UVA Will Have To Learn To 'Walk Again' After Spotlight On Sexual Assault
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Monday, November 24, 2014
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Audie Cornish speaks with Emily Renda, who handles sexual misconduct response and prevention at the University of Virginia. A recent Rolling Stone article was sharply critical of what was described as a cavalier attitude toward sexual assault.
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Audie Cornish speaks with Emily Renda, who handles sexual misconduct response and prevention at the University of Virginia.
Transcript
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
The University of Virginia is suspending all fraternities until the beginning of the year, and the weekend saw hundreds of students protesting on the school's campus in Charlottesville, Virginia. It's all fallout from an investigation by Rolling Stone. The magazine told the story of a young woman who says she was the victim of a brutal gang rape at the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity house in 2012. The piece also describes an administration more concerned with its reputation than with protecting victims and a party culture that enables such crimes.
We turn now to Emily Renda. She was quoted in the Rolling Stone article, and she's a graduate of UVA and a survivor of a sexual assault there. She's now on staff at the University as project coordinator for sexual misconduct response and prevention. Emily Renda, welcome to the program.
EMILY RENDA: Hi, thanks for having me.
CORNISH: In this story in Rolling Stone Magazine, the survivor, Jackie - and this is an alias - she recounts being taken into a room and gang raped by several members of a fraternity. And immediately after, she's discouraged from coming forward by her friends who are with her that night - men and women. And you met her, and she told you this story when you were with a campus support group. How did you respond?
RENDA: You know, you respond typically in kind of the same standard way no matter who the survivor is. It's not your fault. I absolutely believe you, and you are entitled to feel everything you're feeling right now because that's true of anyone no matter what happened. And so we had a conversation that really started from there, and it was appalling to me to hear that Jackie had really not heard those three things before when they are such simple, easy things to say.
CORNISH: Now, UVA has already been facing a federal civil rights investigation from the Education Department for allegations of mishandling assault cases. And in the article, it also recounts other raped survivors who talk about being assaulted at fraternities. I want to play for you a clip of tape from the head of the Inter-Fraternity Council at UVA. His name is Tommy Reid. He spoke today.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TOMMY REID: When I first heard about the article, it made me angry more than anything. It made me sad that this could happen in a community that we all value so highly. It was disorienting. But I think that what we're trying to do is harness this energy - harness this shock and this frustration into positive movement going forward.
CORNISH: Shock and frustration - what's your response to that, Emily Renda?
RENDA: I love Tommy. I think Tommy is a really great example of students who are really willing to say I acknowledge that fraternity culture may have had incredibly negative implications in the past. And so how are we going to face those demons and do good things with it?
CORNISH: You've been a campus activist. Is his response - is he in the minority, I mean, being honest with your experience?
RENDA: I feel that his kind of outward stance of saying hey, let's change is really refreshing. And so I guess that means probably yes, he's a minority. But he's one we're really grateful to have.
CORNISH: This article is also critical of the way the school appears to handle accusers who come forward. Basically victims are given the choice of going to police or going through a campus-based kind of disciplinary program. And of course, many choose to stay silent. But the article indicates that the head of the UVA sexual misconduct board is essentially encouraging students to stick to the campus-based process. What do you see, and what do you think of what's happening?
RENDA: I think that it can be read that she's encouraging people to go through the college disciplinary process, but from what I've seen as an advocate, it's not so much about encouraging people to go through that process. It's about survivor feeling very intimidated by the harshness of the criminal justice system, and so they choose the school because they think it's a safer, easier route that's a little less rigorous.
But I'll again say that most choose nothing at all, and I think that that has a little bit more to do with the peer culture surrounding - kind of discouraging reporting and also just this latent victim blaming that really encourages a sense of self blame and responsibility in survivors.
CORNISH: You know, you're now working for the University, and in our conversation, you know, you're pretty calm and almost apologetic for what's been going on there. But this article is a very serious indictment of the entire university culture and student culture. I mean, what's going on there, and what is the mood there?
RENDA: I like to think of what our community is going through emotionally as an amputation of necrotic tissue, right? Like, so we've got a dead leg, and we have this awful piece of ourselves that we've been ignoring and hiding from so long. And this article really came off and chopped it off in a very quick and dirty way. And it's really like learning to walk again.
So if I sound calm or apologetic, it's because I feel very strongly about being there for my students and for my colleagues as we all learn to walk again on our new community without its dead leg.
CORNISH: Emily Renda, thank you so much for speaking with us.
RENDA: No, thank you. Thank you so much for having me.
CORNISH: That's Emily Renda, project coordinator for sexual misconduct response and prevention at the University of Virginia. She's also a graduate of the University and herself a survivor of sexual assault. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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