Last Saturday March 27, Gaelan Gallagher (CAS ‘06), like many Georgetown students, went to a costume party on 37th Street. The party was crowded, the music was loud, and people were enjoying themselves. At approximately 1:00 am, the main room was packed so that people could hardly move. A college-aged man dancing next to Gallagher pushed her up to the wall and started kissing her neck. Gallagher yelled “No, stop!” But the man did not respond. As she attempted to get away, the man pulled her back and sexually assaulted her. Stunned, Gallagher went back to her Copley dormitory without finding the identity of the perpetrator.
This is not the first time Gallagher has been sexually assaulted. On March 23, 2002, a friend brutally beat and raped her. By the time she was able to speak out about the event, it was too late to gather evidence to prosecute.
It’s Wednesday afternoon, only four days after the assault. Gaelan Gallagher (CAS ‘06) speaks to students of Associate Professor Karen Stohr’s ethics class about being a sexual assault survivor. The event was planned months ago.
Along with Kate Dieringer (NHS ‘05), who also became very vocal about her own sexual assault story, Gallagher speaks frequently to ethics classes about her personal experiences. The speeches are meant to place a face to an autobiographical paper Gallagher wrote last year about her rape, which is now on Stohr’s syllabus for the class.
On this day, dwarfed by the cinema-sized projection screen behind her, Gallagher speaks alone. Dieringer is abroad in Australia for the semester. “Speaking to classes like this is my way to make something good come out of something that was very bad,” she says eloquently to the room filled with over 200 students.
Not having yet mentioned last weekend’s incident, Gaelan opens the floor to questions. Most are informative questions about her how she responded to the assault and specifically about what stopped her from telling her story immediately after the event. Other comments are more accusatory. “Why do you let that scum bag that raped you walk free?” Keeping her composure, Gallagher responds that she is not confident that the criminal justice system would protect her or her family. However, the student persists. “I have a sister at home, and if I knew somebody like that was walking around, I’d do something about it.”
Gallagher can’t remain silent any longer. “Last weekend, I was was sexually assaulted at a party that many of you were probably at,” she says. DPS does not have any witnesses, but Gallagher requests that if any of the students were there and knew anything, they should report it.
“Violence against women is not necessarily something people want to think about. It’s painful and a horrific type of crime. We’re not willing to admit it happens,” says Georgetown University’s Sexual Assault and Health Issues Coordinator, Shannon Hunnicutt. However, it is obvious from Gallagher’s swift out cry that this attitude is changing among the campus community. One significant change is Hunnicutt’s hiring last July to a position previously vacant for half a year
Other signs come from the student body. With the energy and awareness raised by Advocates for Improved Response Methods to Sexual Assault (AFIRMS), a group dedicated to pressuring Georgetown’s administration to change its policies and responses to sexual assault, several separate student initiatives have sprung up. Most notable are R U ready, a new program directed at first-years featuring personal stories of sexual violence, and Georgetown University Men Advocating Relationship Responsibility (GUMARR), a group of male students who meet to discuss sexual assault. In addition, the more long-standing events such as Take Back the Night and the Vagina Monologues are seeing increased student support and participation.
The awareness, discussion and support coming from all directions seem to indicate the University community has transformed into an environment that is ready to talk honestly about sexual assault. However, the question remains: What do we do now?
“As soon as we make one change to the system, we see a huge gap open up in another place,” comments Hunnicutt. It’s Tuesday morning, and she is addressing a class of about a hundred mostly sophomores in the School of Nursing and Health Studies. The class, Health Promotion and Disease Prevention teaches students how to change communities into environments more conducive of healthy behaviors. Students are learning that when it comes to sexual assault, change requires a continual process of reevaluation and action.
While the class specifically emphasizes creating health programs, Hunnicutt focuses on educating students to dispel stereotypes that surrounded sexual assault, which serve as barriers for communities to honestly address the issue.
“The biggest myth about sexual assault is that it’s about miscommunication between the perpetrator and the person being attacked,” she says. What strikes her when survivors come to her for assistance is how clear they were about what they did and did not want to happen. Unfortunately, Hunnicutt admits, “people who are assaulted buy into that myth too.”
According to the Department of Justice, one in four women will fall victim to sexual assault or attempted sexual assault by the end of college. The number for men is one in eight. Research conducted at Duke University and the University of Massachusetts suggest that perpetrators of sexual assault are often repeat offenders. “It’s a very small group that does sexual assault, but because for various reasons they do not go through the criminal justice system, they continue doing it,” says Hunnicutt.
