The pleasant, kind-looking man in the photo is Alex Coberly, 33, who has been employed by the Seattle School District since 1998 and who has been an elementary school principal for the past three years.
On November 22, he did something he later told police he’s done a number of times in the past: he intentionally slowed his car (emblazoned with children’s stickers of various kinds) alongside a car carrying two young women, smiled at them, then attracted the attention of the woman on the passenger side to his upraised, naked body and the movements he was making with it. The women wrote down his license plate number, took note of what he looked like, called 911 and he was arrested.
What is interesting is, his attorney and some school district officials, parents of students, and former students have argued that Coberly should be able to keep his job, that his history of exposing himself to women doesn’t have anything to do with his performance as a school principal. His attorney told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer he feels there is “no connection between this incident and [Coberly’s] job [because] it doesn’t involve children and doesn’t involve his work.”
Also interesting are the people who express sympathy for Coberly and talk about how “sad” this is for him, what a “tragedy,” what a “nice man” he is, and so on.
What about the women this man sexually assaulted? Not just the two who managed to get his license plate number, but all of the other women he says he’s assaulted in the same way? Having a man display his genitals in a menacing and intimidating way is sexual assault if you are a woman, girl, or boy. It is not “flashing,” which sounds funny and cute and harmless. It’s not “exposing himself,” either. I think, say, peeing on the side of the road would be more consistent with “exposing oneself;” “exposing” doesn’t communicate the truth of what is done in instances like this. These assaults are never just about “exposure.” When men assault women in this way, they do it to intimidate, threaten, and shock women. Their penises are usually erect and they are usually moving their pelvises menacingly. It is scary and traumatic to women who are victimized by it and would be destructive and frightening no matter what, but it is particularly harmful to women who have already been raped or sexually assaulted, meaning at least one out of three women (And I believe the number is closer to one of two or even more).
I will grant that he does look like a nice guy, in the same way the guys in the Craig’s List experiment looked like nice guys. He looks harmless, like the guy next door or your brother’s friend. And yeah, these guys are nice — all the way up until they feel like sexually assaulting, threatening, or menacing girls and women because it gets them off. Then they aren’t nice at all.
I wonder whether those defending the principal would feel the same way if he’d sexually assaulted them, their daughters, their mothers? If he’d driven alongside them, this really nice-, normal-appearing guy with kids’ stickers on his car, and thrust his erect penis in their faces? What will it take, what level of sexual violation is required, for it to matter more that a woman has been sexually assaulted than it matters whether the man who violated her keeps his job or can move on as if nothing had happened? Why is a sexual predator’s reputation of more concern than the lives of the women he has harmed?
Link, Link, Link to Educating Mom’s blog, a blog of a parent with kids at the school where Coberly was principal. There are comments from parents and others in the link.
Heart
This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 17th, 2007 at 11:52 pm and is filed under Feminism, War on Women, Feminist Politics, Woman-Only Space, Male Terrorism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
People, especially parents, have been buzzing with questions since Tuesday's headline about the now-on-leave principal of Whittier Elementary School being accused of exposing himself to a woman riding in a car on Aurora Avenue.
If found guilty, is 33-year-old Alex Coberly's education career toast?
Even if acquitted, would he ever recover his reputation? Ever be able to work at a grade school again?
And how, if this dangerous act of lewdness-on-wheels did happen way back on Veterans Day, was it first kept secret, then shrouded from parents until now?
But it is the issue raised by Coberly's lawyer that set my own wheels turning.
Even if true, should an educator's stupid, reckless, even criminal behavior finish him or her in education if those acts had no connection at all to any school, kids or campus? Must teachers and principals meet a higher behavioral bar than others because of their position of power and trust with children?
Police say this was neither a fleeting nor an isolated act. That, on that afternoon, Coberly intentionally slowed his car beside one carrying two young women and attracted the passenger's attention to his upraised, uncovered body and the movements he made.
That, alarmed, the women called 911 and recorded his license number, noting what looked like children's decals on the windows.
And that, when questioned, Coberly not only confessed but also said he had exposed his penis to other female strangers several times in the past six years while driving his car.
His defense attorney, David Vogel, says that, in his experience and in the cause of building a case, police often say that a person has admitted a crime when what that person intended to say was something entirely different ... even something innocent.
And then there's the plea. The public often complains, "Can you believe that guy pleading not guilty?" when someone charged with a crime says he didn't do it. He wishes we'd understand that an arraignment only kick-starts the legal process. And Coberly hasn't even been arraigned, or has he officially pleaded one way or the other.
