The Georgetown student who allegedly sexually assaulted Kate Dieringer (NHS ‘05) last year is back on campus this year.”People keep telling me I won’t run into him on campus, but I’m sure I’ll see him all of the time-in Leavey, in the library, in the cafeteria, in Booey’s, in Wisey’s,” said Dieringer. “What will I do when I see him?”
Dieringer’s story, like the story of any sexual assault victim, is a difficult one to tell. But Dieringer is one of the few sexual assault survivors who has gone public with her story to erase the cultural taboo associated with sexual assault and, especially, to change the way Georgetown University responds to victims of sexual assault. For her efforts, Security on Campus, a nonprofit organization dedicated to student safety, named Dieringer a recipient of its Clery Award over the summer. “It’s a really strange feeling, I mean it’s nice. But what did I do? I know a lot of good things happened and some things have changed, but Georgetown is still the same place,” she said.
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Dieringer first alerted campus authorities in April 2002 that she had been drugged and raped by a Georgetown student in the Fall of 2001.
Her allegations led to an adjudication process run by Georgetown’s Office of Student Conduct. Problems arose between Dieringer and the University when she attempted to learn the outcome of this process. According to Dieringer, Director of Student Conduct Judy Johnson told her she had to sign a confidentiality agreement-a contract that would forbid her to openly speak about her assailant and the adjudication process-in order to discover her assailant’s punishment.
Dieringer said that she was led to believe that the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, a federal law designed to protect the confidentiality of students’ records, mandated that she sign the confidentiality agreement. FERPA, however, legally permits universities to disclose the results of judicial procedures.
This led Dieringer to file a complaint with the Department of Education in February 2003, alleging that Georgetown violated her right as a victim of sexual assault. In an interview at that time, Dieringer explained that she had spoken with a representative from the DOE, James Moore. “He basically told me that what Georgetown is doing is illegal, that it is violating federal law,” she said.
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As a result of all of these events, Dieringer and her experience have become common knowledge around Georgetown’s campus.
She has been featured in many campus newspaper articles, and last October she wrote a personal essay describing her experience for The Voice entitled “The Girl who Whimpered Rape.” In it, she wrote about the rape, the fear she felt and the adjudication process she had to endure. “It might sound absurd,” she wrote, “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.”
It’s hard to imagine that Dieringer, a characteristicly peppy young woman, wrote these cutting remarks. “All my friends are looking at me to see how I will act. I really want to be like, ‘I’m strong and I’m fine.’ But really I’m horrified,” she said. But you wouldn’t be able to tell just by meeting her.
Today she is sitting on her bed in her pajamas, answering questions about her painful experience with uncanny ease. She seems happy to get if off her chest. “People don’t really talk about it anymore. They think, ‘Oh, she’s okay now,’ or, ‘She’s moved on, I don’t want to bring it up,’ but I think about it all of the time.”
Her new room is already filled with pictures-pictures of her hugging her family, pictures of her hugging her friends and even a picture of her hugging her cat. “I just like to hug a lot,” she laughs.
Speaking with her, it is easy to forget she has gone through so much in so little time. But her words are chilling. “He’s not going to let me do this to him and then just let me get away with it. I hate when people say, ‘He won’t talk to you, he won’t even look at you.’ I know they’re just trying to make me feel better, but, yeah, he’ll come right up to me, and I don’t think I’m just being delusional.”