These reasons, she explains, include the fact that the five percent of rapists who are targeted by the legal system are the ones who “jump out of the bushes” and attack their victim, not the 95 percent of acquaintance rape offenders whose tactics are often far subtler, though equally as violent in outcome. “We develop all our procedures to address the five percent, but the other 95 percent of sexual assaults do not fall in this category,” says Hunnicutt.
Hunnicutt’s well-informed presentation and remarkably blunt responses generate enthusiastic inquiries among the mostly female class. “Some days I go into classes and gloss over the more disturbing parts of sexual assault,” she tells the class. Today, Hunnicutt is visibly frustrated-a symptom of her having to confront the immense emotional weight of sexual assault on a day-to-day basis through her job.
While many of Hunnicutt’s responsibilities include talking to classes, developing outreach and educational programs, training specific departments and groups like Resident Assistants and the Student Health Clinic, and working on policy changes with administrators, about half of her work involves working directly with individuals who report sexual assaults.
Fortunately, one of her first initiatives at Georgetown helped spread responsibility. The Sexual Assault Victims Advocate (SAVA) program, which was originally staffed by the one Sexual Assault Coordinator, now includes seven professionals from various departments including Campus Ministry, Residence Life, and the Student Health Clinic who rotate a 24-hour pager. “Part of sharing the pager is not only to allow one person time off, so you don’t burn out, but it also distributes campus responsibility across members from all departments,” explains Hunnicutt.
The SAVA program is the only confidential service that specifically addresses sexual assault issues. When a student contacts SAVA, an advocate informs the survivor of his or her options, one of which includes no action. SAVA also helps survivors deal with medical and mental health issues, housing issues and academic considerations.
According to the Director of Health Education Services Carol Day, who overseas Hunnicutt’s office, HES has become more comprehensive since it created the Sexual Assault Coordinator position in 1996. Day says that in the beginning, “The University wasn’t clear how much this person would have to be involved in addressing sexual assault issues.” As the program grew, HES proved to administrators that more outreach, education and responses services were needed.
Day feels that it was important to hire somebody to fill the vacant sexual assault services coordinator position with somebody who was sensitive to the needs of students and who really understood the issue. Hunnicutt’s ability to do grassroots networking and collaboration with others is especially significant, according to Day. “It’s no one person’s job to help that community, with any particular problem that is indigenous to the community and is as widespread as sexual assault.”
With her successes in building a sexual assault response program at South Carolina State University and her graduate degree in social work, many students agree that the administration took a positive step by hiring Hunnicutt. “AFFIRMS brought issues of sexual assault to the table in ways that it hasn’t been done before and as a result there has been a lot of administrator interest in addressing sexual assault,” says Liz Ellcessor (SFS ‘04), who co-chaired this year’s Take Back the Night event. “With a new director at the women’s center and a new sexual assault coordinator, there has been an influx of knowledge of how to do things in different ways.”
Her efforts collaborating with students and staff to affect change have convinced members of AFIRMS, that the administration sufficiently addressed many of their initial complaints. “Just with her hiring, I think a lot of things will be resolved,” says Mary Nagel (CAS ‘05), who was involved in AFRIMS last year.
In January 2003, AFRIMS generated public outrage over Georgetown’s polices and services for sexual assault. Specifically, AFIRMS pointed to the lack of a full-time sexual assault coordinator in HES, the absence of “institutional recognition and administrative sway” in the Sexual Assault Working Group (SAWG), which was created in 1995, but did not have senior Student Affairs administrators on the board, and weaknesses in the actual student conduct policy.
This year, AFIRMS has essentially disbanded because it has accomplished many of its goals-a strong indicator of change.
“We started AFIRMS to make these recommendations to the administration, and they finally saw that students had a voice in this issue, and needed to be involved in the decision-making process,” says Brighid Clark (SFS ‘04). As one of the founding members of AFIRMS, Clark was invited to be on the committee what eventually hired Hunnicutt.
In addition several AFIRMS members are contributing members of SAWG-group that has gathered more support from senior University officials than ever before. “The administrators on SAWG are really open to what students have to say,” says Kendra Jackson (SFS ‘06) who has been attending SAWG meetings since the beginning of the year. Jackson believes that student input has made a huge difference in determining the outcomes of many conversations.
But despite AFIRMS’ successes, Clarke is concerned about student impact. “Potentially people could have also gotten a bad impression of what would happen if you sought out University resources,” she says. “I think that the resources that exist now are really great and proactive in terms of looking to improve further. We need to communicate that to more people.”
