Emmanuel student says she will leave college after administration’s handling of her rape case
Joanna Vandyke wrote a Facebook post, which went viral, about her decision.
A year ago, Joanna Vandyke was counting down the days until she would start her freshman year at Emmanuel College. Vandyke fell in love with the campus during a tour, but was most impressed by the small student community, which she said was warm and welcoming.
“The people are what I’m going to miss the most,” Vandyke said. “Even if I was only there for a short time, I’m glad I got to be a part of that.”
Vandyke won’t be returning to Emmanuel for her sophomore year of college. She told administrators was raped in March, and, after the Student Code of Conduct board found her alleged rapist “not responsible” for the assault, Vandyke decided she couldn’t go back. She wrote a Facebook post, which has since gone viral with nearly 2,000 shares as of Wednesday afternoon, to explain her decision. Metro first reported the story Tuesday night.
“It is clear to me that you value your reputation more than you value your community,” she wrote to the school in the status. ” The compassion that you spoke so strongly about in the beginning of my time with you was only skin deep. You host events that ’empower’ women like myself to speak freely of issues like sex and race, but these are just empty words. You know that I will be affected by this the rest of my life and for you [to] not acknowledge that any misconduct occurred is shameful.”
The college issued a statement in response, and said it handles all cases in a comprehensive manner that fully complies with Title IX.
“We are deeply concerned about the statements recently presented by a student on social media,” the statement said. “There were more aspects to the account than what was shared on social media by this single party. The facts in this case overwhelmingly supported the Student Conduct Board’s conclusion.”
Vandyke said she matched with her alleged rapist on Tinder, and the pair began exchanging what she calls flirty messages soon after. Vandyke and a friend were playing video games on a Thursday night when he asked what she was doing, according to the Title IX complaint. Vandyke said she was already very drunk at this point, and went to his dorm room. They smoked weed from a bong, which Vandyke had never used before. The last thing she remembers is saying, “I need to sit down.”
She said she woke up to being sexually assaulted, according to the complaint.
In his written statement to the school provided by Vandyke, the alleged rapist said they had sex three times throughout the course of the night. Though they didn’t have a conversation about consent, he wrote, Vandyke was motioning at his genitals and grabbing them.
Vandyke said she left his room before 7 a.m. She showered, went to work, and then right to sleep after she got home from her shift. Because she struggled with blaming herself, Vandyke said she chose not to report the incident to the police, but she did report it to her residence life staff and with campus safety.
“A lot of me feels like it’s my own fault for not having [my friend] with me or not going back to the dorm when I should have,” she said. “But I was clearly too drunk to consent.”
Vandyke struggled in her classes the rest of the semester, as she kept running into him on the small campus she had initially been drawn to.
“[He] stole my confidence and motivation when he assaulted me,” she wrote in her victim statement. “I could not focus the rest of the semester because of what happened. I was unable to sleep because every time I tried I could feel his hand on me. I was unable to succeed because I saw him everywhere.”
The board hearing took place June 29, during which Vandyke found that her alleged rapist was found “not responsible.” It was then that she decided she couldn’t return to the school, and wrote the Facebook post to inform her friends and family of the decision. She’ll be attending North Shore Community College this fall, with the hopes of transferring to Salem State to study nursing.
In the meantime, she’s received many messages from classmates who have expressed similar frustrations with the sexual assault hearing process, as well hundreds from those who support her.
“I’m glad my little voice mattered for something that happened over the course of one year,” she said. “The love and support I’ve gotten back from the [Emmanuel College] community has made all the difference to me.”
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