The Journal of Multimodal Rhetorics

Bethany Meadows, Michigan State University

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I first visited Ashland University as a nervous 17-year-old, drawn to its small size and manageable layout. It was a 7-minute walk from end-to-end, but I was naïve to the effect the institution’s religious conservatism would have on my experience. Despite my agnostic atheism and leftist views, I chose Ashland for its scholarships and financial aid, only to find myself navigating a campus marked by presidential scandals, blocking of the LGBTQ+ group from the board of trustees, and overwhelming Trump support from my peers and the community.

I needed breathing room.

My refuge became the English building and writing center, where I worked from my second semester of college until I graduated as Student Director. I watched the center change from a cramped, separated room full of wood cabinets and stuffed with chairs into an open concept with many computer stations and room for consulting. As I graduated and sat among my classmates, I felt so ready to move on from the place where so much happened to me, so I drove away and never returned until my site visit for this research.

When I returned five years later, I found a campus both familiar and transformed: new signs, hangout spaces, and a renovated academic support area replaced some of the musty, outdated spaces I had known. I saw dozens of visual texts related to sexual violence that weren’t there in my four years there, and I wished they had been for survivors like me. While some aspects remained, the campus felt lighter, as if I had stepped into an alternate version of a place that had once shaped me so profoundly.

 

I offer the following arguments and analyses from my own positionalities as a white, disabled, middle-class, educated, queer femme person who has a lifetime of (un)learning left to do. Following Grouling Snider’s (2020) institutional ethnography methodology, I blend storytelling with traditional site overviews, acknowledging that my lived experiences as a former student and community member shape my research lens on college sexual violence. This research standpoint resists the illusion of objectivity, highlighting the deep personal and institutional entanglements of the work against sexual violence. Sexual violence is a symptom of the larger oppressive systems of power and control, including racism, genderism, heteronormativity, classism, ableism. In the context of higher education, a shocking and gut-wrenching number of college students are sexually assaulted each year (“Statistics,” n.d.; Cantor, et al., 2017; Marine, 2017). Institutions, society, and people repeatedly continue to fail survivors.

Because of the overlapping systems of oppression, individuals with systemically disempowered identities face disproportionately higher rates of sexual violence. Sexual violence policy and rhetoric in higher education have largely been framed through white feminism, which is characterized by its non-intersectional, carceral approach that reinforces existing systems of oppression rather than dismantling them. In contrast, intersectional feminisms—such as queer, disabled, and Black feminisms—challenge these frameworks by recognizing that identities and oppression are co-constructed through interlocking systems such as white supremacy, heteronormativity, patriarchy, and ableism (e.g., Combahee River Collective, 1977; Crenshaw, 1991; Lorde, 1980).

There are some examples of intersectional approaches to sexual violence in higher education, such as at the University of Toronto where they forefront intersectional programming and also do not require mandatory reporting for disclosures of sexual violence. Yet, these intersectional approaches are rare, especially in U.S. higher education, and non-intersectional approaches are more prominent. Federal policies in the United States, including Title IX and the Clery Act, reflect these limitations by relying on institutional responses that exclude many survivors, particularly those from marginalized communities. For example, mandatory reporting, a key component of Title IX, assumes that justice is best served through institutional channels, despite the evidence that many survivors—especially those with multiple marginalized identities—do not report their experiences due to distrust of the institution, coercion by those with power, and systemic barriers and oppression (Cantor, et al., 2017; Sable, et al. 2006). Ultimately, policies designed to address sexual violence in higher education must move beyond surface-level inclusion efforts and instead adopt an intersectional feminist approach that acknowledges how institutions themselves perpetuate harm.

This article draws from a larger, Institutional Ethnography (IE) study. IE is a feminist research methodology that critiques positivism, objectivity, and hierarchical knowledge production (Smith, 2005; Smith & Griffith, 2022). IE is particularly suited to analyzing how sexual violence policies are often disembodied and anonymous, reinforcing systemic erasure for survivors. Following Grouling Snider’s IE approach, this article grows from the larger study using textual analysis and a site visit. For textual collection, I systematically examined Ashland University’s web pages related to sexual violence—including Title IX, campus safety, diversity offices, counseling centers, and student conduct policies—capturing sixty documents from the 2022–2023 academic year. I also searched institutional sites and Google using targeted keywords to ensure comprehensive data collection. My site visit in April 2023 aligned with “It’s On Us” month, a national sexual violence prevention campaign. I documented visual texts in high-traffic areas like the student center, library, and select academic buildings, including the writing center, noting what was present—or conspicuously absent. 

