Thought Process
AFTER OBERLIN
Spreading Light Through PRSM BY JUSTINE GOODE ’16
Life for an incoming freshman is, in a word, overwhelming—there’s a laundry list of tasks to complete and a boatload of information to absorb even before setting foot on campus. Among the items to check off: federally mandated training about Title IX, the civil rights law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in any educational program or activity that receives federal funding. Most colleges allow students to complete a basic training session online that they can easily do with their attention partially diverted. As is often the case, Oberlin does things a little differently. All Oberlin first-year students are required to take a two-hour, peer-to-peer training workshop about consent and sexual harassment. “We think this helps drive the message home and helps our students take consent seriously,” says Suzanne Denneen, program coordinator. These workshops are facilitated by fellow students who are employed by PRSM, or Preventing and Responding to Sexual Misconduct. PRSM has evolved swiftly since its inception in 2014, notably converting in 2016 from a program of roughly 50 student volunteers to an organization that employs around 15 students selected through an application process. While the goal of PRSM is to raise awareness around issues of sexual assault and to prevent violence on Oberlin’s campus, it has also led to some surprising career paths for former PRSM trainers who are taking what they’ve learned into the professional world. Lilah Drafts-Johnson ’18 was one of PRSM’s first employees in 2016. She’s now coordinator of player programs and labor relations for Major League Baseball, where she assists with league-wide education on topics of consent, healthy relationships, sexual assault, and child abuse—developing curriculum and facilitating training across the major and minor leagues. The job fits Drafts-Johnson like a glove, synthesizing three of her biggest interests: 16
violence prevention work, to which she dedicated herself in high school and college; Spanish, which she studied in college and uses frequently when giving presentations to players in the Dominican Republic or translating her curriculum for Spanish-speaking players; and sports. As one of Oberlin’s most celebrated track and field athletes, Drafts-Johnson was named Google Cloud Academic All-America in Division III Track four consecutive times. Then—and now—her work has allowed her to use sports as a tool for creating social change. As a team captain at Oberlin, Drafts-Johnson was in the unique position to facilitate Title IX workshops for fellow athletes. Her role allowed her to reach some of them more easily, particularly men, who might otherwise have found the training alienating, even accusatory.
“I think a lot of cis male athletes felt like these trainings were specifically for them because we think they’re the perpetrators,” she says. “But I emphasized that we felt they could be leaders—and stop violence from happening. That’s a seminal part of the work I do with players now. I tell them that even if they are not someone that is committing violence or being harmed by violence, that we’re all part of this world where violence happens. That’s really what the point of this conversation is: stopping violence before it even starts.” Despite these similarities in conversation, the shift from addressing college students to professional athletes required adjustment for Drafts-Johnson. “It’s challenged me as an educator, because what works at Oberlin does not exactly translate to what works at a
DELPHINE LEE
Alumni of Oberlin’s Title IX training are shaping conversations about consent and violence prevention well beyond campus.