TRIGGER WARNING: The content of this article deals with sexual assault
Living with the memory of a sexual assault is unimaginable to me. And as a male, it’s less likely to be something I’ll ever have to deal with. But I know that many of you live with this memory every day. Some of you do so silently, feeling you can never report your assailant to the University or to the police. You might think that no one will believe you. You might think that it’s somehow your fault. You might think that no one has your back.
But you should know there are people at this University — students, faculty and staff — who also live with their assault everyday by helping people like you through their CIOs and in their offices. That’s not to say that every person who works on this issue has been assaulted. But when someone tells you the University doesn’t care, or that Hoos Got Your Back and other programs won’t work, they’re wrong. The University does care, and those programs can work.
They believe you.
They know it’s not your fault.
They’ve got your back.
As soon as you’re ready to report, they will be there to get you every resource you need and deserve. The same goes for people who witness a sexual assault or something that could potentially lead to a sexual assault. Your voice matters, too. If you witness something and say something, your voice becomes another powerful tool that groups on Grounds want to use to help survivors of assault. But it only works if you speak up.
That’s what bothers me about signs that recently appeared around Grounds reading “Hoos Back is Turned,” and “No Safety. No Rest.” This is part of a campaign by QUAA to silence students and faculty who have been carefully building support for Hoos Got Your Back, a bystander intervention program designed to combat assault. It’s especially counterproductive when those signs are found on emergency blue lights, which are designed to help people feel a little safer if they need to call for police — not to feel terrorized in whatever scary situation they are already in.
An email sent by QUAA president Greg Lewis was no better. It accused the University — and the people who work here — of not caring about sexual assault. The people who spent months crafting an actionable bystander intervention plan? QUAA decided in one evening that the program wasn’t going to work. The people who work against sexual assault here because of their own personal experiences with that matter? QUAA says they are the problem.
Lewis’ email also brought Hannah Graham into the campaign at a sensitive time, without consulting her family and despite the fact that we do not have any evidence to link her case to a sexual assault. Our thoughts should be with her family and their needs. Bringing her into the picture doesn’t help. Our only thought about Hannah should be getting her back safe. The people who should be speaking up are those who know any information about her case, and not people trying to use this situation to their advantage.
Efforts like Hoos Got Your Back weren’t planned overnight, and they won’t be destroyed overnight by misguided rallies. But if this rally touts websites like HoosBackIsTurned, and discourages survivors and witnesses from reporting, it’s dangerous. If a recent petition keeps its damaging language that blames the University for problems I know for a fact that survivors are here working to make better, then I can’t help but be ashamed of that part of our community.
The petition that is circulating unjustifiably and without any evidence links Hannah Graham to sexual violence. The petition also demands greater patrolling and intervention from the University. This is definitely something worth supporting, but still neglects the fact that most assaults happen indoors by friends and acquaintances. A dialogue with the University and the groups who are actively working to find solutions would be far more helpful than a rally or a petition in helping students understand and combat sexual assault on college campuses.
We want and need a community of support. We need a community where survivors feel encouraged and supported coming forward. We want a community where no one perpetrates gender-based violence — but we cannot get there unless we do it together. We are diverse in our experiences, our anger, our anxiety and our grief. But we have to speak as a community to what we need most: a culture of support and intervention. Language that dismisses the programs trying to achieve that goal is damaging, misguided and dangerous.
I encourage you not to sign this petition that attacks our University administrators and the survivors who work on these programs every day. I encourage you not to attend QUAA’s hasty rally, unless they make significant changes to their goals and tactics.
But I do encourage you to do everything you can to hold UVA accountable, to offer suggestions and feedback regularly to the University. They are listening. Student organizations combating assault are listening. But it’s incredibly important to do that in a way that lets survivors — and not attention-seekers — be heard.
Brendan Maupin Wynn is a recent graduate of the College and an incoming student at the Frank Batten School of Public Policy and Leadership.
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