This article continues the story of Harmony Rodriguez, which PGN began last week. Rodriguez, who is transgender, says she was raped on the campus of Temple University in August 2013 and has since filed a federal complaint against the university.
According to the complaint, following her Sept. 30, 2013, release from Friends Hospital, where she was recovering from a mental breakdown after reading details of her sexual assault in the student newspaper, Rodriguez returned to her dorm at Temple Towers, the site of her alleged rape.
Over the course of the next month, Rodriguez said she made three requests to former Temple Towers resident director Steve Dexter to be transferred to a different dorm because of the trauma she suffered there.
During that time, Rodriguez says Dexter told her to “learn to deal with what happened without involving [Office for Civil Rights] or Temple University administrators.”
It was not until Rodriguez filed the request in November through the Disability Resources and Services Office, based on her registered disability, that she was granted permission to transfer for the spring 2014 semester.
Upon release from Friends Hospital in September, Rodriguez was referred to the Wellness Resource Center for support and guidance through the process of handling her sexual assault.
However, when she went to WRC, she says they told her that, “rape was outside of [our] jurisdiction,” despite the fact that Temple University policy does indeed indicate that the WRC is responsible for as much.
According to the chapter entitled “Preventing and Addressing Sexual Assault, Domestic Violence, Dating Violence and Stalking,” from the Temple University policies and procedures manual, the WRC is, among other things, “responsible for providing counseling services to students who have experienced sexual assault, domestic violence, dating violence and stalking.”
Rodriguez said that when WRC told her they could not help her, “I believed them.”
Eventually, Rodriguez decided she wanted to report the rape, but claims that WRC (which is responsible for helping students file the report) would not help her, despite multiple visits to the center.
In addition to the rape, Rodriguez says she also dealt with two separate instances of stalking and harassment beginning in late August 2013.
The first occurred after she responded to a male’s personal ad. The two exchanged explicit emails and photos, but Rodriguez said she cut things off after receiving a disturbing text message.
From there the male made repeated attempts to visit Rodriguez throughout the semester. He would also make homophobic remarks one day followed by solicitations for sex the next. His erratic behavior continued to escalate in the form of cruder sexually vulgar comments and non-verbal confrontations in which he would follow Rodriguez around campus, the complaint states.
Rodriguez said her final confrontation with the individual occurred mid-December.
Rodriguez said she attempted to get help through WRC but was referred to Campus Safety Services Officer Donna Grey. Rodriguez says Grey told her “to investigate it on her own and to ask the male in question for his name, that she would not be able to do anything without his name.”
The instance of harassment occurred when Rodriquez says she was chased from Liacouras Walk to Cecil B. Moore Avenue and Broad Street Nov. 1 by a male who made homophobic remarks and threatened violence against her.
When Rodriguez returned to her dorm at Temple Towers, she called Temple University Police. She says the dispatcher she reported the incident to laughed, made a sarcastic remark, then hung up without relaying the information to police.
After this, Rodriguez said, she felt hopeless, and her academics suffered because of the stress, panic attacks and near-mental breakdowns.
In March, Rodriguez made a final visit to Kerby Vincent, coordinator for student conduct, to inquire about the rape case but did not receive any information.
The complaint states that, the same week, another Temple staffer threatened to remove Rodriguez from clubs she participated in because talking about what happened to her “misrepresented Temple” and made his office look bad.
In a meeting a few days later, that official told Rodriguez that filing the Title IX complaint would not accomplish anything, that she was making Temple look bad and that she would face punishment if she decided to go through with it or speak about the incidents, the complaint states.
While technically still a Temple student, Rodriguez said she is not currently registered for classes. Her student account has been frozen because she did not complete the penalties associated with the alcohol-related sanctions placed on her during the fall 2013 semester.
Her allegations are currently being investigated by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights.