This article will analyze Ashland University’s mismatch between stated values and those enacted, which reinforce this surface-level inclusion that is ubiquitous in higher education. I will overview the stated values of the institution and how they are not aligned with various visual and digital texts they produce. These mismatches between the institution’s stated values and multimodal manifestations reaffirm the social order that privileges the “mythical norm” (Lorde, 1980) and those in power rather than survivors.

 

Stated Values vs. Values Enacted

Institutions have many texts that guide and represent everyday practices. These texts—ranging from resource guides, institutional reports, training, handbooks, educational resources—regulate practices around sexual violence policy and response and work to shape “thinking and practice” (LaFrance & Nicolas, 2023, p. 43). These practices create “institutional discourse" (Smith, 2001, p.160) that work in concert to create a “sense of continuity across individuals, practices, and sites” (LaFrance & Nicolas, 2023, p. 41). However, Ashland University’s “continuity” is at odds between what their texts are saying they value versus what they are doing. These discontinuities create tensions between Ashland’s mission and values and the other texts and actions produced by the institution. Mission and value statements are an “administered genre” (Miller, 2017, p. 23) that “act as carriers of culture, ethos and ideology” (Swales & Rogers, 1995, p. 226) to guide action and response, but these ideologies and culture are disparate and mismatched. Overall, Ashland’s core institutional values are (as explained in Table 1):

1. accent on the individual,

2. spirituality and faith,

3. character development,

4. academic freedom, and 

5. excellence in teaching.

​Table 1: Ashland’s Stated Values and their Definitions (Ashland University, "About," n.d.)

Throughout this article, I will use tables in each section to reiterate the stated values and where they will be mismatched as we navigate many examples. These tables will overview the stated value and its definition reproduced from above, the mismatch areas, and where the evidence and examples of those mismatches are. The article will discuss mismatches between these values and example areas of their sexual violence response training, their Title IX webpage, and their responses to activism and campus/community feedback.

 

Mismatches within Sexual Violence Response Training

Table 2: Ashland’s Stated Values vs. Sexual Violence Response Training

Ashland University deviates on the broad level from their stated values, such as in their sexual violence response training. By training, I mean the formalized ways people are instructed to understand and enact policy including slideshows for employees and interactive educational materials required annually. All of the training for Title IX coordinators is publicly available, as required by federal law, and Ashland also made their Resident Assistants (RA) training available. In Ashland’s RA training, they provide resources at the end that very directly point RAs and survivors to safety services, the Christian ministry, and student conduct. While the training does start with supportive and compassionate advice to actively listen and to believe the survivor (Pool, 2003, Slide 9), it immediately then advises RAs to pressure the survivor. The slides instruct them to tell the person to go to the hospital and “encourage them to get a SANE exam” (Slide 11). The educational resources on the university's Title IX’s webpage also offer similar advice of telling survivors not to clean up and to seek medical advice (Ashland University, “Education and Outreach,” n.d.). Both the webpage and the training ignore how most survivors respond after trauma, removes agency of survivors, and offers no information that even if they do bathe that they can still receive a SANE exam if they want up to five days later. This directly contradicts the stated values of “Accent on the Individual” and “Character Development.” These mandates do not cultivate a “supportive community” or “promote integrity” when they obfuscate facts related to SANE exams and remove survivors’ agency.

In addition, these recommendations continue to harm survivors where the RA training also instructs RAs to tell the survivor: “The earlier the police are involved the quicker the investigation can begin and conclude” (Slide 11). Both of these pieces of advice are not offered as resources or options but imply what the survivor should do. These recommendations ignore the trauma and harm of police and medical institutions, particularly around sexual violence. Later in the slides, it says, “Affirm them and show confidence that reporting is the right thing to do,” which furthers the immense pressure and removal of options for someone who just experienced a powerlessness situation that removed their agency. It leverages RAs to act as a peer and as an arm of the institution to pressure and control survivors. This control of survivors is inherently antithetical to the value of “Character Development,” as it is not “self-discipline” to tell others what they should do with their own lives, it is not “compassion” to make someone who has already had their agency removed to feel that again, and it is not “leadership” to imply someone should take a specific path with being able to consider their options. 

 

Mismatches within Title IX Webpage

Table 3: Ashland’s Stated Values vs. Title IX Webpage

 

While Ashland pressures survivors, their work to prevent sexual violence is equally abysmal. Most damning is on Ashland’s “Title IX” webpage, they have an area called, “Tips to Reduce Risk of Sexual Violence.” They have no training or information here about intersectionality, power, or oppression, which are core to effective and evidence-based strategies for sexual violence prevention. When the university sidesteps proven methods for sexual violence prevention, it is not aligned with their values of “Accent on the Individual” nor “Academic Freedom.” Ignoring evidence-based practices around prevention does not cultivate the “best individual and collective efforts” or “critical inquiry.”

