Tufts University kicks out student after she was raped
On Monday, Wagatwe Wanjuki posted a tweet about what it’s like to be a rape survivor.
The 27-year-old took to Twitter after reading a June 6 Washington Post column buy conservative writer George Will. The column suggested there was no campus rape epidemic and that women were lying about being victims of sexual assault.
Wanjuki responded in a series of tweets:
Where’s my survivor privilege? Was expelled & have $10,000s of private student loans used to attend school that didn’t care I was raped.
— Wagatwe Wanjuki (@wagatwe) June 9, 2014
The #survivorprivilege of being too scared to leave my dorm for fear of running into my perp.
— Wagatwe Wanjuki (@wagatwe) June 9, 2014
Wanjuki’s hashtag #SurvivorPrivilege went on to trend widely among people sharing their experiences as survivors of sexual violence. Their voices became part of a widespread backlash against The Washington Post for publishing Will’s column.
“It was mind-boggling that someone would think there’s anything to gain by coming forward as a survivor,” Wanjuki told The Huffington Post. Survivors face ridicule, attacks and threats, she said, and it’s “just not a pleasant experience.”
Wanjuki has been vocal about her rape since 2009 when she was a student at Tufts University in Massachusetts. She says she was repeatedly sexually assaulted by a man she was seeing, but the university told her they didn’t have to take action. This was before the U.S. Department of Education’s Title IX decision.
Wanjuki held demonstrations, becoming vocal in expressing her views that the school mishandled her case. Her grades started slipping, but not enough to land her on academic probation. In 2009. the Dean of Undergraduate Education, who also happened to be Wanjuki’s assailant’s academic adviser, told her she would have to withdraw from the university due to academic concerns. She was less than a year from graduating at the time.
In April of this year, the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights concluded that Tufts’ sexual misconduct policies violated Title IX. The department used a separate case for that decision.
We have to continue to call attention to the stories of women who have been sexually violated. Too many times, they are subjects of victim blaming.
Mad respect to Wanjuki for advocating for not just her rights, but those of all women.
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