As survivors on this campus, we would like to stand in full solidarity with the female athletes whose athletic community has failed them. The presence of Adam Ritz on our campus has not only hurt other survivors, but it has undermined and ignored all the progress our community has made towards addressing sexual assault awareness.
While we understand the need to have an athlete-only conversation and applaud the initiative, the organizers of this event have utterly failed to correctly address this topic. By doing so in a cloud of ambiguity, it reinforces the idea that solely athletes perpetuate violence. As survivors, our collective narrative proves that to be wrong.
The lack of communication and intentionality that occurred while executing this event has highlighted an overarching problem of transparency found across our campus. To not notify the campus of this event or caution survivors still dealing with trauma about the presence of a registered sex offender, given the ongoing federal Title IX investigation and during Sexual Assault Awareness Month, was an egregious error to say the least.
We would like to ask our peers to take a moment to reflect on where this pain and anger is coming from. To be a victim of sexual assault is to have your autonomy taken away — an act of pure violence on a human body. To choose to live each day after is an act of resistance. We would like for our community to acknowledge the mistakes made by our institution in the form of a public forum about the culture of sexual assault on our campus. There is not enough space to fully explain the ramifications of this act, but it is our belief that our community will come together to right this wrong.
With love and in solidarity,
Ines Sanchez De Lozada and Teresa Bedzigui