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“WE ARE ALL EMILY DOE” mentioning the U.S. Dept. of Justice was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H4050-H4051 on June 21, 2016.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
WE ARE ALL EMILY DOE
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 6, 2015, the Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from New Hampshire (Ms. Kuster) for 30 minutes.
Ms. KUSTER. Mr. Speaker, I want to commend Judge Poe for his eloquent words tonight. I appreciate the bipartisan sentiment.
I rise tonight in solidarity with my courageous colleagues from across the country who spoke last week and, as Judge Poe joined us, we read the eloquent words of the survivor in the Stanford University case.
We rise tonight to show our continuing support for the woman known to the world as Emily Doe and to join with all of our sisters at Stanford and on college campuses and in communities around the Nation with one simple message to America: We are all Emily Doe.
I am going to start my remarks tonight 40 years ago on a cold winter night at a prestigious college campus--this time on the East Coast--I was an 18-year-old student. I was going to a dance. The dance was at a fraternity, and I intended to enjoy the evening with my friends. We danced. We listened to music. We enjoyed the evening and we enjoyed the party until one young man assaulted me in a crude and insulting way, and I ran alone into the cold, dark night. I have never forgotten that night. I was filled with shame, regret, humiliation while he was egged on by everyone at that party standing by.
Several years later, I was working as a legislative assistant right here on Capitol Hill, and I was assaulted again, this time by a distinguished guest of the United States Congress. I was 23 years old. And as Judge Poe referenced tonight, I did not say a word to anyone. And, in fact, until I wrote these words to share with you tonight, I had never told anyone this story. My family didn't know, my husband, my children, my friends. I was 23.
A few months after that evening, I was walking home from dinner at a diner right here on Capitol Hill. If I named it, you all would know it well. I was mugged. I was grabbed in the dark, and I fought free. And when I broke free, I ran, again, alone into the cold, dark night.
I tell these stories tonight on the floor of the United States Congress not because they are remarkable or unique. Sadly, I tell these stories because they are all too common.
You see, all of us--Members of Congress, college students, soldiers and sailors, mothers and sisters--we are all Emily Doe. And the message we hear and the message that the court sent in Stanford is that we are not safe, we are not secure, and we do not deserve to be free, free from sexual assault, free from rape, free from rude, crude, obnoxious offensive assaults on our bodies, on our beings, on ourselves.
What we hear on college campuses, on military bases, in the workplace, and in the courthouse is that he has a future; he has potential; he was drunk; he didn't mean any harm; he just wanted to have fun, to get some action, and then get on with his life.
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What about her? What about her future? The student, the soldier, the sailor, the mother, the sister? We have been silent for too long. We also have potential. We also have a future. We are all Emily Doe, and tonight we will not be silent anymore.
Tonight we stand together--Republicans and Democrats, mothers and sisters--from across the country to take a stand for liberty and justice for all. We will fight for consequences for the 3 percent of men on college campuses and in our communities who are sexual predators and a menace to women everywhere. We will fight for bystander education and sexual assault prevention.
For the 97 percent of men on college campuses and in our communities who can be part of the solution, join us in taking a stand against sexual assault. We will reward college campuses that are open, transparent, and not only change their policies and programs but actually hold the perpetrators accountable and provide real and effective counseling and support for those students who have been assaulted.
And we will impose sanctions on college administrators who fail to act, fail to change, fail to prevent, fail to protect. Every student deserves to be safe; every student deserves to be secure, to live her life and to live her future. So remember, tonight we are all Emily Doe. She has given us our voice, and we will not be silent any longer.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Massachusetts (Ms. Clark), my good friend and colleague.
Ms. CLARK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from New Hampshire for her personal story. It is moving, it is courageous, and it makes a difference. We so appreciate your words because your story is our story, and it is the story of our daughters, our nieces, our granddaughters, and ourselves.
Approximately 20 percent of women who go to college will be sexually assaulted, and according to the Department of Justice and the Center for Public Policy, 95 percent of those women will not report their crimes because they don't think they will be believed. They think they will be humiliated and shamed.
As Emily Doe said so eloquently and brutally frankly in her statement to her rapist Brock Turner, the judicial system and institutions will blame the victim. She had her consent questioned even though she was unconscious.
Another college student recently in the news in Massachusetts went to WPI, and when she was lured to a rooftop and raped by a university security guard, she was questioned in the courtroom on her so-called risky behavior of drinking alcohol, not getting off the elevator when the guard followed her on, and that she had ignored training on personal safety.
Recently at Harvard, an alumni group president of an elite men's club offered that the suggestion of making the club coed was not a good one because it would potentially increase sexual assault at the club, not decrease it.
Alcohol, trusting security guards, the mere presence of women, none of it justifies rape. Alcohol highlights the deeply rooted ideas of entitlement that we have, and in rapists--and in, too frequently, mass shooters--it is what Michael Kimmel terms ``aggrieved entitlement,'' a powerful toxic world view that justifies violent action against children, women, elderly, or the LGBTQ community because the perpetrator believes they can act with impunity.
