We enter an apartment; why are we alone? After this my memory is muddled, hazy. I vividly see myself entering the doorway. My smile fades, I feel frightened. Through a cloud of alcohol … he is on top of me. I open and close my eyes, lethargic and sedated. I notice his bare shoulders through the dark. I lay passive and slowly drift in and out of consciousness … a dream-like state, an out-of-body experience. I can’t move; I’m lying there, his doll. His heavy torso on me, pressing into my abdomen, moving back and forth. I am paralyzed and confused. I try to sit up. His weight pushes me back to the bed. He is completely naked. He is on top of me. I push on his shoulders, and he ignores me.
Why is he hurting me, not listening to me? I whimper, looking him in the eyes. An angry look of stern motivation etched into his face. His eyes are clear, staring back into mine. I look away. I try sitting up again, and he ignores me. I have lost my voice, I can’t scream. His face hovers menacingly. I am paralyzed mentally and physically. I have no control over this person. All I can do is watch what is slowly coming to a reality in my head. I pitifully say, “No.” I push his shoulders. “No!” He stays inside of me. All I can say is “No.” I don’t know if we are still in the apartment that I think we came into, however long ago. I see what’s happening to me. I’m being raped, and I don’t know what to do. I regain all mobility, and I try to kick my legs. My eyelids are heavy and I don’t have enough power to get up. “No!” and my eyes start to tear up. I finally kick him off and jump up.
I had become friendly with an upper-class leader during New Student Orientation at the beginning of my first year at Georgetown, and so when he invited all of my friends out to parties we agreed to go. I was with friends that night; everything was safe. I had been drinking, but didn’t think to wonder if there was anything in the drinks. We had left a party and were walking through his apartment complex, filled with people. I was sleepy, feeling lightheaded. I would later find out that I had been drugged. My rapist had one of his buddies divert my friends away from us in the crowd, and we walked up stairs to an apartment, not for a party, but …
“Fine, be a stupid freshman bitch!”
The clock on the counter reads four a.m. Four hours gone. I am standing, fully dressed. I look at him, and with his eyes closed he pulls on a pair of dark gym shorts, curls himself into a comfortable position, facing the wall. He says clearly, with no drunken slur in his voice, “Fine, be a stupid freshman bitch.” I get nauseous. I think I’m going to be sick. I collect my clothing; my purse is in front of the door. I don’t check for my ID or key, I just don’t even care. I struggle for an eternity with the door handle, which he had locked. Dominated and trapped, absorbing what was just done to me. I will never know most of the details of the horrible manipulation that was inflicted upon me. The torture of wondering, the anger from guessing can’t be put into words.
Like venom that just wouldn’t kill.
After that, I resigned myself to living a life of shame and fear. I locked myself in my room, ignoring knocks from friends and telephone rings. Every time I felt the slightest bit out of control, I panicked. I didn’t understand what was wrong with me. I was afraid of being alone, but being around crowds terrified me. The cafeteria, discussion rooms, Red Square: These places made my heart race, sweat form in between my shoulder blades and my breathing quicken. I burst into tears at random. In class, in church, in the library, I cried for no reason. I still cannot hug my boyfriend of three years without cringing. I lived a life of secretive self-loathing, denying that I was raped. I was so scared. I was scared for myself and for everyone else. I viciously hoped that it would never happen to anyone else, ever. I wanted to tell every girl that I saw to never trust, never walk alone, but most importantly, never keep quiet. I felt like I was at the bottom of a well, trying to discern faces and voices. I felt like there was a huge division in the world after the assault?me and everyone else. I felt like everyone knew, and that embarrassment twisted inside of me like venom that just wouldn’t kill me.
“Georgetown University is committed to promoting an environment that supports the safety and dignity of all its members. The University views with the utmost seriousness all offenses against individuals, including?but certainly not limited to?sexual harassment, sexual assault, unwanted sexual advances, and any other form of non-consensual sexual activity.”
Then I got really afraid thinking he could have infected me. I went to the free HIV testing that the school does every year. In picking up the results one week later, I found out that I was negative. The counselor asked me if, because I had checked off “Sexual Assault” on the questionnaire that accompanies the test, I would like to speak with Carolyn Hurwitz. I said “No, thank you,” through tears, but then relented and agreed to tell her my story?the first time I ever recalled the horrid event in its entirety. Carolyn went on to serve as my adviser through the entire hell that was adjudication. I also found help through the Counseling and Psychiatric Service and was supported by my family and friends.
