The FREE Center event is to be hosted in Room 165 at Thompson Library, where there will be panels, lunch and a collaborative art piece titled “A Textile of Hope and Healing – Arts Intervention and Procession”. Credit: Dalina Houangvilay | Lantern Reporter
Ohio State’s Center for Feminist Research, Education and Engagement will hold a conversation regarding sexual violence and accountability at the university – and on an international scale – at its kickoff event this Thursday.
The free event is titled “Sexual Violence and Accountability at OSU and Beyond: Feminist Conversations” and will be held at Thompson Library from 10:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Thursday. It includes a panel discussion, lunch, book talk and a collaborative art project.
According to Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies professor and Feminist Research, Education and Engagement – or FREE – Center board member Guisela Latorre, this event is about providing people with the space where they feel they can talk about sexual violence.
“We were coming from the place of realizing that there has been so many things that have happened at Ohio State that relate to sexual violence, to trafficking and that we hear more about those things outside of Ohio State,” Latorre said. “But in Ohio State proper, we hardly have those dialogues.”
The event website cited former university President Ted Carter’s resignation, Les Wexner’s ties to Jeffrey Epstein and the documentary Surviving Ohio State, as reasons for the event to hold conversations like this one.
Wexner, billionaire, founder of L Brands and Ohio State’s biggest donor, was named in released court documents as related to Epstein’s child sex trafficking ring as a co-conpirator. Ohio State has not directly addressed these documents.
Audrey Yates, a fourth-year in Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies, said that Ohio State does not acknowledge these issues well, and that is part of why the department believes this event is so important.
“It’s especially disheartening to survivors of sexual assault. I am one. I know many,” Yates said. “It adds to this feeling of, if you can see this and not do anything about it, why would you do anything to help us?”
Lily Sheehan, a Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies professor and FREE Center board member, said the event’s speakers were chosen to provide diverse perspectives.?
“We wanted a range of voices. Somebody who is in the community and is an alum of OSU, somebody who’s a law professor and has that expertise, somebody else who works with survivors of sexual violence and supports them and somebody else whose research is in sexual violence, both locally and globally,” Sheehan said. “We felt like it would be really important to show the many different ways that one could connect with and think about these things.”
#MeToo and the Politics of Transnational Feminism authors Chaitanya Lakimsetti and Vanita Reddy will hold the book talk. The panel will include speakers like Ohio State professor and lawyer Camille Hébert and Ohio State health behavior and health promotion assistant professor HB Franchino-Olsen, as well as others.
The event also focuses on art as a way of connection, according to Sheehan, in reference to the collaborative art project where participants have the opportunity to write words of hope on a fabric banner in support of those impacted by sexual violence.
Representatives from the Sexual Assault Response Network of Central Ohio will also be in attendance at the event to support survivors in the audience who need to step out if the topics become too heavy, Sheenan said.
Latorre said the event is dedicated to sharing dialogue and open conversation. However, she said she would also like to see Ohio State have more transparency on matters of sexual violence and even changes in the way that Title XI operates to, in her opinion, better support victims.
“We’re hoping that everybody sees this not as an event that is meant to point fingers at anyone,” Latorre said. “We would much prefer for people to come out of this event and think about how the problem is more systemic, that it cannot be reduced to a single person. The person may potentially come out of that event, thinking about, ‘what have I done to promote this culture or sustain this culture violence? How am I complicit too?’”
Yates said they hope people engage with and learn from the FREE Center. They also said that the event is a good place for survivors and people who have not experienced sexual violence to interact, support each other and learn about resources.
“If even one person finds some level of healing, or someone who hasn’t experienced sexual violence learns something important that they didn’t know before, I think that’s great,” Yates said. “Obviously, I want more than just one person, but every one person that learns is someone who will teach someone else or help someone else.”
