Justice For X

To those who have read Letter One,

I was escorted by a VP to the office an hour after posting the initial letter. The principal requested that I immediately stop posting the letter online and in real life, otherwise, I will face serious consequences. I refused, I cannot compromise my integrity and my principles for the administration to keep their reputation spotless.

The principal looked me dead in the eye and said that what I have done was a crime, that I had committed slander against [redacted]. However, the entirety of Letter One was composed of the truth and nothing but the truth. It could not be slander. When I brought up this fallacy to the principal’s attention, he stated that X never once mentioned Y’s name to [redacted]. He claimed that she refused to give a name. That statement cannot be further from the truth. X had gone to see [redacted] with a trusted friend, telling the him Y’s full name and watching him write it down on his notepad. Perhaps he had forgotten the exact circumstances of the meeting. If it really was important, Y would have been brought to justice within a single hour. The administration had spoken to the police. Not about the sexual assault but about the slander. One hour was all it took.

It only shows that the administration considers an opposing voice as more threatening than a criminal roaming free on school grounds. A thousand and four hundred hours and Y is still free from justice.

This is no longer an issue with the administration refusing to take action. This is an issue where member(s) of the administration are actively lying to students, where they threatened to pursue legal action with no factual backing, and where our fundamental freedoms are violated in order to keep their image untarnished.

This is why victims don’t speak up. I had tearfully explained to the principal why I thought Letter One was necessary to bringing X justice. To counter my words, he compared my defense of X to bottles of coke sitting on his desk.

“If a bottle of coke offended me, would I go around hating every can of coke?”

No. We do not go around shaming men; we shame rapists and those who try to suppress our voice. Threatening me into silence only makes me speak louder clearer.

Why is it that you view an attack against the perpetrators as more heinous than the crime itself?

I will not let my rights be violated and I will not let my voice be silenced. It should’ve been your responsibility to defend those whose rights were violated. You could not bring them justice, so we are taking the matter into our own hands. We will speak up for the victims of rape and assault until the day they are given their justice.

X is not the only victim. X symbolizes so much more than just my dearest friend.

X represents the men and women who are victims. X is the voice for the oppressed and silenced.

I don’t ask for much, only justice for X.

Sincerely,

A Determined Voice

To whomever this may concern,

The people in power have failed those who they dedicated their careers to protect. I am a student of Victoria Park Collegiate Institute, writing this letter on the behalf of my dearest friend, who I will refer to as “X” in this letter.

In the 2017-18 school year, X was friends with a male student, “Y”. X wanted to know what the male pectoral muscle felt like, so she gained the consent of Y to feel his. In turn, Y touched X’s breasts. That was consensual, but after that incident, Y began groping X every time they saw each other, namely in the school hallways and in class. The subsequent incidents done by Y were completely against X’s will, as X had verbally rejected Y’s advances. Yet, he continued. Y had vulgarly touched girls without their consent. Y had made disgusting comments about the bodies of his peers. Y had lifted the skirts of girls without their consent. This was all done within the confines of our own school.

In March of 2019, X met with one of the vice principals at Victoria Park C.I, [redacted], to discuss Y. X shared her trauma, and [redacted], a man whose job is to give a voice to those who suffered injustices, told X not to approach the authorities. He never followed up with her after that.

After two months of waiting, X finally reported the incident to the police. It had taken an unimaginable amount of courage for her to step up, and she is still terrified. She is afraid that the authority will not take her seriously. She is afraid that Y and [redacted] will not face consequences for their action and the lack of, respectively. Her fear does not make her a coward. It only reveals the depraved nature of men and women in charge.

The purpose of this letter is to expose and bring light upon the corrupted nature of the school administration. To avoid legal trouble and bad name upon our school, [redacted] and whoever was involved decided to silence X. She had approached [redacted] with hope that she would be given justice, that her voice would be heard. [redacted] and the administration killed that hope in order to keep their reputations spotless. This is why victims don’t report rape.

What Y did was abhorrent. What Karl Calhoun did was ten times more horrendous. He undermined the gravity of the situation; he took away X’s fundamental human rights. We are entitled to a life of equality, dignity, and respect. By telling X to not approach authorities and speak about the violation of her rights, he has taken away her equality and dignity.

He showed whatever physical and psychological pain that X went through cannot compare to the punishment that Y could receive. He showed that even if victims compromised their dignity to speak up, their voices will not be heard.

To those in power, you have failed to protect the weak and the vulnerable. One of your own had showed that his interest only lied within himself. To those who have dedicated their lives to protecting the integrity of society, please let our voices be heard. We are the generation of the future, and the selfish actions of your peers are killing that very future you have worked so hard for.

Oppressing our voices only make us scream louder. Why is it socially acceptable for boys to “be boys” while girls who speak out against social injustices are viewed as the bane of society? You could say that Y’s teenage hormones were the driving force behind his disgusting actions, but we have hormones too. We don’t let the hormonal effects that come with adolescence affect our rationality and compromise the integrity of others. It is laughable that women are considered overly emotional when men like Y and [redacted] let their hormones and selfishness take over their decision-making.

One out of six women have experienced rape, often by those who they trusted the most. X and I had a conversation, just before she went to the police. I said that I would rather be the one out of six women raped. It is a burden that I am willing to take on just so that my friends don’t have to.

My mother once taught me a lesson. If I were ever raped, I should not resist. It is better to live to see another day than for the police to find my lifeless and violated body in an alleyway. I am not sure if I learned the lesson, because I will fight for every last ounce of my integrity.

In the infamous Brock Turner case, the father of the Stanford Rapist stated that “his son should not have to go to prison for ’20 minutes of action’.” For those twenty minutes, the Stanford Rapist was sentenced to six months of imprisonment. He only spent three in the county jail thanks to the judge, who said that prison would have a “severe impact on him”. Have these men in power forgotten that the “20 minutes of action” will haunt the victim for the rest of her life?

People are afraid of being accused of rape. They would have to defend their innocence in court. Their entire futures would be ruined, and the bad name would follow the for the rest of their lives. People are afraid of being raped. They would have to defend their dignity in court, retelling the most traumatizing and private moment of their lives in front of impartial parties. Their futures are ruined. They are labelled as “broken goods” and seen as undesirable by society.

Which one is worse?

We have little faith that Y and [redacted] will receive the punishment they deserve. After all, Y is a bright young man with a promising future, and [redacted] cannot afford to have his life’s legacy brought down by one innocent mistake. Their voices are louder than ours, they command more respect from those with and without power. Why? You tell me.

To those in power, please do not forget about those who lack your voice.

Please consider victims’ promising future, and their future legacy. This incident had left them with unimaginable psychological scars, but this will not be the end of their stories. They can, and will have a promising future. The foundation for a better future will be built knowledge that justice does exist.

Remember, a building with a weak foundation is bound for imminent collapse.

This is not the end. X’s life will not end at 17. She will have to carry that burden for the rest of her life, but she has backup. We will all stand behind her, with her hope lighting our way. Please do not let our voices be silenced and the injustice continue.

Sincerely,

A determined voice.