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Temple Fest President Ray Epstein and Vice President Val Torres officially introduced SAASA to the student body at our first-ever Temple Fest! SAASA Resource Center We have published the newly compiled SAASA Resource Center, which provides the latest information on how and where to report sexual violence on and off campus, where to access testing and treatment, and get counseling. Access the Resource Center here.
Title IX Resource We have produced a Title IX resource, outlining your rights under the law, which prohibits sexual discrimination in public education settings. Every school is required to have a Title IX Coordinator. Andrea Caporale Seiss is the Title IX Coordinator at Temple. You can read the Title IX Resource here.
Grown is available in the bookstore! Events Coordinator Gabrielle Vomero delivered us a major win by securing the purchase and display of the novel Grown by Tiffany D. Jackson. The novel portrays the experience of Enchanted Jones, an aspiring 17-year-old singer, who meets an established R&B singer, Korey Fields. The story is loosely based on the allegations of recently convicted R&B singer R. Kelly. You can get the book at:
Student Center Book Store (13th St. and Montgomery Ave.)
First SAASA Bake Sale SAASA had its first ever fundraising bake sale! We raised over $320 to contribute towards future events, programming and outreach. Below are Venmo and Cash App QR codes, if you would like to support SAASA.
HEALING SECTION
If you, a family member, or a friend have survived sexual violence and would like to share your story and healing/coping process, and would like to be featured in the next newsletter issue (anonymous by default), visit and complete THIS GOOGLE FORM.
R. Kelly Conviction
R&B singer R. Kelly was convicted by a federal grand jury in September on several counts of child pornography and sexual enticement of a minor. Kelly, 55, was found guilty of three counts of child pornography and three counts of child enticement (AP News).
Annual Report on Sexual Assault in the Military
The report, released yearly, highlights the pervasiveness of sexual assault in the military.
Sexual assault and sexual harassment remain persistent and corrosive problems across the military
8.4 percent of active duty service women reported unwanted sexual contact (USC) in FY21 and 1.5 percent of active duty men reported USC.
less than half of women perceived their leaders as fully supportive after they reported
Why don't service members report?
They thought it wasn't that serious
They thought no action would be taken You can read the report in full here.
Gun control: Closing the Boyfriend Loophole President Joe Biden signed a bill on June 25th which greatly expanded gun control. The bill provides provisions to close the boyfriend loophole. This means that anyone convicted of domestic violence will not be able to purchase a gun if they have a current or past "continuing serious relationship of a romantic or intimate nature with the victim." After five years, a convicted abuser can purchase guns again if they have not been convicted of a violent crime during that time. Before the bill, a person convicted of domestic violence would still be able to purchase a gun unless they were married, had children or lived with the victim (AP News).
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Keep This Between Us TV Show Review Tanner Wood STARS Coordinator Keep This Between Us is an eye-opening account of the catastrophic failures of America’s educational institutions in protecting students from grooming and abuse by educators. It begins with an examination by the docuseries director, Cheryl Nichols, of her own abuse story at the hands of a trusted teacher in high school. She seeks to gain insight into the effects that a misogynist school environment had on preventing her story from being heard.
As the series progresses stories from other survivors across the nation are shared and the systemic issue of abuse by educators is put into the spotlight. It depicts the horrific reality of a legal and educational system designed not to protect victimized students who are children, but instead to silence their voices and allow abusers to move schools with impunity from their actions. Shockingly, it is revealed in the series that abusers are fired without note of abuse to future employers or allowed to resign and transfer schools three separate times before the involvement of law enforcement. The series also depicts the severe failures of the legal system in responding to educational abuse. It features the story of abuse survivor Heaven Rubin, who at seventeen was groomed into a relationship with her thirty-seven-year-old teacher Jason Myers. Despite Myers being arrested in 2016 with an onslaught of criminal charges for the abuse, he has still yet to face trial and is out on bond in 2022. This failure of the legal system leaves survivors like Heaven unheard and out of options to pursue justice.
Keep This Between Us was a jarring correction to my own privileged perspective that failed to see the epidemic of grooming and abuse by educators occurring every day throughout high schools and universities across the nation. The series offers a profound viewpoint into a schooling system that allows this to happen. It is a system that enables abusers to move schools to avoid allegations, allows teachers to intimidate student victims into silence, and hires psychologists to make repulsive testimony that victims are "not traumatized by abuse." It is ultimately a “system that lacks the courage to hold these people accountable.” Keep This Between Us provokes outrage in the viewer that demands an immediate reform to how America’s schools operate. “We’ve had a reckoning for the Catholic Church, we’ve had a reckoning in film, and now it’s time for a reckoning in schools.”
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