We believe you

A collection of sexual-assault survivor stories that will connect with students. Every day more survivors come forward and others choose not to. More than 30 experiences of trauma, healing, and everyday activism, representing a diversity of races, economic and family backgrounds, gender identities, immigration statuses, interests, capacities and loves are revealed in this book. More than 1 in 5 women and 5 percent of men are sexually assaulted at college, a shocking status quo that might have stayed largely hidden and unaddressed but for the two authors. In 2013, Annie E. Clark and Andrea L. Pino, then 23 and 20, building on the work of earlier activists, outed themselves as assault survivors and filed a federal complaint against the University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill) for mishandling such crimes. Within a month, the U.S. government began to investigate UNC. Within a year, dozens of colleges were under federal investigation. But Clark and Pino rightly see themselves as two among many. Students from every kind of college and university--large and small, public and private, highly selective and less so--are sounding alarms and staking claims to justice by filing complaints, by pressing charges, and by simply living beyond the effects of assault and the betrayals of their schools.