Sunday afternoon, after hearing about the second hate crime this week in Georgetown, I bought some markers, poster board, and texted a few friends to organize a flash protest. In an hour students from a variety of racial, political and religious backgrounds came together as friends, allies and members of the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transexual Queer/Questioning community at a moment’s notice to express their outrage about the recent hate crimes and the delayed response from the University.
After the protest, a group of concerned students and I formed The Students Concerned About Campus Safety Working Group to keep up the energy of the protest and pressure Georgetown to take serious positive action to address security concerns on campus and to continue to make Georgetown a more friendly campus to the LGBTQ community. The following letter, written by members of The Students Concerned About Campus Safety, is addressed to University President John DeGioia and the Georgetown Community.
—Carter Lavin (SFS ‘10)
These assaults, which occurred during a five day period, are not just attacks against the LGBTQ community, but also against freedom of speech and expression for everyone on our campus. The assailants sought to harm your classmates, floor mates, and friends for their perceived sexual orientation. No Hoya is safe when people are attacking others for their expressions of love and opinion. When anyone in our University community is being targeted, it affects everyone. Whether or not you identify as LGBTQ, these assaults affect you.
In an environment where violent crimes can be perpetrated without repercussions, crime increases. Hate crimes affect more than just the victim of the assault. When someone is targetedbecause of his or her identification with a community, the attack functions as one on the community as a whole. The perpetrator of the assault is sending a symbolic message to members of the entire community that they should fear similar attacks, that if they try to be out and proud they will be beaten back into the closet.
These pointed acts of violence were committed by hatred for and out of fear of individuals who are different. Last week, two members of our University community were assaulted for being themselves, and on Monday University administrators responded admirably. They said that they will increase security patrols on and around campus; that they are taking this issue seriously—they realize that while only two students were directly affected, this type of crime psychologically affects virtually any minority student on campus, and thus must be taken much more seriously than a standard assault. While the administration has spoken out and told the campus community that violence of any kind will not be tolerated, the fact that it took two assaults and an act of vandalism to spur such a response is rather disquieting.
We, the authors of this piece, are enraged by these recent crimes and now we are acting. Sitting quietly while our classmates are victimized is not an option. We have held a vigil and a protest in Red Square, and we now call upon the University, President DeGioia, and you, the reader, to do your part in stopping hate crimes.
To the University administrators and President DeGioia: you have said that you will take these hate crimes seriously and act accordingly to further the security of the LGBTQ and general Georgetown community. In 2007, Georgetown created an LGBTQ resource center in response to a string of hate crimes. What will you do now? Will you be bold and call these events what they truly are, hate crimes, in future Public Safety Alerts? Will you use HoyAlert, the campus emergency alert system, to text students when a violent crime occurs on or near campus so that students can be on their guard and possibly even help the Department of Public Safety identify the suspect? What will you do, President DeGioia? Your reactions so far to these events have been admirable, but the days of being reactive have passed—now you must be proactive.
Most importantly, why did it take these two assaults and an act of vandalism to spur the university to act? We as the student body should not have to wait for an assault to occur for security to be improved, and we should absolutely not have to wait for two assaults.
To the rest of the Georgetown Community: The witness who reported the second assault to DPS was an immense help to the victim. If you see a crime in progress, don’t be afraid to call DPS so that they can do their job and help protect you and your classmates. Support your classmates, walk your friends home at night, confront hateful comments when you hear them, and try to be open to those who may be different from you.
