Katherine Clark: “I thank the gentlewoman from New Hampshire for her personal story. It is moving, it is courageous, and it makes a…”

“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.…”