Lebanon
Kuster started by giving her own story, as she did last week in a very public venue: the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives.
She told of how she was assaulted inside a Dartmouth College fraternity (she is an alumna), on Capitol Hill by a Congressman’s guest, and during a mugging in Washington, D.C.
Before going public with these stories, Kuster said, she hadn’t told some of the details to her sons, or even to her husband of 30 years, and had to warn them. She added that these circumstances should resonate with many other survivors.
“I’m not telling these stories because they’re remarkable or unique,” she said. “I’m telling them because they’re all too common.”
Nearly a dozen experts and advocates joined Kuster at Monday’s roundtable, which took place at the headquarters of WISE of the Upper Valley, the crisis center based in Lebanon.
Although the panelists reported seeing an increase in sexual-violence awareness in the Upper Valley, a relatively progressive enclave, Kuster cited statistics indicating the rest of the state has yet to catch up: 23 percent of women in New Hampshire have been sexually assaulted or harassed, she said, referring to a recent survey, and 70 percent of those women don’t report it to law enforcement.
“It’s the stigma that holds us back from having this larger conversation,” Kuster said, “and I want to hear from all of you about how we can change that dialogue.”
Peggy O’Neil, executive director of WISE, recognized that for survivors even the acknowledgement of one’s trauma was rare.
“That’s the hard part,” she said. “We know how hard it is for victims who come forward to navigate the system” — a system where people are “re-victimized,” she said, by having to retell and relive their trauma, and where accusers “don’t have great outcomes” in securing punishment for the perpetrators.
WISE helps survivors navigate that system, O’Neil said, and also offers education to help bring about cultural change that signals this behavior is no longer acceptable.
Teachers are the point people in this campaign, and at least one was present on Monday.
Sara Bennett, who teaches women’s studies to juniors and seniors at Lebanon High School, said she has seen a cultural shift among her students. Sometimes she sees girls in her classes correcting people who blame victims or repeat inaccuracies about rape.
“It’s great to hear a 16-year-old girl calling out a 45-year-old male teacher for an inaccuracy,” Bennett said. “They’re really finding their voices.”
WISE also is bringing its services directly to campus. Delaney Anderson, WISE’s new campus advocate at Dartmouth, is co-located at the crisis center’s offices and at the college. She helps survivors at Dartmouth find their way through the school’s complex judicial processes — as well as through the legal system, if they choose that route.
In addition to bringing in Anderson, Dartmouth has hired an independent investigator for sexual assault cases, a move that administrators on the panel said had been invaluable: It introduces professional standards into college proceedings, they said, and allows survivors to avoid the trauma of having to tell their stories over and over.
Even though Kuster had told her story voluntarily, she said that last point resonated with her — especially when speaking to members of the media, who would often press her for greater detail.
“They’re doing their job,” she said — “who, what, when, where” — but remembering those moments had been painful.
Students in college and in high school said the message has begun to permeate among their peers.
Katherine McAvoy, a junior at Dartmouth, said she had been working since her first year at the college as a sexual assault educator, visiting student groups to spread the word.
“Those conversations have really changed,” she said, “even in my three years at Dartmouth.”
Where she once had to convince some people that sexual assault was a problem on campus, now students take this as a given, she said, and “I think the conversations are getting more nuanced.”
Kuster agreed, and compared the shift to the way that attitudes changed toward HIV and same-sex marriage, calling the social movements around those issues models for the anti-rape initiative.
She also pointed out that a lack of understanding, rather than outright malice, often holds people back. She recalled speaking to a group of young men about the age of consent in New Hampshire, which is 16, and hearing a few puzzling questions.
“But what if we’re on a boat?” Kuster remembered a man asking. “What if she’s from New York? What if I’m from Pennsylvania?”
“I felt like Dr. Seuss,” she said. “Not in a boat, not on a plane, not on a train, not on a bus.”
As the forum came to a close, Kuster turned the discussion to future steps — namely, three pieces of legislation that she either supports or co-sponsors.
The Campus Safety and Accountability Act, a bill also sponsored by Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y.; Claire McCaskill, D-Mo.; and Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., would require that colleges provide regular climate surveys, publish data on sexual assault, and appoint confidential advisers for survivors, among many other provisions.
Introduced in 2014, the bill has received bipartisan support but also criticism from civil libertarians who say it could impinge on due-process rights for the accused; a revised version still is pending in both chambers of Congress.
Kuster also is drumming up support for two bills that haven’t yet been introduced: the Safe Transfer Act, which her office says would require schools to put warnings on sexual-assault perpetrators’ transcripts; and the No Funding for Sexual Harassers Act, which would require that schools found guilty of violating Title IX report the incidents to their grant funders.
After Kuster described the bills, O’Neil asked if they were likely to face opposition, especially from Republicans.
Kuster said “no”: During her speech on the House floor, she said, Republican legislators started coming down to the podium, asking whether they could join her in support — and, she said, get in front of the C-SPAN cameras.
“It shouldn’t be contentious,” she said, “and we plan on reaching across the aisle.”
Rob Wolfe can be reached at rwolfe@vnews.com or at 603-727-3242.