

An Account Of Sexual Assault At Amherst College - ntkachov
http://inthecac.com/2012/10/18/reprint-an-account-of-sexual-assault-at-amherst-college/

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droithomme
Excellent article and I'm glad I read it, very interesting. Probably totally
off topic for Hacker News though.

Summary for those who don't have time to read (it's long): she was raped, when
she tried to report it was discouraged and told to go for counseling instead,
did so. Since no one was listening to her she was upset and depressed. She was
then declared mentally ill and forcibly institutionalized. The college then
tried to use the hospitalization to block her from returning, claiming
substance abuse (which wasn't true), until someone at the hospital pointed out
to them that they were punishing the victim while the rapist goes free. So she
was allowed back, but administration thwarted all her academic plans, while
continuing to use the forced hospitalization as an excuse to control her life.
In essence she was raped a second time.

It's not isolated either, a couple of other former students confirm similar
handling of their own sex assaults in comments in the original published
article. 'Daniel' reports the school trying to send him to a psychiatric
hospital after reporting an assault. 'Kirby' reports similar attempts to shame
her into not pressing charges. These reports suggest this is not an isolated
incident but is an unwritten policy.
[http://amherststudent.amherst.edu/?q=article%2F2012%2F10%2F1...](http://amherststudent.amherst.edu/?q=article%2F2012%2F10%2F17%2Faccount-
sexual-assault-amherst-college)

These stories are similar to other accounts I have heard of how rape victims
are treated. It's clear many institutions have policies of containment, and
disenfranchisement, and will use forced institutionalization as a weapon to
create someone who is then quite easy to completely discredit, by simply
bringing up that they had been institutionalized. Makes the nasty rape
statistics go away and the college gets to maintain its record of low crime
incidence.

Worth noting Amherst is named after Lord Amherst, who was the insidious
individual who approved the idea of giving smallpox infected blankets to
indians as a form of germ warfare. (for skeptics, here is an actual letter in
his handwriting saying so:
[http://www.nativeweb.org/pages/legal/amherst/34_41_114_fn.jp...](http://www.nativeweb.org/pages/legal/amherst/34_41_114_fn.jpeg))

Amherst lives up to its namesake, but unfortunately many other colleges work
the same way.

