Three months ago Brock Turner was all anyone could talk about. It wasn’t that he was one of Stanford’s brightest up-and-coming swimmers, it was the fact that he had raped an unconscious woman behind a dumpster and tried to flee the scene once he was caught. To further add to the controversy, the judge assigned to the case, one Aaron Persky, has also been a hot topic as many believe he was much too lenient on Turner and not as concerned as he should have been with his victim. The public outcry was widespread as Turner, found guilty of three felony counts of sexual assault, was sentenced to a mere six-month sentence for his actions. Yet here we are, a short three months later, where the man once considered “public enemy number one” is now free to roam the streets once again.
Many Americans have protested in outrage the fact that Judge Persky, who could have given Turner a fourteen-year sentence for his crime, gave him a mere six months in prison instead. The prosecutor for the case had argued for six years and yet Turner only served three months due to “good behavior.” How is this acceptable? This man brutally assaulted a woman who was unconscious in one of the most intimate and traumatizing ways possible.
Turner is yet another example of a high profile college campus sexual assault case getting brushed under the rug and dismissed by judges across the country. I find the most outrageous part of this whole situation to be how a judge, who swore to uphold the law and morality of the United States of America, can look into the eyes of this woman who is so tormented and distressed- and will be for probably the rest of her life- and say she was “asking for it” or shouldn’t have been by herself. This victim-blaming needs to stop because it was not her fault. The fact that Judge Persky was more worried about the “severe impact” prison would have on Turner than the lifelong trauma that his victim will have to deal with is simply shameful and despicable.
Many people across the nation have expressed their aggravation with this situation such as twenty-year-old Yana Mazurkevich who created a photo series entitled “It Happens” that depicts possible experiences of sexual assault. Mazurkevich hopes to raise awareness for sexual assault and “raise a huge finger to Turner and his 3-month jail time.” This photo series has made its way across the web, trending on social media, and onto national news circuits by doing exactly what Mazurkevich wanted: sparking a nation-wide conversation about sexual assault instead of dismissing it.
Additionally, Ezra Klein and Liz Plank teamed up on Facebook to create a video message meant especially for Turner himself in which they give him a quick “update” on everything he’s missed during the three months he was behind bars. Plank goes from casually mentioning that Frank Ocean let out a new album and that Drake and Rihanna may or may not be dating to the fact that about seventy-five thousand women were raped during his three-month sentence. She further explains how in the wake of Turner’s court case, Stanford has banned hard liquor from all parties on its campus by sarcastically stating, “since we all know that the vodka sodas are to blame [for the sexual assaults], not the rapists”. This video goes about explaining everything Klein and Plank believe is wrong with society in regards to sexual assault and Turner himself in a way that is both witty, engaging, and informative. While the nation continues to call out Turner, Judge Persky, and those that commit and dismiss sexual assault, I urge everyone out there to speak out against this atrocity and help those who you think, see, or hear may be in trouble.