Instead of promoting evidence-based practices, however, the university has two subsections [as in Figure 1] called “If you are at risk of sexual assault,” and “If you are at risk of committing sexual assault, Stop!” 

In this, the university acknowledges this may be “perceived as victim-blaming” (“Education and Outreach,” n.d.). I’d argue that it is victim-blaming; just because an institution acknowledges a naysayer argument doesn’t mean it’s not the thing that the naysayer said it is. In this case, they are outright victim-blaming. This acts contrary to their values of “Accent on the Individual” or “Character Development,” as it is not “compassion[ate]” to their “university within a supportive community” or ethically “responsib[le].”

Additionally, the only prevention happening to prevent sexual violence here is telling an ambiguous person who is “at risk of committing sexual assault” to “Stop!” (with an exclamation mark!). This acts as a nonperformative gesture (Ahmed, 2006) by the institution. Ahmed explains, “If the statement of commitment does not necessarily commit the university to doing anything, then practitioners have to keep up the pressure; it is this pressure that can mean that documents do not work” (p.104). Through this nonperformativity, Ashland has “told” the offenders to stop, on a website they probably won’t read, and only after they recognize themselves as an offender. Moreover, they said that offenders should stop, so the nonperformativity has let them “do” their due diligence to prevent sexual violence, and now it is the responsibility of practitioners and offenders thus resulting in meaningless and nonperformative work. Inherently, this nonperformativity is not creating a “supportive community” when sexual violence will occur because people weren’t responsibly trained, which contradicts the values on “Accent on the Individual” and “Character Development.” 

 

Mismatches within Institutional Response to Activism

Table 4: Ashland’s Stated Values vs. Institutional Response to Activism

Not only does Ashland not ethically or efficiently train university personnel about sexual violence response, but they also make little efforts to publicly prevent sexual violence, and when they do, it involves silencing awareness efforts (e.g., the Clothesline Project that I will discuss below) and does little to address power, control, and oppression with the campus community (e.g., “Stop!”). For example, while I was a student at Ashland, there was a viral article that discussed students’ experience with the Title IX process there and how Ashland continues to protect student-athletes from facing repercussions (Wise, 2016). Moreover, these stories have continued both informally and formally from survivors at Ashland, including through lawsuits against the university’s lack of action (Chandra Law Firm, 2018). Inherently, this does not make a “supportive community” (Accent on the Individual) to allow sexual violence to run rampant. 

The university tried to have more dedicated responses to reports and education as well as more accountability to sexual violence response and prevention in subsequent efforts since I graduated in 2018. However, even in the 2021 “It’s On Us” campaign week where survivors and a local organization began the “Clothesline Project” on campus, the university did not align with its stated values. The Clothesline Project originally began in 1990 in Massachusetts, and this campaign was brought to Ashland by a local sexual violence organization, Safe Haven. Safe Haven’s campaign was designed to allow messages and emotional expression by decorating T-shirts, which are hung “on a clothesline to be viewed by others as a testimony to the problem of violence against women [... and] honor all who have been victimized, regardless of gender, race or sexual orientation” (Safe Haven, 2024). The shirts hung (such as in Figure 2, photo credit to Evan Laux) enact grassroots activism that challenges these institutional frameworks. This survivor-led initiative amplifies marginalized voices, using multimodal strategies to disrupt hegemonic narratives about sexual violence and leaves them in display to raise awareness in a central location of the Student Center.

Yet, when the Clothesline Project was introduced at Ashland, it faced institutional censorship under the guise of ensuring “factual accuracy” of the shirts’ messages. Ashland stated, “The University has an obligation to ensure the statements made against these individuals are factually accurate” (qtd. in Nelson, 2021). In this case, not only is the university prioritizing so-called “objective,” carceral logics of sexual violence, which does not align with how sexual violence response should occur (Wanjuki, 2020), but also they are going against many of their stated values. Ashland diverges from their values of “Accent on the Individual,” “Character Development,” and “Academic Freedom” through their censorship and response. For example, they are putting the “accent” on some individuals rather than others; they are prioritizing the comfort of those who have harmed rather than those that were harmed. The individual only matters to the university if they have power and need to be protected from losing that power. In addition, they are not helping to hold those perpetrators to the value of “responsibility,” nor are they allowing for “free, open and critical inquiry” for survivors.

