Written by: Claire Mason and Kimberly Woo
Additional reporting by:Harbani Jaggi and Isabella Krzesniak
Aragon students and faculty members walked to the baseball field on Wednesday, Oct. 17 during second period in support of sexual assault and rape survivors.
Officially called Believe Survivors, the demonstration was organized by Aragon students and the San Mateo Activist Coalition (SMAC). At the demonstration, organizers included poster making and voter registration tables in addition to anonymous letter-writing stations. Students could either write support statements to survivors or about their own experiences with sexual assault or rape.
“It’s really important to at least give people … a little bit of [a] safe outlet where they know they won’t be judged for what happened to them,” said senior and organizer Anisha Tripathi. “It’s just a way for them to express themselves with no danger.”
Seven students publicly spoke about sexual assault. Senior and organizer Alyce Thornhill presented an opening speech for the crowd.
“I talked about how, [according to the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network statistic,] out of every 1000 rapists, 994 walk free,” Thornhill said. “While protesting, posting about it and talking with family members about it [are] important, it’s equally important to register to vote and force politicians to pay attention to these issues.”
Junior Erin McElroy spoke at the demonstration.
“I don’t think that [sexual assault] should happen to anyone,” McElroy said. “I think everyone else who spoke is very brave and I’m proud of everyone who came out here to support this movement.”
According to organizers, ideas for the demonstration started after Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s Senate hearing and confirmation. However, the purpose was broadened to be a demonstration of support for sexual assault survivors.
“This is an issue that can affect anybody regardless of what political party, what race, what gender you are. It’s an overall issue that I think everybody needs to know,” said senior and organizer Cassius Rodriguez-Hayes. “That’s why we’re emphasizing that this is a nonpartisan issue.”
According to event organizer and senior Mayuko Boffelli, SMAC began planning the demonstration approximately two weeks ago where coordinators advertised the demonstration via social media and word-of-mouth. Because of the political nature of the demonstration, it could not be advertised in school announcements. The demonstration on the baseball field also created some problems regarding sound and awareness.
“First of all, a lot of freshmen don’t know where the baseball field is … then also there’s no sound system down on the baseball field [so we had to get a megaphone],” Tripathi said. “We were originally going to have it on the football field, but we can’t disrupt P.E. classes this year.”
Senior Rachel Heath said she believes victims of sexual assault are not being properly addressed.
“The MeToo Movement is the most incredible thing that’s come out of the current presidency and it’s so necessary at this time, especially since it’s been decades and decades of silencing women on their stories of sexual assault,” Heath said. “[The demonstration] kind of coincides, and I’m glad that this movement is sweeping through the country.”
The Believe Survivors demonstration hoped to spread a message about the importance of consent and believing people’s experiences with sexual assault.
“Currently, in this whole political climate, there’s a lot of talk back [about] whether or not this whole MeToo Movement is a witch hunt, whether or not these stories are true, which disregards a bunch of accounts of what has happened to certain people,” Rodriguez-Hayes said. “We don’t want that to be a norm. We want people to feel like they can come out and share their stories and get the justice they are seeking.”
The administration sent the Aragon staff a general email that allowed teachers to set their own policies regarding how to penalize students who walked out.
Orchestra and choir teacher John Chen assigned a four-page essay requiring sources and factual reasoning to the students who walked out of his advanced orchestra class.
“I thought that the students who left the class probably would accept [and] should accept … the conditions of this action,” Chen said. “You should be able to verbalize why you feel strongly about this issue, the factual information you know about this issue, your factual reasonings, statistical reasoning and your opinions about this issue.”
Each teacher can assign make-up task. Health and Physical Education teacher Barbara Beaumont said students who missed her class and did not dress for P.E. were not given points and were given assigned P.E. make-up work.
“The students who left class who were dressed and participated in the eight laps of running, they don’t need to make up the work because they already did the run laps,” Beaumont said.
Health classes address the issue of consent in their relationships and sexual education units, providing resources, such as the Rape Trauma Services (RTS) representatives who come in and speak to Aragon health classes for three days.
“We discuss relationship safety and consent and what healthy or unhealthy relationships look like. We discuss control, power and jealousy in relationships and that in regard to consent as well. We talk about support and clear communication,” Beaumont said.
In the future, there will be upcoming events that inform the community about the importance of consent. The San Mateo Union High School District (SMUHSD) will be hosting a parent workshop about building healthy relationships through consent on Nov. 27. Along with the parent workshop, each school in the district will have mandatory assemblies about the importance of affirmative consent.
