Complaints, Assault Spurs College To Cancel Classes, Hold Summit

WORCESTER, MA—In the wake of incidents that involved the alleged attack on an LGBTQ student, and other disturbing occurrences, a Worcester college is canceling classes to hold a summit to address issues of respect and inclusion on campus, according to reports.

Last week in an email to the community, College of the Holy Cross President Philip Boroughs said that classes, meetings and athletics practices are all canceled on Friday, Nov. 16, from 1-4:30 p.m. to hold a gathering called "ENGAGE Summit: Where Do We Go From Here?" reports Worcester Magazine.

The campus shutdown and gathering happens in the wake of an incident of aggravated assault and battery motivated by bias that allegedly happened on the Holy Cross campus Oct. 27, in which an LGBTQ student was reportedly punched and called a homophobic slur.

"This was completely unprovoked," Mithra Salmassi, student government association co-officer of diversity at College of the Holy Cross, told Patch shortly after the report of the attack. "To the best of my knowledge, an investigation is being conducted into finding the attacker, whose identity was unknown at the time of the assault."

The dean of students and the president of the college both reached out to the student body expressing their condemnation of "the increase in bigotry we've seen as a society as a whole," Salmassi said.

The Holy Cross Community was alerted on Sept. 18 to a man who was allegedly exposing himself at the Dinand Library, and then on Sept. 27, a man was also not affiliated with the school was arrested on similar behavior at the Science Library, according to Worcester Magazine.

Friday's summit includes classes such as "The Danger of a Single Story," which views the TED Talk by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and a session called "engaging the community on the prevention of sexual misconduct," reports MassLive.

A private Instagram account called Sexual Assault on the Hill, reportedly created as a platform to "reveal truths of our campus" and says "rape culture is real at Holy Cross" had 82 posts and more than 2,800 followers by Thursday evening.

Before requesting to follow the Instagram page, a "trigger warning" appears that says, "Our community doesn’t think sexual assault is real. Make your voice and/or story heard ANONYMOUSLY below."

Photo via Shutterstock