Parachutes

While most of these cases were perpetrated by other students, an alarming and increasing subset are being perpetrated by teachers. In 2014, almost eight hundred school
employees were prosecuted for sexual assault.3 According to a study commissioned by the Department of Education, 10 percent of students surveyed said they have experienced sexual misconduct at the hands of school employees. Of the students who said they were abused, 38 percent were elementary students and 56 percent were in middle or high school.4 Many of these predatory teachers get dismissed and rehired, a system known as “passing the trash.” It’s a devastating problem that affects both public and private schools, including some of the most prestigious boarding schools in the nation.5

We cut through People’s Park. He stares at the umbrellas on the ground, fingers squeezed into his pockets. It’s a marriage market day. The sidewalks are lined with umbrellas. On each umbrella, there’s a piece of paper taped to it advertising an unmarried girl. They call them “leftover women,” meaning women over thirty who have not yet married, a fate considered worse than death

“You have a voice. Let me help you find it.”

While I can’t get back those three years of law school, I hope that through writing Parachutes, more schools will prioritize protecting the students, not the brand.

Then, the other bomb dropped: the university was now investigating me for “malicious prosecution.”

Instead, I went to the university nurse, got the rape tests done, told the dean of students what happened, switched dorms, and filed an anonymous report to the police.

Still, I did not formally file charges against my attacker because I was young, I was scared, and I had reason to believe that my attacker had a close and material relationship with the senior management of Harvard Law School.

According to a study commissioned by the Department of Education, 10 percent of students surveyed said they have experienced sexual misconduct at the hands of school employees.

She waves around her yogurt spoon as she says, “Girl, justice is something Americans invented to sell movies.”

My mom says that apologies are like coconuts, best served ripe. But dried and hardened, they can be pretty sweet too.