Having worked directly with colleges and universities as statewide coalitions serving domestic and sexual violence victims I can say this......If
Having worked directly with colleges and universities as statewide coalitions serving domestic and sexual violence victims I can say this……
If you are a college student dealing with stalking, dating violence, sexual violence, threats, harassment, extortion, or an ex-partner who is frightening you, I want you to know something I learned through years of working in this field:
Photo by Selma DA SILVA
Please do not make one institution your entire safety plan.
Part of my professional work with statewide organizations involved working with colleges. I have also worked and volunteered on crisis hotlines. Those experiences taught me to value many kinds of help, while also understanding that no single person, office, or system should be expected to carry a young woman’s entire safety plan.
That includes the college itself.
Start Where You Can Start
Sometimes you know something is wrong, but you are not ready to sit across from another person and tell the whole story. You may not even have language for everything that has happened yet.
That is understandable. Fear of what others might think. Fear of what all of this now means for you. For others in your life. VALID.
A hotline can be a very good place to begin. I have worked and volunteered on hotlines, and one of their great strengths is that you can start with your voice, or increasingly through chat or text, without first having to walk into an office and face another person.
You can say, “I don’t know what to do.”
You can say, “I’m not sure whether this is abuse.”
You can say, “I’m afraid of what he might do.”
You can even say, “I don’t know where to start.”
A trained advocate can help you slow the situation down, think through your options, identify resources, and develop a safety plan. The National Domestic Violence Hotline specifically offers individualized safety planning, including for stalking, while RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Hotline provides confidential support and referrals to local medical, legal, and sexual-assault resources.
You don’t have to arrive already knowing what you need.
But Please Add Layers
If you are in danger, being stalked, threatened, sexually assaulted, or experiencing escalating abuse, I encourage you to build support beyond one campus office.
Tell someone you trust if it is safe to do so. That might be your mother, father, sister, auntie, friend, roommate, professor, advocate, or another person who will take you seriously.
Use campus resources where they are helpful. Contact a domestic-violence or sexual-assault program. If criminal conduct or immediate danger is involved, consider contacting law enforcement as another layer of response. If you are in immediate danger, call 911.
Police departments can make mistakes. Police officers can fail Survivors, sometimes terribly. Campus systems can fail Survivors too.
The answer is not pretending otherwise. The answer is recognizing that when your safety is at stake, you may need more than one door through which help can reach you.
Please Remember Lauren McCluskey
Lauren McCluskey was only 21 years old. She was a student and track athlete at the University of Utah when she briefly dated Melvin Rowland, an older man who had lied to her about his name, age, and criminal history. When Lauren discovered his real identity and learned that he was a registered sex offender, she ended the relationship.
What happened afterward is painful to read because Lauren kept trying.
Her mother contacted campus dispatch seeking a security escort so Lauren could retrieve her car. Lauren later contacted university police about suspicious messages. She contacted them again when messages demanded money in exchange for not releasing compromising photographs. A formal investigation began, and Lauren continued communicating with police about what was happening.
She did not simply make one frightened phone call and disappear. She stayed persistent. When I heard the phone calls in a documentary it was so clear that she cared about her safety and well-being. I wish that others had felt the same.
On October 22, 2018, Rowland spent hours in Lauren’s residence hall, including time with some of her friends. That evening, Lauren was walking near her residence hall while talking with her mother on the phone when Rowland confronted her. He abducted her and murdered her.
Lauren had been trying to get help.
After her death, an independent review resulted in 30 recommendations for improving campus safety. The university itself later acknowledged that serious mistakes and weaknesses had been found and that Lauren’s case had been viewed too narrowly as an extortion case rather than potential interpersonal violence, resulting in an insufficient sense of urgency.
That is hard to live with. Because Lauren tried. Very hard.
She ended the relationship after discovering important information that had been concealed from her. She told people what was happening. She contacted authorities. She followed up. She kept communicating as the behavior continued.
Lauren McCluskey deserved for all that persistence to end with her coming home safely.
She is not here. There is something profoundly unfair about having to study the death of a young woman who worked so hard to protect herself. We cannot go backward and give Lauren another ending. What we can do is refuse to waste what her story teaches us.
Build a Circle Wider Than the Campus
A college may have caring people doing excellent work. Use them.
But remember that a college is still an institution. Your safety deserves a circle wider than any single institution.
When possible, let trusted people outside the school know what is happening. Keep copies of important emails, screenshots, photographs, messages, names, dates, reports, and case numbers somewhere you can access them. Ask an advocate to help you think through a safety plan rather than trying to figure everything out while frightened.
And if one person dismisses you, that does not mean your concern was foolish.
Try another door.
You are not required to decide which institution is going to save you and place your entire life in its hands. Family or trusted people can be one layer. Advocates and hotlines can be another. Campus resources can be another. Medical professionals, community organizations, and law enforcement may become additional layers depending upon what has happened and what you need.
No layer is perfect. That is precisely why there should be layers.
For parents, relatives, and friends, there is a lesson here too. If a young woman calls and says something feels wrong, resist the temptation to begin by deciding whether she is “overreacting.” Help her widen the circle. Help her document. Help her find people who understand stalking and intimate-partner violence. Stay connected.
Lauren’s story should never become another lecture telling women that if they just follow enough safety rules, nothing terrible will happen. She followed rules. She sought help. She persisted.
The responsibility for her murder belongs to the man who murdered her.
Our responsibility is different. We can listen to what her life and death revealed and build better ways of surrounding the next young woman who says:
“I need help.”
If You Need Somewhere to Begin
The National Domestic Violence Hotline has advocates available 24/7 and offers personalized safety planning. Call 800-799-SAFE (7233), text START to 88788, or use online chat.
The RAINN National Sexual Assault Hotline provides free, confidential, 24/7 support. Call 800-656-HOPE (4673), text HOPE to 64673, or use online chat. RAINN can also connect Survivors with local sexual-assault, medical, legal, and other resources.
You do not have to know exactly what you are going to do before you reach out.
Sometimes the first layer of a safety plan is simply finding someone who will listen while you figure out the second.
Parents of slain University of Utah student sue under Title IX