So how do we begin to change this horrifying landscape? First, we need to collect data. We need to understand who is perpetrating these crimes to understand how we can get to better solutions. A lack of accurate capture and analysis for understanding perpetration has caused us to not be able to frame the questions for better solutions.
Second, we have to look at funding. Cuts to social services for domestic violence and sexual assault are ones that we simply can't afford in our very first line of defense and the funding that is so necessary to build communities. We also need to talk to our children about sexual assault. A No More study revealed 73 percent of parents with children under the age of 18 have never talked to them about sexual assault, domestic violence, or even alcohol. And we certainly aren't talking about double standards, power imbalances, bias, and bigotry.
Finally, we need to look at our institutions: higher education--our colleges and universities--community policing, and our criminal justice system. We must enable transparency and accountability and counteract our deep cultural questions and questioning and disbelief of victims and stereotypes that enable entitlements to flourish violently.
The work that Representative Kuster has called for tonight begins with us, and I thank her again for her leadership and her bravery and her friendship not just to me, but to all women.
Ms. KUSTER. Mr. Speaker, I thank Representative Clark.
I now yield to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Mrs. Bustos), my good friend and colleague.
Mrs. BUSTOS. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank Congresswoman Kuster for organizing this Special Order this evening and for bringing attention to such a critical issue. I also want to thank Congresswoman Clark for her story as well. I appreciate so much her taking the time tonight. Most importantly, I want to thank both gentlewomen for sharing their stories. I thank Congresswoman Kuster for having the courage to share her personal story, which I think will give hope and strength to women and survivors across the country. Sexual assault is an epidemic that knows no boundaries. It is a crisis on our campuses that mandates the attention of every Member of Congress.
I was in college in the late 1970s and the early 1980s, and I know what happened back then is sadly still happening today. I know of a college gang rape that happened when I was in school. I know of men who would brag about taking turns on drunk or unconscious women who could not give consent. They were not in a position to give consent. We would hear about these experiences later when a survivor was brave enough to confide in her friends about what happened on that night.
But every time, without exception, she felt powerless, with little hope that justice would be on her side if she reported the crime. That is because the rape culture is suffocating for women all across America. She knew then that they would ask her what she was wearing, was she showing cleavage, were her jeans too tight. She knew they would ask her how much she had to drink, if she were asking for it because she had a few cocktails, and she knew that they would ask about her sexual history, if she were promiscuous, if she egged him on. This is the rape culture that sexual assault survivors live through each and every day.
All of these memories came rushing back to me when I learned about the brave survivor at Stanford University. She courageously shared her vivid, graphic, and horrifying story of what happened before and after she was raped. Now, I didn't say during, because she was unconscious when she was raped behind Stanford University's dumpster.
Mr. Speaker, I am sick. I am sick and tired about this epidemic while we have meaningful legislation that sits and dies in committee. Those of us here tonight strongly support this legislation that will reform the way sexual assaults are handled on our college campuses. But where is the movement? Where is the vote on this floor of this Congress? The silence and the inaction from Congress is deafening and appalling.
For example, the Campus Accountability and Safety Act only has 34 cosponsors. That is right, 34 cosponsors out of 435 Members of the U.S. House of Representatives. Just as troubling is the HALT Act, the HALT Campus Sexual Violence Act, which has only one Republican cosponsor--I repeat, one Republican cosponsor.
And why I bring that up is because rape is not a partisan issue. It does not have a label of Republican or Democrat on it. Rape victims are not Republicans; they are not Democrats. They are human beings, and they deserve better. At bare minimum, they deserve a hearing and a vote on this floor of Congress.
Let me just say this. If women made up more than our measly 20 percent of Congress, if Congress truly reflected the makeup of America, where 50-plus percent of Americans are women, I guarantee that sexual assault wouldn't be a back-burner issue because this has impacted all of us: our friends, our sisters, our daughters. They have lived this experience.
As a woman in Congress, I will not stay silent because why be Congresswomen if we can't help other women and do so vigorously and boldly? I will not stay silent while one in five college women experiences sexual assault during her undergraduate years. As a woman in Congress, I will not stay silent because every female staffer I work with knows of a woman who was raped in college.
How many more college women will be raped before Congress will act? We are here tonight for Emily Doe, who was sexually assaulted behind that fraternity dumpster while she was unconscious. We are all here for all survivors because we see you, we hear you, we respect you. As women Members of Congress, we will amplify your voice until there is action. Let me be clear. We will not be silent until meaningful action is taken. We will continue to challenge the status quo so all survivors are given the adequate justice they deserve.
Ms. KUSTER. Mr. Speaker, I thank Representative Bustos and Representative Clark. There were others who planned to join us, but because of the weather, their flights were not able to land. With these stories, we hope to show that Emily Doe is not alone and, in fact, we are all Emily Doe.
These types of experiences happen to every type of woman across the country--not just students, not just young women--mothers, daughters, teachers, and, yes, even Members of Congress. And that is why we must all come out of the shadows and the silence and demand action be taken to put an end to the victimization of women and other individuals by their abusers.
So tonight, Mr. Speaker, we want to speak to America to say: we will be silent no longer. We hear you. We hear the stories of the survivors. And we plan to make this Congress take the action that needs to be done.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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