Of survivors who reported to their schools, 15 percent stated that they faced or were threatened with punishment by their schools in connection with coming forward. Of those survivors who faced or were threatened with punishment, an astounding 62.5 percent either took a leave of absence, transferred schools, or dropped out. Survivor punishment takes multiple forms, all of which erase the experience of violence and silence survivors. The most commonly reported forms were punishment for ancillary misconduct, the violence itself construed as the survivor’s own misconduct, trauma responses, and speaking out.
When student survivors report sexual violence, they too often face punishment for something else they may have been doing at the time of the violence. One survivor explained that their school was more concerned with the fake ID they had used that night than the fact that they had been raped. For high school students, sometimes the conduct punished isn’t even ancillary; high schools have been known to punish survivors for “engaging in sexual contact”—their assault or rape—on school grounds.3 One high school survivor’s school officials suggested as much. After she was sexually assaulted on a field trip, she told the chaperones what had happened. “The field trip sponsors blamed me for the incident and told me that if I reported the student, I would lose my officer position and would no longer be allowed to travel with the organization for competitions.”
Other survivors faced punishment for their behavior in the wake of violence. One high school survivor said that her school refused to protect her from the boys who assaulted her. Then, when those boys tried to touch her inappropriately in class, she was punished for fighting back. In the end, the teacher made her, not them, switch seats. A social work graduate student was also punished for her post-assault conduct. She left the classroom when she heard her perpetrator’s voice, an instance her school cited when it ultimately dismissed her from her degree program for “unprofessional conduct.”
Many survivors faced threats of punishment from the school for speaking out about their experiences of violence. Several survivors were told not to share their stories on social media or even with friends or else they would face conduct charges. One was even told she would lose her dorm privileges if they spoke about their case. Another survivor was reprimanded for requesting detailed explanations about the disciplinary and appeals processes. The bottom line was clear; as one survivor put it: “the school was trying to punish me for getting raped.”