Then Vogel touched on the issue of my own intrigue. He told me that the reason he stressed that the charges against his client "have no connection to his job, that they don't involve his work" is this: People may read "elementary school principal" and "flasher" and assume something happened at school, to kids. The complainant in this case is an adult woman, he said. And the alleged incident was nowhere near school.
Good point. Still, the question persists. If proven guilty of a crime totally removed from school and kids, should a principal be held to a stricter standard than, say, a professional football player? An accountant? What about a physician or a coach?
Linda Thomas, who writes the P-I's "Educating Mom" blog, advises us to step back and let the system work. If acquitted, Coberly has every right to have his job back, although whether parents would be comfortable with that is another question.
And, if proven guilty? Personally, as a mom, I agree with the Stranger's editor, sex columnist and dad Dan Savage. Flasher is such a flip and funny word. But visually assaulting women -- for shock and sexual gratification -- is a kind of sexual violence in itself and often escalates.
I shudder to think of someone -- man or woman -- who can't control inappropriate or aggressive sexual impulses working in schools with children.
For now, all we know for certain is that this situation is troubling and very sad.
After criminal proceedings are dispatched, it will take another process and another attorney to sort out questions of Coberly's future employment.
Although miles from kids and classrooms, if Coberly did what he allegedly admitted, he shouldn't again lead an elementary school -- a school where other staff members are mostly women.
By 
January 18th, 2007 at 12:00 am
Hi Heart,
You asked:
“I wonder whether those defending the principal would feel the same way if he’d sexually assaulted them, their daughters, their mothers? ”
They probably would, if they were like my mother, and 90% of the mothers of women who have been sexually assaulted by our fathers.
Daughter? Hell, no. Males? Hell, yeah!
That’s what we’re up against, on *all* fronts, not just sexual assault.
And of course, all of these folks claim to just *love* women.
Mary S.
January 18th, 2007 at 7:47 pm
The people defending this man are claiming that his actions have nothing to do with his work. At what age does a “girl” become a “woman” who he would assault? 12? 10? Would he assault a teacher, or other female employee at the school? I say fire him.
January 18th, 2007 at 8:32 pm
You know, if he’s convicted, he may not be able to keep his job anyway. In my state, it’s quite common for HHS and public ed organizations to run a CORI check on applicants. A drug bust could keep you out, for Hades’ sake, but then, the rules are different when it’s a guy “only” having some fun.
Sheesh. What that columnist said was right–most sexual offenders start off with “minor” offenses–peeping, flashing, or stealing underwear. Some eventually graduate to far more serious (in the legal definition, at least) offenses.
January 19th, 2007 at 6:46 pm
Given that there were kids in the car with the two women, shouldn’t that be enough to prove that he’s not “just” scaring women, he’s also going after kids?
January 20th, 2007 at 1:13 am
I have a friend who co-wrote a really interesting paper about the language used to describe the defendent and his actions in cases where he was *convicted* (from analysis of court records in Canada). There were plenty of references to his otherwise exemplary character, as if this was an aberrant, unusual act. Also the use of terms like ‘kiss’, ‘fondle’ etc. My friend suggested that these are words associated with affection and therefore were not accurate descriptors. Rather they should say ‘unwanted oral contact’ and ‘unwanted physical contact’. My friend also suggested that rather than ’sexual abuse’ one should say ’sexualised abuse’ because abuse is abuse and not actually sex - his (my friend is male) argument was that calling it sex because it involves a penis is like hitting someone over the head with a frying pan and calling it ‘cooking’.
I am stunned that anyone could defend this guy’s actions and ‘right’ to work in a school. I don’t think that would happen in the UK quite so easily but I could be wrong.
January 20th, 2007 at 9:31 am
Snowqueen, I think those are some terrific points your friend made in his paper. I wonder where those terms came from (kiss, fondle, etc.) — the defendant’s own pleadings or the court’s? I can imagine the attorney for the defendant trying to minimize the contact by using those “affection” words, but I’d certainly like to see the court use the more correct wording when handing down the conviction!
Put me squarely in the camp that says this guy does not deserve to work with minors, especially girls.
January 20th, 2007 at 11:15 pm
if you are interested here’s a link to the article: http://das.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/15/5/499
or this one: http://www.springerlink.com/content/k79u647l7g25708x/
or this one: http://jls.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/24/2/139
I think these are all the same piece of research but with slightly different angles.