Burgeoning rape scandal at Amherst

Fri, 19 Oct 2012 17:15:00 +0000

A former Amherst student detailed her experience of on-campus rape and the college's abysmal treatment of the situation, in a searing and painful essay. The piece in the Amherst Student by Angie Epifano, who left the college because of her experience, has focused a national spotlight on the elite liberal university's treatment of rape and rape culture, raising questions about the treatment of sexual assault, victims and perpetrators on campuses around the country.

In her piece prefaced with a trigger warning, Epifano writes about the trauma following her rape by a college acquaintance:

Some nights I can still hear the sounds of his roommates on the other side of the door, unknowingly talking and joking as I was held down; it is far from a pleasant wakeup call.

I had always fancied myself a strong, no-nonsense woman, whose intense independence was cultivated by seventeen harrowing years of emotional abuse in my backwoods home. May 25th temporarily shattered that self-image and left me feeling like the broken victim that I had never wanted to be.

Everything I had believed myself to be was gone in 30 minutes.

Salon.com > Amherst College

Burgeoning rape scandal at Amherst