“At Least I Tried To Do Something” a Story of Organizing on Campus
TW: Sexual Assault
Lillian Frame is a senior at American University. She was invited to write a guest commentary for The Rival as one of the primary organizers behind the November 10th walkout in support of sexual assault survivors. The views expressed in this article are her own.
By Lillian Frame
My history of organizing against sexual violence goes back to seventh grade. I had no language for it, no skills, but a friend needed help that our school wasn’t giving her, so I stepped in. I began to understand that I needed to put myself in the proverbial line of fire, willing to put my body and wellbeing on the line to protect others (my therapist says this isn’t a great thing, but whatever). I continued organizing through high school and into college, where I spent the first chunk of my freshman year organizing walkouts and writing speeches against sexual violence for a friend who still went to my high school 500 miles away. It was through that, and working with organizations like SafeBAE and KnowYourIX, that I became a student survivor advocate on campus.
Let me be clear, this isn’t something I get paid for, or that I do because it’s fun, or because I believe there’s a level of political gain. Anyone who has any knowledge of survivorship or sexual violence can tell you that speaking out about it scares people in power. They can also tell you that survivors and those who advocate for them are forced out of political and social arenas as well. But I do this work because I want to help people.
So how did we do it and what’s happened since then? On October 31, when we received word of the assault in Leonard Hall, I immediately texted Emily, my co-organizer and partner in this work for so many years, and my friend Hope, another brilliant organizer and communications expert. We’d been discussing for what felt like eons (and was realistically only two years) ways for us to affect change on campus in regards to sexual violence. Emily and I primarily work with individual survivors, helping them get through the bureaucratic nonsense that American University requires them to do. We'd spent so much time saddened and angered by this reality that we began to organize our demands and the walkout within a day after the Leonard Hall assault.
We created a list of demands, which started as approximately 30 quickly jotted down ideas. We knew none of the demands could include increased police presence, given the history that AUPD has of antagonizing students, the abhorrent racial profiling that occurred after the October 31 assault, and the lack of help that police give survivors in general. These demands also needed to be short to ensure they were easily digestible and completable as well as have maximum impact. This list of 30 was pared down to five, with the demands proofread by experts in the field and community members alike. These were our big five, but we have so many more.
Then, we began planning the walkout. We found speakers: two incredible freshmen from Leonard Hall – Amna Asad and Mahita Desaraju – who wanted everyone to hear about what happened and how it has impacted their floor. Faith Ferber, a 2017 graduate who sued AU and is a personal friend of mine, was also on our dream speaker list. Faith was screwed over by the AU’s Office of Title IX during her undergrad days, and having her incredible voice there was so important. We decided that Emily would be the opening speaker and that I would close with a speech I wrote after seeing the name of someone who is dating a man who covered for a serial predator on our demand signature list. How many people in the audience would be like them? Someone who knowingly covered for an abuser? I needed to call them out, because if the administration won’t do anything, then it rests on the students’ shoulders to hold people accountable.
On the day of the walkout, I just remember feeling sick. Someone asked me how many people I thought would be in attendance, and my genuine response was: “Maybe 20 people?” I sincerely believed that until someone pulled Emily and I up to stand on the stone benches and look over the crowd that covered the quad. It's hard to describe what that moment felt like, looking onto the sea of red, but I’ll hold onto it for as long as I live. This work is isolating, and seeing such a display of solidarity for survivors made every minute worth it.
I think I blacked out during my speech. I remember flashes, holding Emily’s hand tightly, hugging my friends, giving words of encouragement to the speakers. I’ve always been more comfortable speaking in front of a crowd than I am one-on-one, so the speech itself was easy. The impact, the knowledge of what I was doing, the exhaustion of everything leading up to that moment, that was what weighed on me.
Once I got off the makeshift stage, I noticed that there was a small circle of administrators at the outer edges of the crowd. Some, like the Deans of schools, we had invited. Others, we had not. I spotted Phil Morse, who’s in charge of AUPD, and is one of the administrators our demands were directed to. After I introduced myself, megaphone in hand, and told him that we were looking forward to meeting about the demands, he looked at me and said that he’d “been in the business of making people feel safe for ten years.” I looked over the crowd, beginning to disperse but still so strong, and told him that “clearly it wasn’t working.” This institutional ignorance is so ingrained that he honestly believed he was doing his job and protecting students. If administrators were working in the best interest of students, there wouldn’t have been hundreds of us out there protesting.
After the walkout, I checked the signatures. What had started as a goal of 500 had reached 1,400. I stared at the list, and scrolled through the 60 page demand letter, reading each and every name and thanking them in my head. On Monday, November 14, we emailed the demands to seven administrators (President Burwell, Ms. Annexstein, Dr. Aw, Mr. Morse, Dr. Starr, Mr. Brown and Dr. Volkmann), and I hand delivered stacks of signatures to each of their offices. I wanted them to feel the weight of these signatures. In the Title IX office, which is located off-campus and is seemingly abandoned, I shoved the letter under the door.
Administration was silent until Wednesday, when I received an email from President Sylvia Burwell. In this email she thanked us for our “feedback and recommendations,” and stated that the Community Working Group is the “appropriate place for further discussion.” Within minutes, I emailed her back. These were not recommendations– they were demands. Five easily accomplishable demands that had the endorsement of students, staff, faculty and alumni. We do not oppose a Community Working Group, but the demands need to be immediately agreed to and implemented to at least attempt to slow the damage the University has done.
I’m also not perfect. After reflecting on the walkout that I co-organized on November 10th, there were ways that I could have and should have made it more openly intersectional. There were only two of us organizing it, and so the onus of those mistakes lies on our shoulders. My recognition of these shortcomings does not, however, negate my pride in the protest. It was organized by only two people, yet we did so much. Our demands were signed by over 1,400 community members, and the walkout was attended by approximately 500 students. I’m damn proud of what we did, even with the mistakes. We’ll continue to move forward while addressing our missteps, and always becoming better.
This fight isn’t easy, it won’t be quick, and there are going to be more losses than wins. But I have to believe that we’ll win eventually. I want to be able to tell those around me that I tried to do something, that I refused to stand idly by.
TL;DR: We have no intention of letting up pressure on administration. We are not scared of them, and we are not placated by their empty promises. You shouldn’t be either. They work for us, and it’s time they act like it.