[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 11]
[House]
[Page 16287]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                 SEXUAL ASSAULT VICTIMS IN UNIVERSITIES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Texas (Mr. Poe) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. POE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, Angie described Amherst College as her 
dream school. A vibrant American teenager, she couldn't wait to start 
her new life at the perfect college.
  Like all universities, Amherst painted itself in a positive light. It 
had a good reputation. But Angie had no way of knowing the dark reality 
hiding behind that facade.
  Her initial memories of her freshman year play along a familiar and 
happy college narrative. Her life was full of new friends, new 
experiences, and new challenges. But on May 25, everything changed. 
That happy narrative came to a screeching halt.
  An acquaintance of hers invited her over to watch a movie in his 
campus dorm room. Tired from a long day of classes, Angie finally 
drifted off to sleep. The next thing she knew, she woke up to find this 
individual on top of her sexually assaulting her.
  The morning after the attack, Angie felt that she was in a daze, and 
she acted like she was in a daze. The illusion of college life filled 
with smiling faces and good times had been shattered.
  Mr. Speaker, according to the Department of Justice, one in five 
women are sexually assaulted during college in the United States--one 
in five. Of those, less than 25 percent report the sexual assault.
  So Angie, fearing that she would be ignored, doubted, and dismissed, 
carried on in hopeless silence. In the 4 months following her rape, she 
fell deeper and deeper into depression.
  Finally, when the burden became too heavy to bear, she summoned all 
her remaining strength and courage and went to the campus counselor. 
But she was shocked at the counselor's response.
  The counseling center didn't believe she was sexually assaulted. The 
counseling center said that she should forgive the rapist. They told 
her there is nothing they could do or would do. There was no point in 
pressing charges; her rapist was close to graduating anyway.
  But she could not forget what had happened to her. She couldn't deal 
with the sexual assault. Mr. Speaker, a rape victim cannot just forget 
what has happened to them.
  Mr. Speaker, I was a judge for 22 years and a prosecutor for 8 in 
Texas. I saw a lot of sexual assault victims, a lot of them. They deal 
with what happened to them every day, and they feel like the rapist 
tried to steal the soul of the victim.
  A rape victim once told me: ``Judge, rape is a fate worse than 
death.'' And to a lot of victims, that is exactly the way they feel. It 
is worse than being murdered.
  These sexual assault victims need support, understanding, and care to 
become survivors. They first need somebody who will listen to them.
  Amherst utterly failed Angie, and that failure pushed her deeper and 
deeper into despair. When she voiced that she had been having suicidal 
thoughts, university police forcibly escorted her to the emergency room 
and left her there.
  The doctor who examined her had no training on how to deal with 
traumatized rape victims. Utterly lacking in any kind of compassion for 
what had happened to her, the doctor told her that she was being 
irrational and that her story just didn't make any sense to the doctor. 
He didn't believe a school like Amherst would allow her to be raped, 
and he thought she just must be crazy. He ordered that she be admitted 
into a psychiatric ward and washed his hands of the entire situation.
  For 5 days, Mr. Speaker, Angie sat shaking in a sterile room behind 
locked doors. She becomes the prisoner for the sexual assault that 
happened to her.
  A victim's pain and suffering should never be increased because the 
hospital doesn't have staff trained to provide victim services for 
sexual assault victims. So to ensure this doesn't happen to more 
victims like Angie, I have introduced legislation, along with the 
gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Carolyn B. Maloney), my good friend, 
that would require a hospital to provide access to a staffer who is 
properly trained to provide care sensitive to the trauma victim and is 
concerned about what they have experienced, or have a plan in place to 
get the victim to a nearby hospital that does. This is called a SAFE.
  The law should be changed to require a hospital to have a SAFE or a 
SANE--that is a sexual assault forensic examiner or a sexual assault 
nurse examiner--on staff or have one at a nearby hospital.
  This bill is named for Megan Rondini. Megan Rondini is another victim 
of sexual assault on campus. She was from Texas and went to the 
University of Alabama, and she was denied proper post-sexual assault 
treatment at a hospital. This will ensure victims get the care that 
they need. Megan couldn't deal with what happened to her, and she 
finally committed suicide.
  Mr. Speaker, we need to, as a body, be concerned about sexual assault 
victims and provide this basic legislation so universities are trained 
or have somebody on staff nearby who can deal with sexual assault 
victims. That is the least we can do for people like Angie and Megan 
Rondini.
  And that is just the way it is.

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