Kamilah Willingham, who faced intense scrutiny when she appeared in the film The Hunting Ground after accusing a fellow Harvard Law student of sexually assaulting her and another woman, talked about those that #MeToo has left behind.
..But it was Willingham who felt like roadkill in this process. In March 2016, she responded to the letter by Harvard Law faculty in an editorial clearly articulating the implications of their treatment of her case to a larger environment facing black women on campuses.
“Even while claiming without evidence that Black men are disproportionately and wrongly implicated in on-campus sexual assault proceedings, you — charged with shaping some of the brightest legal minds in the country — ignore well-established research on the disproportionate rate at which women of color are sexually assaulted. It is for these women that I write.”
On episode fourteen of OC87 Recovery Diaries on the Radio, we talk with Kamilah Willingham, a woman who is forthcoming about disclosure, despite her university’s wish that she remain silent.
On Wednesday, September 27, an incredibly inspiring speech was given in San Diego State University by feminist writer, speaker, social justice activist, and prisoner rape survivor advocate: Kamilah Willingham….
Kamilah’s story of strength in overcoming and growing from a tragic situation made a tremendous impact on the majority of the attending students.
PODCAST: Survivors On Surviving Trump & Co. — w/ @kamily #DearBetsy #KatieSpeakShow Ep100 08/05/2017
Welcome to Episode ONE-HUNDRED! Anti-violence advocate, writer, speaker, all-around badass Kamilah Willingham is back to talk about surviving as a survivor in an era of Trump & co. — including Betsy Devos. We discuss our assaults in detail (it’ll be clear by my question that it’s coming up for those who need to skip ahead) and talk about our strategies for enduring.
Survivor activist and attorney Kamilah Willingham told me, “These myths and the norms they evoke are employed routinely to discredit sexual assault survivors. Rapists’ defense attorneys know they can rely on juries’ susceptibility to these unexamined myths, and more often than not, they are successful.”
“To every victim and survivor of sexual violence who reads this: I want you to know that you are not alone. I want you to know that no matter where you were or what you did before or after the fact, what happened to you is not your fault. Finally, and most importantly, I want you to know that there is more than one way to be brave. Even if you are not as vocal as I am, even if you didn’t report it or never told anyone about it, don’t think for a second that that means you are not strong or courageous…”
— Kamilah Willingham
Members of the university community filled the seats for Willingham’s talk, where she discussed the story of her assault and its aftermath, which was featured in the 2015 documentary “The Hunting Ground.” …
She made it clear that the intention of her speech was not to focus on her assailant, but to bring attention to the flawed policy of university administrations that enable sexual violence through corrupt policy and inaction.
After broadcasting their first few #JustSaySorry burnings on Facebook—including one in which Willingham set fire to the Harvard Law School acceptance letter that she had thought she would want to hold onto forever—Wanjuki and Willingham won a grant from the Awesome Foundation, an organization that gives out micro-grants, to produce a professional video for the project...
Willingham says that how men define their masculinity will inevitably shape how they talk about women...
“There’s still this misconception that there’s something to be gained by being a victim of sexual assault. … Rehashing a painful moment publicly is not fun, especially when you know that so many people who hear that story are cultured to question you.”
—Kamilah Willingham
As Kamilah Willingham, a sexual assault survivor and SB813 advocate, told Broadly, the bill's passage gave her "renewed hope in legislative reform, and the idea that legislative reform will eventually create a justice system that is safe for survivors."
Willingham worked at the California Women's Law Center when the first draft of SB 813 was submitted to legislators. "It was pretty exciting to be a part of this process," she says, "especially because it was something that so many people thought would never happen."
"I think we're in a moment where the world is finally valuing and paying attention to the voices and experiences of survivors of sexual assault."
“This is exactly what we’re talking about when we say that university administrations model a culture of denial rather than one of accountability,” Willingham said...
“I think it’s a terrible idea for him to go on campus educating about rape and rape culture,” said Kamilah Willingham, an activist who appeared in “The Hunting Ground,” the campus rape documentary. “He still doesn’t get it. He’s trying to have it both ways.”
Harvard Law School student and sexual assault survivor Kamilah Willingham said that like Turner’s victim, she was raped while unconscious. Unlike Turner’s victim, who remained incapacitated until the next morning, she woke up in the middle of her assault.
“I reported it even though I know how low conviction and prosecution rates are,” she said. “I knew that in order to have a shot at justice, you have to prove not only what happened to you but that you weren’t asking for it. … I thought that my assailant would be held accountable. I was wrong.”
Kamilah Willingham, who reported that she was sexually assaulted while a student at Harvard Law School, called Persky part of the problem. “Because even if the police believe you, even if the prosecutors believe you, even if against all odds the jurors believe you, at the end of the day, that can all be undermined,” she said...
“Poor Brock, he has to carry the stigma of being known as a rapist,” she said sarcastically. “People like his victim and people like me have to live with that for the rest of our lives too. We live with the nightmares, we live with the flashbacks… This wasn’t a youthful mistake, it’s not an inevitability of co-ed party culture.”
Some nights, Kamilah Willingham would lie awake, unable to fall asleep until the sun came up and she felt safe again. The 30-year-old Los Angeles activist says the trauma of surviving sexual assault affected her physical and mental wellbeing, and although it’s been five years, there are still days when she struggles to get out of bed.
In recent months, however, she has made a concerted effort to be more open about her emotional scars, in large part because she was so moved by the viral impact statement of the sexual assault victim at Stanford University.
The four young women, whose campus sexual assaults were detailed in the documentary 'The Hunting Ground,' said the song will help other victims feel less "isolated or alone."