Early Saturday night, a group of Burleith residents harassed a Georgetown student and his friend, shouting homophobic slurs at the pair from their lawn. The student they taunted, a senior in the College who wished to remain anonymous, said he was harassed by twelve to fifteen men, all of whom appeared to be drunk.
According to the student, he and his friend were carrying a bed and box spring down the street when they heard, “Way to move in, faggots,” and the two subsequent times they walked past the house were called “pussy,” “bitch,” “homo,” “faggot,” and “fag.” After he responded to the taunts with both profanity and graphic gestures and by mooning those harassing him, the student said the group asked him where he lived.
“At that point I feared for myself and my safety,” he said.
The student returned to his house and notified the Department of Public Safety, who contacted the Metropolitan Police Department. Within 24 hours of taking a report of the incident, DPS issued a campus-wide e-mail that identified the incident as bias-related.
“It’s really frustrating to be back at school, and this is one of the first e-mails we get… But we’re happy it’s such a quick response, especially since [DPS’s] responses last year to these incidents were so slow,” Olivia Chitayat (COL ‘10), a co-president of GUPride, said.
Last fall, student groups protested the University’s delay in releasing information about a bias-related hate crime.
The student said he was very pleased with the way DPS and MPD responded to the incident. According to the MPD report, an officer spoke to the residents of the house from which the student was taunted after taking down a crime report.
“I have the utmost respect for [DPS], and I trust the discipline process will play itself out in the correct way,” the student said.
The complainant said he is not planning to press charges, but he hopes that the University will expel the offenders. He said he believes that the men who harassed him were Georgetown lacrosse and soccer players, and that every resident of the house was involved in the incident, but he could not be certain. According to the complainant, he had been harassed from the lawn of the same house while jogging earlier this summer.
After the incident, the student contacted Professor Tommaso Astarita, a counselor at the new LGBTQ Resource Center. Astarita would only say that he “offered words of support” to the student, but Sivagami Subbaraman, whom the university recently hired to head the Resource Center, said she felt they responded well as a new University office.
“The student seems to be fine,” Subbaraman said. “And I think Student Affairs has been very helpful. The important thing is that this time they’re working with students.”
According to University Spokesperson Julie Greene Bataille, DPS’s investigation of the incident is still ongoing. Officials were in contact with Subbaraman over the weekend and she met with Rocco DelMonaco, Todd Olson, and other administrators whom she would not identify on Monday morning to address the crime.
“I hope the people who harassed the student can come to the Center and have a conversation about why they think it’s okay for them to do that,” Subbaraman said. “I want to reach them, too.”
In an email, Todd Olson said that the administration is providing support to the victim and investigating the situation.
