Read the cover story about sexual assault here
Dear SME,
Nobody knows East better than the ones who share its stories. The spirit, the heart, the passion – we see it every day. We feel safe here. But we also see that East can reflect society as a whole. And society has a problem.
Unfortunately, we felt this problem first-hand. In the midst of the pain and uncertainty, our administrators are doing the best they can. It’s easy to find problems, it’s not always easy to fix them.
Last Wednesday, you received a poll from us. We asked you important questions, 511 of you bravely answered. Forty-three of you were willing to share how sexual assault has affected you. But our statistics show there are more.
Hearing these stories was incredibly important to us. Know that even if your experience was not explicitly discussed, each became a part of a larger story: sexual assault affects our society.
It’s for this reason we are resurfacing the past. It’s not to retraumatize or to attack, it’s to begin the healing process that so badly needs to happen. With this project that will be continued online, we don’t intend to spark a conversation of fear, rather a conversation of change.
These conversations are hard. They’re hard with our peers, they’re hard with our schools, they’re hard with our communities. If we are active now, these conversations will no longer be necessary. This could be the beginning of the last.
We won’t let this fade. We won’t let you fade.
-The Editors