S25 Ep19: Chapter 5: You Are Valued, You Are Loved, and You Are Here for a Reason (FINALE)

Something was wrong is intended for mature audiences and discusses topics that may be upsetting. This season discusses sexual, physical, and psychological violence. Please consume the following episodes with care. For a full content warning, sources, and resources for each individual episode, please visit the episode notes. Opinions shared by the guests of the show are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Broken Cycle Media. The podcast and any linked materials should not be misconstrued as a substitution for legal or medical advice. Thank you so much for listening. Since its enactment, the Title IX system has evolved and changed over the years, and with it, mandatory reporting policies have too. Mandatory reporting in the Title IX system is the legal obligation for designated professionals to report suspected sexual abuse, assault, or harassment. Under current Federal Title IX regulations for post-secondary institutions, not every employee is treated the same way. Colleges must, at minimum, require some non-confidential employees to notify the Title IX coordinator, while other employees may instead be required to provide the coordinator's contact and complaint information. While intended to ensure accountability and campus safety, mandatory reporting policies can sometimes harm survivors by stripping them of control over how and when their experiences are shared. The policies can, in some cases, require a survivor's name or identifying information to be shared within the institution without their consent. Survivors may feel pressured into situations that they're not emotionally prepared for and, consequently, can experience institutional and systemic betrayal and trauma. Relatedly, in environments that enforce mandatory reporting, survivors can be less likely to come forward, contradicting the protection that these policies aim to offer. For example, a 2018 study of students and employees at a large public university found that 17.2% of students surveyed reported that they were less likely to disclose sexual assault because of mandatory reporting requirements. And as Dr. Catherine Holland discusses in Season 25, Episode 7, titled, Rethinking Mandatory Reporting and Internal Processes in Higher Education, despite the widely held belief that these universal mandatory reporting policies are both necessary and effective for addressing sexual misconduct, there is limited evidence that universal mandatory reporting policies improve survivor outcomes or reporting experiences. As a result, Dr. Holland believes we have to instead implement policies of mandatory supporting, not mandatory reporting, to guide university sexual misconduct policies. Ashley's experiences shared in this Season's finale episode are a poignant example of the harm that mandatory reporting can potentially have when a survivor does not consent to said reporting. Ashley was a collegiate athlete who had found a place for herself on her university's lacrosse team, that is, until an incident occurred at a school fundraising event. The incident was reported by someone who remained nameless to Ashley throughout the process. Ashley describes feeling like a pawn in this process, which sadly is all too common. For survivors like Ashley, faculty politics and a lack of trauma-informed policies, among many other factors, can force college students into long, potentially re-traumatizing processes. I'm Tiffany Rees and this is Something Was Wrong. Hi, my name is Ashley and I was sexually assaulted on my campus in my sophomore into junior year and I'm here to tell my story. I started sports really, really young. That was the thing that kept me going. It kept the energy out of me and it's really what provided me community, mental clarity and drive. I started in gymnastics, probably about four or five. I did that for a few years and learned that I dislocate my knees really, really easily. So gymnastics wasn't the sport for me just because it was so impactful on my joints. So I transitioned into swimming and I actually was state-ranked, which is hilarious because I am 4'11", so I am super tiny. But I was able to be competitive. I always knew that being a part of a sport meant that I wasn't just doing something for me. I was doing it for a group of people and that always felt really gratifying to me. I was gymnastics, swimming. In high school, I picked up field hockey. In college, I actually wasn't able to do the sports that I had previously done, like swimming or field hockey, but we did have lacrosse. So I was able to walk on to the lacrosse team at that point and find my community in school there, which was really, really fantastic for a really large portion of my college career. I'm curious, what made you choose the school you did and what your hopes were going into college? This was actually my second choice of university. I actually was a transfer. I started at another larger institution closer to the city. That was my dream college. That was what I wanted to go to for forever. My brother had attended that university and it was just everything I wanted it to be. But in my senior year of high school, my sister unexpectedly passed away from suicide. I think my sister's passing really taught me that we have to live for today and tomorrow is not promised. More importantly, check in on the people who you think are okay. The people who you think are okay, nine times out of 10, are really the people who are maybe silently struggling. I now see things with a different lens. I was navigating this challenge and this change in my life of one, learning how to live without a big sister, two, having this stigma and that alone is a big deal. People look at you like you did it almost. Also, trying to navigate her grief that was passed on to me. That person is