After the release of testimony from the Hullabaloo article, "'Expel rapists:' Survivors testify to sexual violence at Tulane," by Lily Mae Lazarus, managing editor, it is clear that Erica Woodley must resign, or it is Tulane's responsibility to fire her.

Erica Woodley's official title at Tulane University is Associate Vice President &
Dean of Students, Student Resources, and Support Services. Woodley also works in case management and victim services offices. This is a role that she has not only failed to fulfill but actively used to suppress the voices and validation of survivors of sexual assault, specifically drugging-related assault. 

Woodley recently said that "We look forward to working closely with any student who is committed to ending sexual violence on our campus," but her interactions with students who have been sent to her to handle their assault can tell you those are not her intentions. Direct quotes from the Hullabaloo article testimonies make this disgustingly clear.

One student said, "Later in the week, I had a meeting with the Dean of Students. She told me I was lying and that she had heard this story "hundreds of times over her nine years and never once believed it." This is an example of Woodley telling survivors to their faces that they are lying about their trauma. She tries to defend this claim by saying students say this so they won't get in trouble for underage drinking. There are two major problems with this response, one being that she thinks Tulane students would lie about their assault and disrespect other survivors by lying about it, and two the assumption that because students were drinking, it would be their fault for the assault.

Another student, when trying to reach out for help, stated that "Instead, I received multiple angry emails from the Dean of Students because the meeting times she had offered me were during class on my first week and during a therapy appointment I desperately needed." The student then goes on to say that, "I was told that I needed to take responsibility for my part in this because I was drinking underage. I was also forced to relive every single detail of what happened from beginning to end." Woodley's first assumption, without a single sensible thought, is to call survivors liars and blame them.

Survivors are NOT to blame even if they are drinking. Survivors are NOT to blame when they try to report their stories. Survivors are NOT to blame. Full stop. Especially when sexual assault and violence harm LGBTQ+ people and people of color disproportionately. It is clear that Erica Woodley would like to blame survivors. 

The audacity Erica Woodley has to treat survivors so disrespectfully is disgusting, but not surprising considering the well-known Tulane slogan, "Only the Audacious."

By signing this petition we demand that:

• Erica Woodley resigns
• Tulane replaces the position with someone competent in sexual assault cases.
• Tulane requires annual training for the new hire.

 

We are asking for Erica Woodley to resign immediately so that no other survivors have to be victimized and re-traumatized by Woodley.

The following are a couple anonymous testimonies from survivors who met with Erica Woodley, though at least 8 students have voiced their similar experiences with her as of now.

*Content warning for sexual violence, 

 

• "so essentially my friends and i went to KA one night. beforehand i had only had two cups of some shitty margarita so at the frat i made myself a mixed drink. then one of my friends and i each had one cup of vat. i know this makes me sound unreliable because it was a decent amount of alcohol but i am not a lightweight and i know how much i can handle without blacking out and it is nowhere near 4/5 drinks. i don’t remember ever leaving the frat. my friends had to basically carry me back to my dorm because i could not walk and once we were there, someone called TEMS. i regained consciousness around the time TEMS showed up because i had thrown up basically everything in my system. i remember telling them in the ambulance that i think i was drugged because i hadn’t had that much to drink. at the hospital, they put me in a room, gave me a barf bag, and discharged me without any drug tests or any sort of care. a TUPD officer drove me back to campus and i woke up to a call from my parents. apparently the school had called them and told them that campus police found me throwing up on the side of the road with one friend and then they called TEMS. in reality, i was in my dorm with like 10 friends taking care of me. next morning my parents told me the story that the school had told them and because i had no memory of the night before, that’s what i believed happened until my friends told me the real story. a few days later i had my meeting with woodley. at this point i was doubting whether or not i had been drugged at all because i had a lot of people telling me so many different things. when i insinuated to her that i was possibly drugged, she flipped the blame onto me for drinking a drink because i didn’t know what was in it. she then asked me what i had had to drink that night and i told her honestly and she condescendingly told me that i definitely just drank too much and was not drugged. i found this interesting because i didn’t explicitly say anything about drugs or being roofied but she was adamant that there was no way that i was drugged anyway. and because i was already insecure about the situation, i did not pursue it any further and figured she knew what she was talking about because she sees so many students in similar situations."
• "I was roofied in a bar early on in my time at tulane. While this experience was horrible in itself I was further Retraumatized by my experience with the administration, specifically Erica Woodley. Because I was considered to have been temsed for alcohol related reasons (despite having a BAC less than half the legal driving limit). After entering her office I was told that everything that happened was my fault for going out drinking and I needed to take responsibility for the whole situation. Furthermore she told me that 70% of girls who come into her office claim they were drugged and most of them are lying. I was forced to relive every traumatizing detail to her from beginning to end. I was then made to take an alcohol education course. Her only follow up was a couple annoyed emails after I let her know I never received the alcohol education course. This experience made me feel unsupported and hurt. The moment I left her office I broke down in tears. I only hope that we can make changes so that no other girls has to have the same experience as me."

 

Resources are available for Tulane students who are victims of sexual violence. Contact Sexual Assault Peer Hotline and Education‘s 24/7 Peer Run Hotline at 504-654-9543 if you need help. 

RAINN: Rape Abuse + Incest National Network provides resources that are LGBTQ+ inclusive and can be reached at 800-656-4673.

For Tulane students in need of metal health support, contact Counseling and Psychological Services at 504-314-2277. The Counseling Center is open 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday–Friday. The Counseling Center provides mental health counseling and other related services. 

Students in need of additional support can contact the Residential Adviser on call in their residence hall. Students may also call the on-call Case Manager at 504-920-9900.

For LGBTQ+ students, the Trevor Project provides crisis intervention and suicide prevention services to those under 25 and can be reached at 866-488-7386.

The Employee Assistance Program is available for faculty and staff seeking counseling or support. Information about Employee Assistance Programs can be found at https://hr.tulane.edu/benefits/employee-assistance-program

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline can be reached 24 hours a day at 800-273-8255.