Kari Krakow is a Ithaca local and longtime educator for the Ithaca City School District. She can be reached at karikrakow@me.com.
Editor's Note: This article discusses sexual assault.
What troubles me most about the case brought by Jane Doe is not the horrific allegations, it is the way a single statement can become a permanent record of what a victim might have been thinking, feeling and consenting to at the time.
The Tompkins County District Attorney’s Office has said that its 2024 investigation did not result in criminal charges. In explaining the decision, District Attorney Matthew Van Houten said that Jane Doe’s initial statement described her participation in drug use and sexual conduct as “voluntary, conscious, and consensual.”
That statement is now being scrutinized in light of the civil lawsuit and the reopened criminal investigation.
I keep thinking about that initial six-page document. It contains more than 20 handwritten notations and bears Jane Doe’s signature. On the final page, she affirmed that she had read the statement and that the facts contained in it were true and correct.
But what does that mean?
I was sexually abused by a neighbor. I was shamed into silence and told no one for a long time. It took many years for me to understand what had really happened.
I grew up in a loving family. We went to church. We were taught right from wrong. My father was a lawyer. I had a happy childhood.
But there was a before and an after.
After the abuse, I believed I was dirty. I believed I deserved what had happened to me. I still cannot describe the event with complete clarity, although I can summon the accompanying guilt and shame at any moment.
What I remember most clearly is the aftermath: the morass of confusion, the splitting of self from body, the sense that the events I played over and over in my mind could not possibly have happened to me. And when my abuser told me it was my fault, I believed him.
I do not think my experience and what Jane Doe alleges are similar. What connects them is not the circumstances, but the private disorienting feeling that follows sexual violence and makes it difficult to name what happened or understand one’s own response to it. Often there is a need to minimize the trauma in order to survive. Both perpetrators and institutions encourage this response.
We live in a culture that normalizes sexual violence, and is inundated with the idea that male aggression is acceptable. Too often, college communities protect the bright futures of young men rather than focusing on the safety and trauma of survivors.
We need to understand what it means to be a person giving evidence after sexual violence. It is a statement made by a traumatized human being, and not a complete map of that person’s understanding of what happened.
I cannot imagine the shame Jane Doe might have experienced after what she alleges happened to her. I cannot imagine what it took for her to come forward publicly after nearly two years of silence and scrutiny. I commend her for doing so.
This community deserves to understand what happened, what was known and what was missed. A victim is not a volunteer.
Guest authors are people who submit pieces to The Sun and undergo the same thorough editorial process as any Sun staff writer. The Sun does not endorse the views of any guest author. If you would like to get in contact with the author of a Guest Room article, please use the undersigned author's email provided at the bottom of the article.
The Cornell Daily Sun welcomes any and all submissions of guest columns and letters to the editor for review. Please visit this website for information on how you can submit as a guest author to The Sun: https://www.cornellsun.com/page/join-the-suns-opinion-section. If you have any questions regarding this process, please contact us at associate-editor@cornellsun.com.