out of pain. They no longer feel that pain, but it doesn't disappear. It doesn't go away. It just gets transferred to the survivors of the family, of the friends who care about that person. So learning how to unpack and unload her baggage on top of my baggage, but also learn when to pick it up and put it down, was all really challenging. I'm so incredibly sorry for your loss. I appreciate your condolences and I just hope that anybody in the world knows that you are valued and you are loved and that you are here for a reason. Looking back, I wish that I would have taken more time to grieve and taken more time to get to know myself personally. Before I rushed into what I thought I was supposed to be doing, I thought I was doing everything right, but looking back, I just realized how alone I felt and how hollow I felt. I don't think I would have had that experience had I not had the immediate trauma right before going into this transition of life. It was so challenging to experience something that I felt should have been so joyous with such a grain of salt because everything that I did was a milestone that my sister wasn't going to be at. So she wasn't at my high school graduation. She wasn't at the first day of college granted I have two other siblings who were very responsive and very much so there for me. So I'm so eternally grateful for them, but their brothers, it's a little bit different when you have a sister and you're a girl. So it was definitely really challenging. I was really numb to the situation. I really wasn't thinking about what the best choice for me was or even thinking really rationally. I was just trying to get through. I wasn't in therapy. I wasn't committed to processing the devastation that I had just experienced because life continues to move on even though my world felt like it had stopped and I was trying to understand how I could have lost a sister. It wasn't necessarily that I had hopes and dreams for college, but my goal was to be able to help people find community and just learn more about myself and navigate the tragedy that I was still going through with the loss of my sister. I wanted to be a kinesiology major. I wanted to get into physical therapy because I loved helping people and I was a sports person, but I was commuting and the commute was about an hour every day. So two hours out of my day, which meant that I couldn't work. Social life was really hard and it just wasn't exactly the fit that I needed it to be. I felt really lonely. I wasn't able to do sports because if you did sports, you needed to be on campus and I wasn't on campus a lot. I decided that it wasn't worth the tuition. It wasn't worth the student loans to continue to go to that school while also not being exactly thrilled with my college experience. I went to my first semester of school and then I immediately transferred to a smaller institution, which was a satellite campus of a larger institution. There I started in biology, still looking to pursue physical therapy, but when I got to school, I ended up learning that I'm not great at science and math kind of sucks, but in my communications classes, I was excelling and I had this idea that with my sister's passing, I could communicate and help other individuals with my story and validate her experience. So I transferred my degree to a communications degree. What did the culture at the college feel like for you? The culture was very small and homey. The campus is absolutely stunning. There's so much beauty that was found by a lot of really old historic homes. I could be in nature and that felt really grounding to me, but I could also have this college experience. When I transitioned schools, I went from a really large institution that is really well known in my area to a really small campus. The smaller college felt like when I walked into a class that I wasn't just a number, I wasn't in large lecture halls. I was in really intimate spaces with students that I had known by first name and that the teacher knew by first name and that advisors knew by first name. I knew staff members intimately. I had conversations with them about things other than school. So the culture felt really close knit. We had our different sectors. You had your trauma kids. You had your tour ambassadors. You had your science people. You had people who were just looking to be there for two years and then go up to a larger college. You had your athletics. How safe did you feel your college campus was and were there any issues that you were concerned about when it came to safety? The craziest thing I ever saw on my campus was someone experiencing a parking ticket because they didn't have their badge in their window. It was a commuter only campus. So like everybody on campus had to have a badge in their window. Safety was not something I even considered as an issue, as something that I had to be aware of. I went from a school where safety was one of the things that I had to think about all the time. Like, you did not want to be on campus after dark. So moving on to this satellite campus, completely different. I never considered that I would ever be in danger or that anything bad was ever going to happen on this college campus ever. Before the assault happened, did you have any understanding of the Title IX office or what someone is supposed to do? Should they find themselves in that unfortunate situation? No, not at all. Title IX, when I was introduced to it, was a completely foreign entity to me. It was not something that I had any familiarity with. I didn't understand if they were a third party. I still was very fuzzy on how they were integrated in the situation. So I had no idea of who they were. And how would you describe the culture of the athletic department before the assault? I thought these girls were going to be in my wedding one day. I thought that I had found lifelong