Ohio State closes sexual-assault center, fires 4 after complaints

Jennifer Smola:

In one document, the OhioHealth Sexual Assault Response Network of Central Ohio, or SARNCO, outlined a list of concerns with SCE and its treatment of survivors. That document indicated that some survivors were subjected to victim-blaming, unethical and re-traumatizing treatment by SCE advocates. Some victims were told they were lying or delusional, suffered from mental illness, had an active imagination, didn’t understand their own experience or fabricated their story, according to SARNCO’s concerns.

SARNCO also wrote that it had received reports that SCE advocates have written student conduct and other legal documents, and have told survivors they needed to embellish their stories because “their real experience wasn’t serious enough” to receive justice or legal protection.

Some survivors reportedly were told they wouldn’t receive support from SCE because they weren’t credible, were not “ready to heal,” or because they would not disclose the identity of a perpetrator, the network said.
Listen to The Other Side podcast:

“At OhioHealth SARNCO, our mission is ‘To Empower All Survivors: To End Sexual Violence,‘” SARNCO manager Heather Herron Murphy said in a statement to The Dispatch on Tuesday. “If we receive information about survivors’ needs not being met, or survivors’ concerns not being heard, we work to amplify those voices.”