Graduate becomes advocate for survivors and reform

Three years ago, Sarah Gilchriese was ready to graduate from CVHS. In her four years, she had been on the track and field team and a part of The Olympian staff since she was a sophomore. Even in the last months of being a high school student, she was motivated to finish off her senior year strong.

Today, Gilchriese has spurred a federal investigation occurring at her college, the University of Colorado Boulder, concerning the violation of Title IX, an educational amendment that prohibits school campuses from having a hostile environment. She is, in fact, the reason it occurred at all.

Last February, Gilchriese was sexually assaulted by a fellow Boulder student, she said. She turned to the university, which has a disciplinary system separate from state law enforcement.

“There’s a really big difference between the university and the police,” explains Gilchriese. “What universities typically do is interview the two parties, so they interview the person who makes the statement and says ‘I was the victim of the crime’ and then they interview the other person and interview witnesses if there are some. The proof level is a lot different.”

The process, known as 50 percent and a feather, is standard procedure at universities. Although assaulters do not receive any legal repercussions through the system, those like Gilchriese’s rapist can be persecuted in a matter of months, not years as through local police.

The university found Gilchriese’s attacker guilty of “non-consensual sexual intercourse” (the school is not allowed the use the word “rape,” as it is considered a criminal term.) After discovering her attacker violated several policies in the school’s code of conduct, the university decided he would have to do three things: pay a $75 fine, write a five to ten page “reflection paper,” and be suspended for eight months. He was not required to attend sexual harassment counseling, a sanction that would have required him to be cleared  by an advisor before returning to the university.

Removing the rapist from campus took the university another four and a half weeks, during which time Gilchriese says he was allowed to stay within the boundaries of the college, attend class, and play his club sport.

With the stark reality of having her attacker back at the university by December 2013, Gilchriese was forced to take more drastic action in order to stop him from returning for the next two years she would be on campus. She applied for and was granted a permanent protection order (PPO) by the state of Colorado, which prevents her assaulter from coming within 100 yards of her and the CU Boulder campus, even after she has graduated. Yet her security came with a literal price, one much higher than that paid by her attacker.

Gilchriese’s story is not uncommon; in CU Boulder’s 138 year history, only one person has been expelled for sexual assault. He subsequently appealed and was allowed to graduate. And even though Gilchriese had managed to stop her attacker from ever coming in contact with her again, the ordeals required to make it happen had come with months of financial and emotional burden. It was at this point that she contacted her local Office for Civil Rights (OCR), and CU Boulder became one of the over 30 universities currently being investigated by the federal government for violation of Title IX.

When Gilchriese spurred the investigation, she was faced with a decision: to remain anonymous or share her story with the media. Ultimately Gilchriese decided to make herself public, and in doing so made herself a face of the growing resistance against the current treatment and discussion of rape at universities.

“The more publicity you get for your case, the more the university has to counteract it,” she says.

Since her announcement, Gilchriese’s story has been picked up by news organizations like Huffington Post, and stirred up nationwide controversy, with many voicing outrage at the situation and some donors refusing to support the university. The students’ response, however, was very different.

“People really don’t care, which is the sad part,” says Gilchriese. “I think a lot of people live in ignorance (of the situation).”

Gilchriese now focuses on educating incoming college students on issues of sexual assault and consent to prevent situations like hers from occurring again.

“People talk to me after (speaking publicly) and say, ‘Your story sounds so similar to mine but I didn’t think it was assault,’” said Gilchriese. “Part of the education process is when you say what consent is not. People realize ‘Oh, if I’m drunk or if I don’t say an enthusiastic yes it’s not consent.’”

And even though education in college is a first step, Gilchriese believes the way to effectively create change is to teach high school students, in the years when many of the mindsets and experiences are developed about sex.

“You need to start a conversation,” said Gilchriese. “Having education in high school starts that conversation.”