best friends because of how tight everybody was. In my perfect world, I wouldn't have done athletics while I was going through some of the most traumatic moments of my life. And I would have been more emotionally available for them and more willing to have fun and let loose. So I feel like some of the culture that I experienced wasn't necessarily reality because I was holding on to something a little bit more challenging. But looking back, the culture was so loving. Those girls were so willing to give to themselves, to other people, and they were willing to kind of just be the best of friends as long as you were in the department, as long as you were in the athletic group. What was your understanding of the role of the athletic director in your day-to-day life as a student athlete? The athletic director, from my perspective, was the person who we would go to if we had issues in classes that we needed assistance with, if we had issues with uniforms, game scheduling, if we needed transportation to and from games. It was my coach's boss, and I always recognized that, but he had an open door policy. We were all super friendly with him. You could almost every single hour of the day that he was there catch some student in his office, maybe doing homework or just chit chatting or hanging out. His office was also right in front of the lobby of the athletic building. So he was always involved in our conversations, looking back. That would have never flyed in a corporate institution where I work. How did he not have meetings? What was he doing in his day-to-day? He was completely available to us 24-7. Did you ever hear any discussion of him being inappropriate or experience him being inappropriate before the assault? No, he was a stand-up guy. Everybody loved him. I loved him. I thought he was a great person, a good friend. We had a very friendly relationship. I had opened up to him about my sister and been very transparent. I was not the best college student. I didn't like going to class, especially because I transitioned into a major where it was a little bit easier for me. I didn't necessarily feel like I had to go to class. I had this college athlete kind of persona. So who needed school? I was going to get away with anything mentality a little bit. So he definitely was on me about that, like, hey, you've got to go to class. You have to show up. So I would have considered him a friend. 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Get a spring worthy glow with clean clinically tested skincare from OSEA. And right now we have a special discount just for our listeners. Get 10% off your first order site wide with code SWW at OSEAMalibu.com. Thank you so much. Can you walk us through the day of the assault? So it was a fundraiser event. We were pying the staff. The Pine and Vase had been done previously as an organization for another sector of the school. And it was wildly successful. My school was looking to raise more funds for different equipment, practice facilities, looking to level up. We were creating a new field in conjunction with the township. So the athletic department faculty came out and they did this event, which was really fun. And it was a beautiful day out. It was breezy. It was like one of the first sunny days in a long time. We had just broken out of winter. I didn't have classes that day. So I came to campus just for the event. I was just in jeans and like a t-shirt. It was an airy, super soft shirt. It was a little bit of a v-cut and flip flops for the event because it was nice out. I helped set up, facilitate a little bit, get people who were walking around like, hey, come down. This will be so much fun. At the end of the event, we were starting to break down and I was like, you know what? I'm going to hire athletic director in the face. This would be really funny. So I threw some money in the donation bucket and went and hide him in the face. My teammates were laughing. I wasn't necessarily aware of who was around me at the time. I knew that maybe one or two other staff members had been there. It really had died down at that point. After I had done that, he came out from behind the apparatus and ended up chasing me down the field that we were on. He caught up to me. He was a much bigger man than I was. So I went down onto the ground kind of like in a permit position almost and he had rolled me over and pinned my arms to the ground and got on top of me. He had the shaving cream all over his face still, took his head and started up the belly button below area and wiped his head off on my shirt and body and ran his head from my belly button area all the way up to the top of my chest to like my chin. I was starting to like wiggle my way out of the situation. Mentally, I was thinking, okay, I can kick his tentacles at that point or I can just get out of this and kind of like push him off of me. But I still was like, this is kind of funny. He hadn't put all of his weight on top of me, which I'm really thankful for. I never felt like I was injured. I never felt like I was physically bruised or anything like that. But he did have a pretty tight grip on my wrist. At that point, you could kind of see it on his face like, oh no, like, what did I just do? He helped me up and then he pretty quickly left the area. There wasn't much communication. I remember him walking away and being like, make sure you guys clean up, talking to the rest of my teammates and myself. I had run probably 50 yards away from the event. And I remember walking back and looking for my flip flops because I had run out of my flip flops and just kind of looking for people around me and seeing faces and being like, that wasn't a normal interaction. I feel a little weird about this. And I remember just hysterically laughing because I didn't know what else to do. It was so random and my mind hadn't caught up with the actuality