Student: ‘I didn’t get assaulted and it still messed me up’

Early morning. The blackness is shouldered aside as the sky blooms. Crimsons first, then golds and blues and jades.

When I look out the window as I get on the phone, the words Mr. Rogers used to sing on his TV program come to mind: “It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood.”

The young lady I’m speaking with — we often watched Mr. Rogers together when she was little — doesn’t spend much time talking about the dawn of a new day.

On this day we talk about rape on college campuses.

So goes a Labor Day weekend discussion with one of my daughters in the wake of former Stanford student Brock Turner’s Friday release from jail — he spent three months behind bars for the sexual assault of an unconscious woman.

After Brock was sentenced last year to six months in jail by California Judge Aaron Persky — the star swimmer for Stanford got off in half that time because of good behavior — it sparked a national debate about campus rape and judicial discretion.

“It’s disgusting a judge gave him a slap on the wrist,” my daughter said.

That we’re having this Saturday conversation at a new dawning isn’t a downer, not a sign that darkness somehow imprisons my daughter’s soul.

It’s a good thing. For far too long she couldn’t talk about what happened to her — and what almost happened to her — without sobbing.

She went to a gathering a couple years ago where someone spiked her drink. Today, she believes — as do authorities — the reason she wasn’t raped is because her roommate found her drugged and got her back to their apartment.

Doctors found she wasn’t raped.

Still, the experience so unnerved her — she kept wondering who’d do such a thing — she dropped out of college.

Counselors couldn’t stop her thinking about how close she came to a rape. And anti-anxiety drugs didn’t keep her from freaking out every time she passed the building where the drugging occurred.

To feel more secure, she moved in with relatives.

Though still living there, she entered another university. She’s healing.

“I know I was lucky — I didn’t get assaulted and it still messed me up,” she said

My daughter wonders, as do I, whether sexual assault will ever become less of a problem on college campuses.

A federal study released in January found that as many as one in four women experience sexual assault at college, though the vast majority never report it.

Some don’t because they fear authorities will do little or nothing — research studies and Turner’s case show that’s a legitimate concern.

Others don’t because they feel guilty about drinking too much, yet intoxication should not be an invitation to rape.

As I told my daughter, I doubt there will be much change in how college women are treated as long as there are fathers who think as Brock Turner’s does. Remember, Dan Turner wrote a disgusting letter asking for probation for his son to Judge Persky, who turned out to be a kindred spirit.

Turner wrote that any time in prison for his son would be too much to pay for “20 minutes of action.” He also said his son was never violent.

If that doesn’t give you an indication of how Brock Turner turned into a pervert, nothing does. Like father, like son — a woman is there for a man’s gratification.

Do I believe the vast majority of young men who’ve assaulted women on college campuses had fathers and grandfathers and great grandfathers who agree with Dan Turner’s reasoning? You bet. I’ve heard similar macho crap in the military, in bars, in locker rooms, in corporate America. As long as it’s not their kin or a friend’s kin, they believe whatever a man can get away with is cool.

Too often mothers of sons give their tacit approval through their silence.

As the Turner case unwinds, what can’t be forgotten is how he was caught: Two young men saw Turner grinding against a woman’s unconscious body. When he ran, they chased him down, pinning him to the ground until police arrived.

Thank God respect for women is still what most parents instill in their sons.

Paul Harasim’s column runs Sunday, Tuesday and Friday in the Nevada section and Thursday in the Life section. Contact him at pharasim@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-5273. Follow @paulharasim on Twitter