Creating a new Spartan warrior, supporting survivors

On the creation of a new Spartan warrior supporting survivors
The Title IX Warrior, known as ixw (Iota Chi Omega)

The Spartan rule of war is “with your shield or on it” according to my retired Marine friend. He continued that “you stand at the gate and defend your family to the death against attackers” as he recognized that I was deadly serious in my pursuit of justice. My friend has tempered the steel of my anger, so that it is sharp, pointed and flexible. The brittleness of my hatred for my daughter’s assailant has gone, replaced with a strategic efficiency to complete the mission. When the spear strikes the target, it will not miss. Or, I will come home on my shield.

You see, I have become a warrior because my daughter has survived sexual assault twice. The first time at the hands of high school boyfriend, home from induction into the Army. At the end of their relationship, she told him to stop, and he didn’t. He hurt her badly, and started her onto the warrior path. Her mother and I did not help in that moment of her highest need, and nearly broke her completely. She soon went on to Arizona State University, as a hurting, grieving freshman. She encountered a group of college boys on a Thursday at a fraternity house with a criminal record. We got a call at 6 am from the Tempe police, who had taken her to get a SANE kit completed. I flew down on that Friday morning to help begin the process of healing with my daughter, my wife, my family. It is a journey I did not want to start.

Now, I am conscious of her pain, her self-discovery and her ongoing recovery. Her mother and I tell her how much we love her daily, and try to help in her process of healing. She has moved home from ASU, after surviving 200 days of inquiry with the dean’s office after a semester in school where she sometimes could not get out of bed. Who really gives a shit, really, when all trust in the world is gone? I do, I am her father. Her mother and I do, we love her.

In the background, since the day of her February 2015 assault, I have been crafting that warrior armor, the spear — for myself, and for her, if she calls for it. I stand down, waiting for her call to arms. It is not important that she call for arms, only that they are ready at the moment of need. On that Friday, I told her that I would burn down the fraternity and the university if she asked, and if she thought that it would help restore her. I believe she is still pondering that as part of her restoration. I will let her heal, in her own time, in her own way. Making the armor for her soul is my task of healing, my penance for failing to open my heart soon enough to surround her pain.

Here are the circumstances at Arizona State. The dean’s office investigation was inconclusive as to the perpetrator’s role. My daughter was drunk, believed she was drugged, and transported to the perpetrator’s dorm room, then raped. The dean said that the fraternity house was “rogue” and was not under the jurisdiction of ASU discipline through the Office of Student Rights and Responsibility (OSSR) or under the disciplinary sanctioning power of Fraternity and Sorority Life (FSL). AT that first encounter, the ASU police misidentified the university dorm as an off-campus residence apartment. The police officer lied. I now believe the dean lied. The fraternity was an active house, under sanctions. Fifty-three members were expelled in January 2015, shortly after FSL had placed the fraternity in good standing. It was a lie of convenience by the dean. The ASU police lied. A drunk young woman didn’t identify the place of her assault, the police officer did. She was unconscious. The identified location was conveniently off campus. Both lied: the dean and the policeman. Sweeping Title IX responsibility under the rug. Victimizing my daughter further by undermining the process systemically. The perpetrator lived in a dorm, Tempe Police discovered that. Under the rug at the Dean’s office. I now stand at the gate, shield on one arm, spear in my hand, and sword at my side. I stand with twice that armament, on vigil, waiting.