Friday, March 29, 2024

Letter: You could have stopped it, President Simon

By Kate Jacobson

Jacobson is a former Editor-in-Chief of The State News (11-12). She graduated in 2012.


To Lou Anna K. Simon,

I'm a Spartan. My entire family is made up of Spartans. I made lifelong friends and memories from my time at MSU, and I wouldn't trade that time for anything. So to see the news that you knew what happened to those poor girls and you did nothing makes me sick. 

I am a rape survivor. No one listened to me. I fought for myself and found healing thanks to my MSU friends and the staff at The State News, where I was editor in chief '11-'12. Do you know how hard it is to not be believed? To be victimized over and over again, to replay that memory so constantly in your head that it becomes a marker of your life? 

There was before rape. There was after rape. And, Lou Anna, after rape is the darkest, coldest, saddest place I've ever been. 

You could've helped those girls. You could've stopped it. You knew. You knew

You did nothing.

So I guess this will be a marker for you too. There was before, and now there is after. I hope the memory of turning a blind eye becomes branded into your soul. I hope it never leaves you. 

I hope you wake up every single day wondering who you are and how on this Earth this happened — just like those girls have to wake up day after day wondering those same damn questions. 

If we survivors have to bear our scars, I pray to God you feel the sting of the whip too.

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