The Jacob Anderson Rape Case Matters And We, As A Society, Must Do Better
I am upset. We must not let this happen again.
I've never been one that loves talking about my political views or other controversial topics, but I must share that in light of the Jacob Anderson case — I feel led to say something.
To recap, in 2016 Jacob Anderson was accused of brutally raping a woman in an alley and left her in the dirt. She woke up almost choking to death on her vomit. Two years later, as the case closes Anderson has been given a plea deal.
The deal is three years of probation, a $400 fine, and he does not have to register as a sex offender.
This is outrageous.
I'm aware that there are details in the case that I do not know, and that the public may not be allowed to know. But I can say that from the outside this continues to set a horrible precedent that even if a woman does everything right and has overwhelming evidence that she has been raped that her rapist can still walk away close to free. And as a current young woman in college, this scares me.
As a current Baylor student, I can attest to the fact that I have never once felt unsafe on campus and the school has done a good job of making the campus safer after the scandal in 2016. But, after telling my parents about this case my dad wondered why he would send his daughter off to college or if McClennan Country recognized how this appears?
As I said, I'm aware I don't have all the details. But regardless, this is wrong. And we must do better. We cannot tell women that it doesn't matter if you do the right thing, if you have witnesses, if you remember what happened, if you got tested because the justice system will continue to let this happen. We cannot be satisfied with this outcome, and we must never stop being appalled at these results and start to accept that it's the norm. We must do better.
