More than a year ago, in July 2016, I wrote a column about privilege. My argument was centered on rapist Brock Turner, an ex-athlete from Stanford University, who received a sentence of just six months for raping an unconscious woman. Turner’s privilege as a straight, cisgender, white, male athlete helped him to be released from prison three months earlier than his sentence originally mandated.
When it comes to sexual assault, there is very little in the name of privilege that would stop or protect someone from being assaulted. Further, in a culture that tends to normalize sexually predatory behavior, the unfortunate truth is that people are more likely than not to experience some form of sexual harassment in their lifetime, regardless of their gender, race, sexuality, socioeconomic status or any other personal identifier.
On the other hand, rapists and assaulters have inherent privilege over their targets. Moreover, no matter what other privilege rapists may or may not have based on their own personal identifiers, the absolute truth is that the culture that we live in automatically tends to favor the perpetrator over the survivor.
Questions like, “what were you wearing,” “how much did you drink,” or even, “did you say yes at first,” tip any sexual assault investigation in favor of the assaulter from the very beginning.
NC State is currently in the middle of its own investigation into assault allegations at Wolf Village Apartments. Three women reported being assaulted to different degrees at a party held at Wolf Village this past July. According to the Wake County district attorney, no charges have been filed against five first-year football players, two of whom have been dismissed from the team and three of whom have been suspended pending the investigation.
Although a Title IX investigation is underway through Student Conduct, the fact remains that, like the survivor at Stanford University who had to watch as her rapist was treated with more care than she was, the three women assaulted at Wolf Village have to live with the knowledge that their assaulters are still at this university, and that they won’t be charged for forever affecting the way these women will go on to live their lives, both psychologically and physically.
Athletics Director Deborah Yow has repeated on multiple occasions that, “it is extremely important to respect due process for the student-athletes.” While I understand the legal right of everyone to be given due process in civil or criminal cases, it seems that in cases of sexual assault, our justice system is so concerned with giving accused rapists their due process that survivors are left with little to no justice and no closure at all.
With a justice system that is already favoring rapists over survivors, Betsy DeVos’ decision to rescind President Obama’s guidelines on how to handle sexual assault allegations on school campuses comes as a heavy blow to students everywhere, and especially to survivors of sexual harassment or violence.
According to Robinette Kelley, associate vice provost for equal opportunity and deputy Title IX coordinator in the Office for Institutional Equity and Diversity, “If [DeVos] changes the standard of proof, then it will be more difficult for victims [and] survivors … because the burden to prove that something happened to them has now increased, and so it is more difficult for them.”
To put that in layman’s terms, survivors of sexual assault will now have to provide even more evidence in a court of law to prove that they were, in fact, assaulted, particularly by the person that they are accusing. Moreover, survivors will have to live with the fact that no matter how much evidence is provided or how much concrete proof there is, the court could still rule that there is reasonable doubt in favor of the accused.
DeVos’ concern with ensuring that accused rapists’ lives don’t get ruined by being “victims of a lack of due process” reminds us all that priority will always be afforded to those with more privilege. We are being governed at a federal level — and at a state level — by rape apologists who are unconcerned with the way that survivors of sexual assault are literally having their autonomy and humanity forcefully stripped from them.
Survivors deserve to have justice handed to their rapists to the fullest extent of the law. The existing pattern of sentencing rapists to barely more than a slap on the wrist, or even allowing them to walk free, is not respecting due process. Rather, it’s continuing to play into a system that favors those with more privilege over those with their humanity and inherent rights forcefully taken from them.
It is my hope that NC State officials do everything in their power to make sure that justice is brought to all those individuals involved in the assault cases at Wolf Village. We cannot continue to allow privilege to win out over humanity.