Another area of concern, includes the ongoing problem of the present University disciplinary policy towards sexual assault, the changes for which have yet to be solidified.
Interim Vice President of Student Affairs Jeanne Lord, who chairs the Disciplinary review committee that reviews Student Conduct policies, says the changes proposed by AFIRMS and SAWG were reviewed last Fall. “The committee has finished its work and is now submitting its recommendations to Dr.Olson for his review by the end of the semester,” said Lord in an e-mail.
Luis Torres (CAS ‘05) another member of AFIRMS would like to see an actual date. “For us, it’s just a matter of going back and making them accountable.” Despite his doubts about the slowness of bureaucracy, Torres is sure change will come. According to Torres, these changes should consist of redefining the categories of offenses for sexual assault, making the judicial process user-friendly for the survivor, and maximizing the penalties for perpetrators of sexual assault who are found responsible through the University judicial process according to Torres.
Beyond these changes, Torres stresses the importance of not closing the book on the issue. While all the primary goals of AFIRMS will be met, Torres wants to ensure that student take the next step and create better solutions with the resources that are now in place. He warms of the danger in being too satisfied. “Hiring a director is not the end-all solution. There isn’t going to be an end-all solution anytime soon, and we have to accept that.”
Torres, however, hopes that people will continue to ask the question “What do we do next?” Fortunately, much of the energy to go to the step is coming from the students themselves.
At the beginning of last semester, GUSA sponsored a program called R U ready. The event, which was directed at first-year students-the most at-risk group according to Department of Justice statistics-involved speeches from four individuals that had been affected in one way or another by sexual assault. Two of the speakers were survivors, the other was Clark who talked about her fear of violence, and the last was a male student who’s friend had approached him with her sexual assault story.
Ben Cote (CAS ‘05) who attended the event was especially moved by the latter speaker. In high school, when his girlfriend told him that she had been raped, he experienced the frustration of not knowing how to adequately address her needs. “Those who feel the effects of rape are not just the survivors but those around them and those that love them and care for them,” he says.
This semester Georgetown’s first all-male group that discusses sexual assault filed for full status as a Student Activities Club. GUMARR, formed after the tremendous success of R U ready last fall, a program in which four speakers talked about personal experiences of sexual violence, or having friends who were assaulted. After the speaker portion of the event, participants broke into all-male and all-female discussion groups. During that conversation, Cote learned the value of an all-male dialogue.
According to Matthew Dennis, a graduate of the University of Virginia who participated in a similar program, men are more likely to gain better insight into sexual assault issues in an all-male environment. “Our program doesn’t put men in a defensive role, but instead it empowers them to deal with sexual assault and to create an environment where men are part of the solution,” he says.
For the purposes of GUMARR, Cote wants to educate himself and others on how to respond to a friend who has been assaulted and on how men can contribute to a culture that does not tolerate sexual assault. “When you have that transition from high school to college, there are things men need to know about what a survivor goes through,” he says. “Having that understanding in the back of your mind is a very powerful thing.”
Cote applauds R U ready for reaching a new segment of campus in a personal way, but feels the discussions started during the event needed to continue throughout the year. Traditionally, women have mostly spoken out on the issue, says Cote, but he hopes that action and dialogue will start coming from the entire community.
Torres observes that this has already happened at the more traditional events like Take Back the Night. “I was really surprised by the College Republicans for getting involved,” he says. Torres and Cote are also members of the Knights of Columbus. While the Knights of Columbus, may have been initially a little hesitant about the side issues of Take Back the Night, Torres who spoke at the event, recognizes that these partnerships are important especially because they emphasize that sexual assault is wrong no matter what political or religious values you hold. “We need to remember that we are GU, and people here have strong beliefs and strong values, but we can work together. There’s always a way somebody can help,” he said.
Though Gallagher believes that more people are starting to pay attention to issues of sexual assault, she is not confident the effects of this change will be felt. ” Sexual Assault still happens very frequently on this campus and people don’t truly understand that,” she says.
Nevertheless, she points to personal experiences outside the classroom, which indicates a potential for change. Last spring, Gallagher was dancing with her boyfriend at a party, when a stranger pulled her aside to ask her whether she knew her dance partner and to offer assistance if she felt threatened. “It totally blew me away,” she says. “People need to be encouraged to do that because we are ultimately responsible for each other.”
For now, having worked closely with administrators such as Hunnicutt to educate the community on how to respond honestly and responsibly to sexual assault, Gallagher is very aware of her options.
As for whether the University response services have improved over the past two years, says Gallagher, “I don’t know how the administration is at the moment, but I feel like I am about to find out.”
