020 “out of spite,” because she didn’t want Jones to take away an involvement opportunity she’d wanted since her freshman year.
On July 9, 2020, Castorino sent Smith an email detailing the schedule for virtual Camp Crimson, which Smith provided to The Daily. Castorino said in the email that she, Nguyen and OU Advocates Case Manager Amber Maywere “working on maintaining our assurances for separation” between Smith and Jones during the camp.
In the email, Castorino explained virtual camp events would take place Tuesdays and Thursdays until Aug. 6, 2020. Castorino said she, Nguyen and May proposed Smith identify which events she planned to attend so Jones would be notified not to attend those. She also — despite previously promising he would be kept off camp’s social media — informed Smith that Jones would be featured on Camp Crimson’s Instagram and Twitter at noon the next day, apologizing for the short notice.
“Our hope is that is enough time for you to feel comfortable on your own Instagram/Twitter accounts tomorrow morning, without worry of seeing that spotlight,” Castorino said in the email.
Castorino said in the email Jones would not be participating in social media takeovers or videos.
Johnson said campus organizations have control over their social media after a Title IX investigation of a member. Because of this, Johnson said it would have been simple to prevent Jones from being posted, especially since administrators had already made a promise to avoid it.
On July 12, 2020, Smith said in a response to the email that “I appreciate that you are thinking about how to maintain your assurances, but unfortunately, I have heard that from you before, and it does not bring me much confidence.”
“As far as the virtual events are concerned, I have already had to leave a Camp Crimson Zoom call because he was in attendance, and it created (a) hostile environment for me in which my personal safety was at risk,” Smith wrote in the email to Castorino.
She also wrote her work, class and preparation for graduate school prevented her from attending any virtual camp events, meaning an end to her involvement.
“I was pretty miffed that they posted him on their social media after they told me that they wouldn’t, just because they’re giving a platform to someone who traumatized me, who has created an event in my life that impacts me every day,” Smith said.
Foster, who works with the Norman Women’s Resource Center, said for many victims, seeing their perpetrator again — even digitally — can be traumatizing, and it’s important they have enough time to prepare for such encounters.
“That person’s face can trigger an emotional reaction that their body feels like it’s right back being assaulted again,” Foster said, “and it can be really difficult for victims to get through without panicking or hyperventilating. … And so, you never want someone to be caught off guard and having to see that perpetrator again.”
Foster also said outside the legal system, the often-close relationship between camp leaders and participants should encourage administrators to choose staff members carefully.
“The mentor should be above reproach, and no mentor should ever have any questions (as to) their character because you never want someone looking up to someone like that,” Foster said.
Johnson said while the past Title IX regulations limited administrators’ response to Smith’s concerns, current guidelines offer more options.
Johnson said policies put in place during former President Barack Obama’s term, which continued briefly under the Trump administration, forced institutions to adjudicate Title IX cases. He said besides adjudication, current regulations — which took effect Aug. 14, 2020 — allow for the university to use a restorative justice-oriented method to mediating Title IX issues, which he thinks would have been the best option for Smith’s case.
Johnson said if a complainant chooses not to go forward with formal Title IX charges, they can approach the university and request accommodations allowing them to avoid the responding party while on campus. With a restorative justice-based solution, there is a discussion between the two parties, and an accused student would have had to acknowledge the harm they’d caused, he said.
Ultimately, though Johnson said administrators could have done more outside the legal system to accommodate Smith, with the restrictions in place at the time, they addressed the case from a proper legal standpoint.
“Under the guidance that existed at the time, the university didn’t have the discretion to do (restorative justice),” Johnson said. “They had to adjudicate the case, which under the procedures that they had, they did.”
