The College Fix

It could trigger ‘survivors’ whose rapists weren’t punished

A candidate for student body president at the University of Missouri is shutting up about his experience going through a sexual-misconduct investigation, despite being cleared of wrongdoing.

Haden Gomez, a member of the Delta Chi fraternity, yanked his Facebook post about the experience less than a day later, apparently because of blowback from sexual-assault activists on campus.

That’s the insinuation of an apology post Gomez wrote earlier this month, on the eve of his presidential campaign

Meet Haden Gomez, our @MSAmizzou Presidential Candidate, and learn more about his plan at http://t.co/DdvKp4KW5z pic.twitter.com/PyoGJorU56

— GomezHanner (@GomezHannerMSA) October 19, 2015

The Maneater reports that Gomez’s original post said he was accused of “kissing and/or attempting to kiss” another person. That post also implied that Gomez’s accuser was telling other people about the investigation while it was ongoing.

The process of going through Mizzou’s investigation, begun in February, was “incredibly depressing and really devastating” for Gomez, and the school should make available more resources to students accused of Title IX violations, he told the paper the evening of his original post.

Evidently he suggested in the original post that accused students like himself be allowed to seek help at Mizzou’s Relationship and Sexual Violence Prevention Center, whose services are largely geared to “survivors.”

In his apology, posted Oct. 7, Gomez wrote that he does “not believe the RSVP Center should be a place of refuge for someone who has committed sexual assault.” It’s not clear from the post whether Gomez believes that he was in fact responsible for sexual misconduct.

A former communications official in the student government, Gomez helped produce the “Enough is Enough” campaign against sexual violence, according to his campaign page.

Gomez calls himself “deeply grateful” to those who “commented, called, texted or got in touch with me to correct my actions” when they read his original post laying out his Title IX experience. He apologized to “anyone [the post] may have offended, triggered, or hurt,” and promised he would “listen to ways I can make it up to those I have offended.”

Five days later he officially launched his campaign, whose platform includes continuing to partner with the national sexual-assault initiative It’s On Us and signing up fraternities for Title IX training.