Not many victims come forward and go through the grueling adjudication process. The harsh wording in the Student Code of Conduct gave me the impression that any student who commits a crime of sexual abuse would not be allowed to set foot on this campus again. That turned out to be untrue; in dealing with rape Georgetown fails tremendously. While reporting my story of sexual assault to Georgetown, solace and justice took the form of a long row of cold shoulders and a lifetime of pain and frustration.
So by April of my first year, after I was chock-full of meds and had a few months of therapy under my belt, I began to feel a little ambitious. I started looking at people differently, wondering if he had hurt them, too. I didn’t want anyone else to suffer; I wanted him stopped. I knew that I had to be the one to do it. This person had ruined my life and I assumed all I had to do was tell my story so that this villain would be stopped. I wanted to speak up, not only for me, but for all of the other sexual assault victims who never raised their voices.
“[Public Safety officers] have the ability to protect and defend the University.”
I went to the Department of Public Safety in April to set things right. Little did I know that I was in for something worse than what I had already been through. I was met with looks of skepticism and stabbed with words akin to, “You’re nothing but a woman scorned” by various administrators. I was objectified and made into a statistic by the very people that promise “safety and dignity” to all of the University’s members.
I was angry and hurt and I wanted him out. Even if I couldn’t drag every rapist writhing and squirming into the public light, at least I could bring mine out for a good stoning. Unfortunately, to do so I had to be subjected to major cruelties at the hands of the University. The Office of Student Conduct belittled and harassed me to tears any time I had to deal with them. Then Dr. Gonzalez ignored me when I asked for someone else to intervene. President DeGioia couldn’t hear me screaming either, because his secretary basically told my parents and me that this issue wasn’t important enough to bother the president.
“KATE! Remember me from last weekend? Yeah, that was hot. Maybe we could get together again tonight … PICK UP!”
I was given a hearing in May of my first year. But from the time I reported the incident to DPS to the day of the hearing I was living on pause?only dealing with the rape. I was promised that my rapist would be severely punished if he called and harassed me. That didn’t seem to stop him from leaving gross messages on my machine late at night. I even had DPS record the message so it wouldn’t be just “my word,” as the Director of Student Conduct liked to put it. The response from the director was that the calls were a “separate issue.” I was so angry, I should have pulled out then. If he hadn’t raped me I wouldn’t have brought up charges against him, and he wouldn’t be harassing me!
For the hearing, I had to write questions, prepare statements, talk with people who were with me that night and worst of all, tell my parents and close friends. Seeing my mom reach over and put her hand on my dad’s knee for support and comfort after I said “rape” was the worst image of my life. I wondered if I had disappointed them.
The hearing was an emotional roller coaster. There were tears, a fight almost broke out between our fathers and the mediators did not reprimand many of his degrading comments. He ran the entire hearing, which consisted of him blabbering obvious lies and talking in circles while I cried. He mocked me, talked me down, tried to break me, and no one intervened. It was the night of the rape all over again. The guidelines in the Student Code of Conduct promised an orderly hearing. It wasn’t. It was run at the whim of the Director of Student Conduct, who handed out rules disproportionately to both sides of the argument like they were her rules to administer. I would be informed of some things and prepared for them; others, I wasn’t. But they always made sure that he was briefed and informed of anything so they could avoid a lawsuit. The hearing lasted 14 hours. There was no need to put me through that. But they did.
I cannot reveal the outcome of the hearing. A law called the Family Educational Rights to Privacy Act protects his privacy, due to what he did and the consequences this would bear on his academic record. So no one will ever know what he is capable of; he remains safe in his anonymity. The University remains safe from its vacuous rape policies, as the actual outcomes of all rape cases are only known by a select few. If I run around screaming, “See! See! Georgetown doesn’t take sexual assault seriously!” I will get charged by the Director of Student Conduct with failure to comply. Yes, “failure to comply”?it’s ironic, or sick.
It might sound absurd, but I’m always thinking about which was worse: being raped or going through the adjudication process. They are definitely of equal stature in terms of pain, frustration and sadness. I can’t believe that this school puts students at risk in such an obvious way. I can’t believe that the administrators expect me to go on here and not tell anyone what they did to me. They, like him, think that I’ll be silenced. It is both sick and cruel.
I’m trying to figure out where to go from here. But how can I stay at a place that condones rape behind closed doors? I don’t think I can. I have known what it’s like to seek justice, endure hell, to breathe the sigh of relief when learning of the reward that my efforts reaped and then have my world ripped out from under me. But for everyone else who is a victim of this violence, and for any brave soul that plunges into adjudication at Georgetown, my heart goes out to you. I’m just afraid that neither you, nor any other student, will ever be deemed important enough by the University to get the justice you deserve.
Kate Dieringer is a sophomore in the School of Nursing and Health Studies.