 

Mismatches with Response to Feedback

Table 5: Ashland’s Stated Values vs. Response to Feedback

Moreover, when alumni and faculty wrote an Op-Ed to demand change of the university in the Clothesline Project (Gallion, 2021; Faculty and Administration, 2021), the university did not make any enacted change and ignored faculty and alumni. If a university doesn’t make changes once harm has occurred—beyond then-President Campo stating, “[...] It’s hard because there’s a legal side—you want to protect students, but there’s only so much you can say, and so our response could have been better in general. We want to continue to seek improvement” (qtd. in Fitzgerald, 2021)—then, it is lip service, and the stated values do not match those enacted. Furthermore, it is not “open inquiry” of the value of “Academic Freedom” nor a “supportive community” within “Accent on the Individual” to censor some voices and feedback and continue lip service. 

This performative lip service continues. The report compiled by the Ohio Alliance to End Sexual Violence that was published and given to the university administration had the data about campus sexual violence in July of 2020 where the report’s specific recommendations included “Increase messaging that encourages shared respect and mutual responsibility” and “strengthen partnerships to better support students who have experienced [sexual violence]” (Ashland University, "Changing Campus Culture,"p. 5). These recommendations occurred because for multiple years, assessment of university practices showed that survivors didn’t feel “valued” (p. 5). Thus, survivors already felt ignored within the university, the university was aware of this, and they continued to silence survivors. Additionally, in a 2020 assessment of campus climate, nine different employees responded in the “Comments from Employees on Benchmark” section that they all felt that higher administration covers up allegations of sexual violence and/or wouldn’t take allegations seriously. This is significant if even one person feels that way, but for it to be generally ubiquitous in this comment section has deep implications for the university. Furthermore, if many of the employees believe that higher administration would not take allegations seriously and/or cover it up, then that is part of a disconnect between what the university states (i.e., they want to change) versus people actually believing that they will take accountability for harm to survivors. This persistent gap between Ashland’s stated commitments and its actual practices not only undermines survivor support but also reinforces a culture of institutional inaction, signaling to students, faculty, and staff that justice and accountability remain secondary to protecting the university’s image. This means that Ashland University is only enacting a “supportive community” (Accent on the Individual) and “compassion” (Character Development) for its perpetrators rather than its survivors, which illustrates another disconnect between stated values and actions.

 

Toward a Better World

Institutional policies on sexual violence often fail to center care-based practices, instead reinforcing carceral and exclusionary frameworks that strip survivors of agency. Ashland is just one example of this. As Larson argues, this “social and legal mismatch” (2021, p. 118) prioritizes institutional power over survivors’ needs, creating policies that claim to value equity but ultimately conform to rape culture. These contradictions appear not only in broad university rhetoric but also within policies and training that lack transparency, trauma-informed care, and survivor-centered approaches. At Ashland University, these disjunctures are evident in the misalignment between its stated values—such as “accent on the individual,” “character development,” and “academic freedom”—and its actual multimodal rhetoric around sexual violence. The university’s reliance on anti-choice and carceral organizations for survivor resources, along with restrictive RA training materials, further illustrates how institutional responses fail to support those most affected by harm. Rooted in white feminism, these policies exclude intersectional perspectives, neglecting the realities of queer, disabled, and BIPOC survivors. Moreover, these responses within their visual and digital representations reinforce the social order that ultimately leads to more instances of sexual violence within higher education. In contrast, intersectional feminisms challenge these harmful structures by recognizing oppression as interlocking and systemic, pushing beyond institutional reliance on carceral justice to imagine alternative forms of care and accountability.

Rather than seeking reform within inherently oppressive institutions, intersectional feminisms envision entirely new possibilities for justice that are grounded in community-based care and transformative action. Ashland’s response to the Clothesline Project underscores this resistance to change—rather than embracing survivor-led activism, the university censored the project under the guise of ensuring “factual accuracy.” This suppression of grassroots advocacy reveals a broader institutional unwillingness to engage with survivor-centered, intersectional approaches to harm prevention. Scholars such as Ahmed, Lorde, and Mingus emphasize that healing and accountability must emerge outside of the state’s punitive systems, fostering reciprocal care networks that resist reliance on institutions that perpetuate harm. Activists and theorists, from the Combahee River Collective to Piepzna-Samarasinha, call for collective dreaming and action to build a world where safety is not dictated by the same systems that uphold oppression. While this vision remains unfinished, it is attainable. Institutional change is slow, and the work is ongoing, but imagining and enacting non-carceral, community-centered responses to sexual violence is necessary. We owe that world to survivors—all those who did not survive and those that are still here with us.
 

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