Student Allegedly Assaulted in Bias Incident Tuesday
Updated at 7:42 a.m. on October 30
A female student was assaulted on Tuesday night after being harassed on the basis of her perceived sexual orientation, according to a Department of Public Safety Public Safety Alert.
Two men reportedly made derogatory comments about her perceived orientation as the student was walking on Canal Road near the entrance to campus at 9:10 p.m. on Tuesday. The student said she was wearing a shirt indicating support for gay rights at the time. The suspects allegedly blocked the student’s path, took her book bag, taunted her, hit her on the upper torso, pushed her to the ground and struck her with the bag. The suspects then fled in the direction of Foxhall Road, according to the PSA.
The student sustained minor injuries but did not require treatment, the PSA said. The suspects were described as white males in their late 20s.
The reported assault elicited reactions from members of GU Pride, Georgetown’s primary LGBTQ student group. Members said at a meeting last night that they were pleased with the university’s reaction to the assault.
“The university did a really good job of getting the word out, and that’s different from the past,” GU Pride Co-Social Chair Ellen Greer (SFS ’11) said.
The student reported the incident to DPS at about 5:44 p.m. on Wednesday, according to the PSA. The PSA was sent to the campus community shortly before 11 p.m. on Wednesday.
GU Pride members expressed concerns at the meeting about the language of the PSA, which did not mention the alleged physical assault. Some said they or their friends were not immediately aware that the assault was physical as well as verbal.
The complete PSA, available on the DPS Web site, specified that the student was physically assaulted. Officials at the LGBTQ Resource Center met with the complainant less than 24 hours after the incident to ensure that she was connected to the proper resources, according to a statement Shiva Subbaraman, the director of the center, read at the meeting.
“I encouraged the student to submit a formal [DPS] report, which [she] had not done when they came to see me, so that we could send out a formal PSA,” Subbaraman said.
DPS notified the Metropolitan Police Department of the incident and MPD is leading an investigation. Josh Mogil (SFS ’11), a Georgetown University Student Association senator who recently introduced a bill allowing the senate to discussion the incorporation of a harsher penalty for hate crimes into the Student Code of Conduct, expressed his disappointment with Georgetown’s recent history of bias-related assaults.
“This act is just another in a long line of incidents based on evil intolerance,” he said.
Members of GU Pride also discussed future events designed to raise awareness of hate crimes. Members and allies of GU Pride plan to wear shirts expressing support for LGBTQ rights today, as well as table in Red Square from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and gather between classes from 11:55 a.m. to 12:15 p.m.
“We’re not going to let members of our community get assaulted. We’re just not,” Greer said.
Oct 29 2009 at 8:41 p.m.
It's good to know it was so harrowing she had to wait almost a full day before reporting it. Instead two jerkwads get away with typicial drunken idiot B.S.
Oct 30 2009 at 1:09 a.m.
Hey Randy,
Considering the exact circumstances surrounding her situation are not public knowledge, I think it is premature and unwise to blame the victim. But I do hope that Georgetown will have a university-wide realization that attacks like this ARE typical, as you wrote. Hopefully such a conversation could create a greater focus on the problem of homophobia and other types of hate crimes that are experienced by nearly all minorities at GU, and it is inexcusable.
Also, please everyone use biasreporting.georgetown.edu to report any harassment seen on campus.
Oct 30 2009 at 2:06 p.m.
Rob,
I checked out biasreporting.georgetown.edu. Seems like a good resource. One concern though. Here's the (surely synthesized) definition of a Hate Crime in D.C. (according to the website):
>>
I don't mean to be coy, but I frankly don't know what sort of hate crimes can be derived from "marital status," "family responsibility," or "matriculation." Some thoughts:
Is there really an anti-single people syndicate roaming the streets? Or anti-married people? Or anti-polygamist? I'd love to be sensitive to the appropriate community but I literally don't know how.
Family responsibility? I guess maybe this means like welfare? Or maybe food stamps? Conceivably abortion/adoption? If it means one of these, I guess I see the point; but, honestly, I just don't know what the term implies. This is problematic.
Matriculation? Um...what? Can I get in trouble for informing GW students that it's alright, it's okay, they're gonna pump my gas someday?
Just thoughts, as I said, but with a serious implication: how we define a protected group matters, as does how/why we choose some groups over others.
Oct 30 2009 at 7:07 p.m.
Randy,
As the victim of the assault, I would like to inform you that I did, in fact, report the incident to university officials less than two hours after it happened. I filed a Bias Incident Report using the form that Rob has indicated. I did not notify DoPS immediately because although I am a student at Georgetown, this incident occurred off-campus (farther off-campus, actually, than the PSA describes--I've no idea why they chose to say the incident occurred near the Canal Road entrance when it actually occurred almost a mile away). Notifying the "real" police was naturally more of an inclination for me. Also, I (falsely) assumed that DoPS would somehow catch wind of what happened through my filling out the Bias Incident Report. As the reporting system was (thankfully) a new experience for me, I had no idea how the process would play out. If you are offended by the fact that I didn't go to DoPS right away, I apologize. However, don't assume that this wasn't a big deal for me. I want my attackers to be found just as badly as you do, which it why I have continued to work closely with MPD in their investigation.
Enjoy your weekend, and be safe walking home at night.
Oct 30 2009 at 7:29 p.m.
This is not "typicial drunken idiot B.S.". This is hateful and unacceptable behavior.
Nov 04 2009 at 7:38 p.m.
Dear Anonymous,
As the mother of a gay Georgetown student, let me express my deepest sorrow that you had to endure this horrible experience. I can only imagine the pain that you and your family are going through because of this. The intollerence that still exists in our world today is beyond my comprehension. It breaks my heart that this happened to you.
When I was your age the hatred existed, but the acts of violence seemed fewer (or maybe they were just less publicized), probably because less gays were brave enough to live their lives as openly as they do today. In seeing how the people of your generation seem to be more accepting of the differences in each other, I had become more hopeful that my child would not have to endure the painful and hidden life of those that went before him. But,as time goes by my hope is waning. I am becoming more disheartened as these incidents are becoming more and more frequent.
So I ask, no, I BEG all of you young (and old, for that matter) people out there to stop this violence and abandon this attitude of intollerence. You may think you are immune to these happenings, but just wait. You never know which one of you will have a child who will one day come to you and tell you they're gay. Then tell me how you feel knowing that what happened to this young girl could happen to your child. Maybe if you all tried living with that thought every day of your life you wouldn't be so quick to inflict your prejudice on another human being.
My thoughts and prayers go out to you and your family, anonymous. I only wish I could do more.
Jan 22 2010 at 4:27 p.m.
For you jerks who dont wanna classify DPS not DoPS you dummies as real police stop calling them then. Period