IN LIGHT of recent skewedreportage and editorials concerning the rape of Liz Seccuro by William Beebe and his recent conviction and sentencing, I feel compelled to offer some insight into the conditions Seccuro faced in 1984 that today's undergraduates may not truly grasp.
When I first joined the anti-sexual violence movement in 1981 in Los Angeles, there was very little institutional support for survivors of stranger sexual assault, let alone those assaulted by acquaintances. In fact, acquaintance rape was only just beginning to be acknowledged as a violent crime by the criminal justice system, even though my fellow advocates and I struggled to gain recognition of these crimes by police and prosecutors. In light of my own experiences, I can only imagine the difficulty that victims such as Seccuro faced in little Charlottesville, which was hardly the sophisticated place that it is today. It is a measure of her prodigious courage that she fought so hard then, and again today, for justice.
In 1984, the Charlottesville Rape Crisis Group (the predecessor to the Sexual Assault Resource Agency [SARA]) was a tiny organization of volunteers. At the University Hospital, where Seccuro valiantly attempted to seek treatment (to no avail), medical residents -- not trained nurses -- conducted evidentiary exams, or Physical Evidence Recovery Kits (PERKs). Since these physicians were required to spend hours testifying in court, some simply refused to administer the exams at all. The University's Forensic Nursing Program (formerly Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners) did not exist, there was no private room set aside for victims and no call to SARA so that an advocate could provide support and wisdom to survivors, since that protocol was not yet in place in the Emergency Department.
Sexual assault advocacy was very much a grassroots cause. Sexual assault crisis centers were only just becoming widespread, so they had little influence on law enforcement training. Police officers were taught that the only real rapes were those committed by strangers, usually men of color, against white women, and if a woman didn't fight back it wasn't a real rape, either. Women had begun to join the force in numbers sufficient enough to impact response to both sexual and domestic violence, and women prosecutors were changing the way sexual assault cases were prosecuted in order to reduce the number of times victims had to repeat their stories (from "horizontal" to "vertical prosecution") in order to reduce trauma and improve conviction rates.
Even psychological treatment has changed drastically since 1984. We know so much more now about the short and long-term impact of even "mild" cases of sexual assault than we did then. Many sexual assault advocates of the 1980's have since become clinicians; others conducted research on the impact of sexual trauma on victims that has dramatically influenced healthcare providers, psychological counselors, and many others who encounter victims through their work.
Then we have the University of Virginia. The Women's Center was not yet to open for another five years. The program I direct, Sexual and Domestic Violence Services (formerly known as Sexual Assault Education) did not come into being until 1991, after a 134-hour student vigil on the steps of the Rotunda, demanding that the University establish such a position. The Office of the Dean of Students had not yet contracted with SARA to formalize the relationship between these two entities, and so collaboration was intermittent at best. Sexual assault policies in higher education were only beginning to take shape, and are still evolving.
I cannot speak to the University's response to Seccuro in 1984 because I wasn't here. What I do know is that what happened to Seccuro was a tragedy. The trauma of her assault was multiplied by the fact that none of the existing institutions were prepared to help her in a victim-centered, empowering way -- even though I suspect that there was no intent to cause her harm. Sadly, that was the case on nearly every college campus, and certainly in most cities and counties in the U.S. at that time.
Today, just as in 1984, we still have a long way to go in educating the public about how victim-blaming only silences more victims. And despite the successful conviction of William Beebe, prosecution of acquaintance rapists is still a very rare event in Charlottesville and Albemarle County.
Some things have changed for the better. Many brave and outspoken survivors such as Liz Seccuro and their allies have successfully agitated for change on every level of the institutions that work with victims. We work behind the scenes as victim advocates, take to the streets at Take Back the Night marches, or teach our peers. Others become police officers, prosecutors, self-defense instructors, or artists who use our experiences as the source of our creativity. Our job is not to second-guess, but to join Liz Seccuro and all survivors in the struggle to end violence against women.
Claire N. Kaplan is the Director of Sexual & Domestic Violence Services at the UVA Women's Center.
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