© 2025 New England Public Media

FCC public inspection files:
WGBYWFCRWNNZWNNUWNNZ-FMWNNI

For assistance accessing our public files, please contact hello@nepm.org or call 413-781-2801.
PBS, NPR and local perspective for western Mass.
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Berkshire DA: Inconsistencies In Alleged Attack On Student Of Color

A building at Bard College at Simon's Rock in Great Barrington, Massachusetts.
Eric Allix Rogers
/
Creative Commons / flickr.com/photos/reallyboring
A building at Bard College at Simon's Rock in Great Barrington, Massachusetts.

The Berkshire County District Attorney's office has issued an update on its investigation of an alleged assault at Bard College at Simon's Rock. It says there are inconsistencies between the reported assault and the evidence gathered by law enforcement. 

On a Friday afternoon in late September, campus safety officers at Simon's Rock received a report of an assault on a student of color in some woods on the Great Barrington, Massachusetts, campus. Police said Berkshire Medical Center treated the student for minor injuries.

According to a statement on Wednesday from the DA's office, the initial report said the student was knocked unconscious, dragged into the woods, and woke up with cuts through the student's clothing and on the torso.

The statement said that although the area where the student was allegedly pulled was muddy, investigators found no dirt on the student's clothing or body — and that the wounds "did not align with the cuts on the student's clothing."

The DA's office also said there are no records showing a medical reason for unconsciousness.

The alleged assault and the college's response sparked the resignation of a part-time professor, according to The Berkshire Eagle.

Simon's Rock has hired an investigator that the college said is independent of law enforcement.

Nancy Eve Cohen is a former NEPM senior reporter whose investigative reporting has been recognized with an Edward R. Murrow Regional Award for Hard News, along with awards for features and spot news from the Public Media Journalists Association (PMJA), American Women in Radio & Television and the Society of Professional Journalists.

She has reported on repatriation to Native nations, criminal justice for survivors of child sexual abuse, linguistic and digital barriers to employment, fatal police shootings and efforts to address climate change and protect the environment. She has done extensive reporting on the EPA's Superfund cleanup of the Housatonic River.

Previously, she served as an editor at NPR in Washington D.C., as well as the managing editor of the Northeast Environmental Hub, a collaboration of public radio stations in New York and New England.

Before working in radio, she produced environmental public television documentaries. As part of a camera crew, she also recorded sound for network television news with assignments in Russia, Guatemala, Mexico, Cuba and in Sarajevo during the war in Bosnia.