The Boston Public Library kicked off its social justice themed Lowell Lecture Series Thursday evening with a panel about sexual assault, highlighting the work done by Annie Clark and Andrea Pino, the co-founders of End Rape on Campus.
EROC, a survivor advocacy organization, was founded in 2013 as a result of the national need to bring sexual assault to the forefront of the conversation and to formalize work centered around it, according to its website.
Catalina Velasquez, the communications director for EROC, said the organization, comprised of students, survivors and professors, focuses on three main goals: direct services that support survivors, policy work and preventive initiatives.
“It is a survivor organization that is trying to observe the realities of survivors from all walks of life, meaning that we are founded on diversity values,” Velasquez said.
Emily Todd, the adult programs librarian at BPL Central, said the social justice theme of the lecture series, which changes every year, was chosen to reflect various current events.
Pino and Clark’s discussion focused mostly on about sexual assault culture, as well as struggles and triumphs victims go through in talking about their experiences.
Pino said during the panel she loved her experience at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and knew the school well, but was unaware of the resources provided by her university when she was sexually assaulted.
“I didn’t call my experience sexual assault because when you name it sexual assault, when you say ‘me too,’ it makes it real, and that is something that is not easy to say when you think you can avoid sexual assault because that is how we are taught,” Pino said.
Clark added that it’s important to be inclusive of all communities and recognize that the communities which are oftentimes excluded from the conversation are often the most impacted from sexual violence.
“A lot of state laws are written in a way that they are so heterosexist and heterosexual that if you are assaulted by someone of the same gender regardless of sexuality, you are told that your assault literally doesn’t count,” Clark said.
In coming forward with the story of her sexual assault, Clark said the press did not take her or Pino seriously when they filed a Title IX form, which ensures all people, regardless of gender, have the right to an education without discrimination.
“At first, the press laughed at us and said that there was absolutely no way that you could have two 20-year-olds file this federal document and it be taken seriously by the government,” Clark said. “It was [taken seriously]. And three months later, it was frontpage New York Times news.”
The news spread nationwide and their experiences became well-known through the 2015 documentary “The Hunting Ground.” Pino said she and Clark had the broader goal of not only changing policies at their university, but creating a broader movement which included people of all identities.
“Me and Annie realized right away that this had to go far beyond us,” Pino said. “We had to create a movement. We wanted it to be something that was accessible because we had spent months researching about Title IX and there was no reason for anyone to have had to do the amount of work that we did.”
Several panel attendees discussed the importance of talking about sexual assault and misconduct, especially due to recent current events.
Christina Fogarasi, 26, a graduate student at Cornell University and former Somerville resident, said she attended the panel because it’s relevant to her field of study and she wanted to see how they would breach this topic, especially considering the current social climate surrounding sexual assault.
“Sometimes I feel like academia is really up in the clouds and it’s pretty distant from practical everyday understandings of things,” Forgarasi said.
Cody Tracey, 24, of Jamaica Plain, said he went because it’s a space which is open to talk about current cultural events and how to go about creating change.
“It’s been particularly interesting to follow the #MeToo news, and it’s creating a real conversation around culture which I think is important,” Tracey said. “Clearly sexual assault is something that has been happening a lot and it’s been very pervasive, not just on college campuses.”
Sylvie Wong, 25, of Cambridge, said even though she has mainly focused on racial justice in her past studies, she believes the topic of sexual assault is an intersectional issue which affects people of many identities.
“I really want to know how to especially advocate for students of marginalized identities because … there are different power structures and different barriers and pathways,” Wong said. “I left wondering, ‘what about students who don’t have the privilege to speak out and who don’t have the ease to speak up because of their different marginalized identities?’”