of what was happening. Did anyone say anything to you about it? I can't remember if my teammates said something, but I don't know that they had to. I just remember the looks. I remember the wide eyes and hesitation to say anything to me. I was starting to walk away. We had cleaned up and everything. And I remember texting the guy that I was talking to at the time who also was a part of the athletic department and saying, this is so weird. This just happened and laying out the story for him and him texting me back and being like, that's actually really weird. And that's when it started to catch on for me. Who do you remember being around when the incident happened? I spent so much time thinking about this because the people who were around me became suspects in my mind to who reported the incident. I spent days and weeks asking people, do you remember who was there? I would say there were probably about four or five of my teammates. I believe an athletic trainer was there in the vicinity. And I think that was it. After you go home, how are you emotionally making sense of this? Or did you just kind of move on? I texted the guy that I was talking to a little bit about it. We made plans to see each other that night at an off-campus party. I moved on from it. I remember getting to that party that night and him asking me a couple questions about it, but nothing where I was like, this is something that I should be thinking about. And I was just like, yeah, it was weird. But you know, it's the athletic director. And you know how he is. Like, he's overly friendly. So no big deal, no harm, no foul. I remember days later seeing the athletic director, seeing everybody who was at the event and not thinking twice about it. I didn't spend time replaying it over and over again in my head. Somebody who talks out loud when I process things, I communicate for a living and my brain doesn't know how to keep things internal. So I might have talked to about it with a few of my closer people on the team, but I didn't go to my coach about it. I didn't go to guidance counselors about it. I didn't even go to my parents about it. I didn't go to my siblings. I was living off campus. I didn't go to roommates about it. I didn't hear about the assault again until I was brought in by lawyers for the college. I didn't know that I was meeting with lawyers. One of the staff members in the administration department reached out to me and said, hey, you need to come in. We have a couple quick questions for you. It was a very vague email. There was a time put on my calendar. I accepted the invitation, but I had been friends with this administration person. I had worked for her previously doing tours for people who had been transferring because I had that experience. So I kind of thought that's what she was reaching out to me about. We were getting closer to summer. I thought tours are going to start picking up for those who are transferring from one college to another. Maybe she wants to talk to me and see if I can do that again. No red flags raised in my mind. I remember going in very calm, very cool, but I remember walking into her office and she had a very long, it almost looked like a really long dining table. It was a conference table and not only having her in the room, there was multiple people in the room and I hadn't recognized them. I was so confused walking in and that's when the nerve started hitting. I thought I was in trouble. I thought I had done something wrong, especially when they introduced themselves as the college lawyers, not knowing ahead of time what the meeting was about, put me into panic mode and I didn't know if I was in danger or if someone else was in danger. So when they asked me about the event, because they had already known about it, my immediate reaction was to lie and say, nope, that didn't happen. Unfortunately, I did not know that boy that I had been talking to had given screenshots of my text messages to his coach and his coach was the one who sent that up to the appropriate authorities. The lawyer's meeting was not to do anything other than to confirm what my text messages had said. So my immediate reaction was, I don't want anybody to get in trouble. This athletic director is my friend and I want to put him in jeopardy. I'm going to protect him. So I lied and immediately after that, I felt horrible and I went to my coach. I remember saying, hey, this really weird thing happened and I lied and I don't know what to do about it and I need you to help me. And I was crying because I didn't know if what I had done was right. If I was wrong, I didn't know how people knew. I didn't know who to trust. I knew I could trust her because she wasn't there and my coach was the most direct coach. She knew me. She will always have the most special place in my heart for forever. I knew she would give me the right advice and she said to me, I think you need to tell them the truth and would it help if I was there? And I said, yes. The lawyers had given me a card and said, hey, if you remember anything, give us a call back. We'll be around. Within a span of an hour of me leaving them, my coach had called them and she stepped into the other room, but I could still hear her. And I remember listening to her say to the lawyers, hey, she's extremely nervous. She doesn't know if she did the right thing. We'd really like to talk to you again. She's ready to tell you the whole truth, but her condition is that I'm in the room and not for anything other than emotional support. And they allowed her to do that. And I'm so thankful for her that she did that because I actually still don't think I would have ever called them back if it hadn't been for her. They came back. We sat in her office and I remember only being able to really focus on the floor and focus on her. I told them exactly what I'm telling you guys about what happened. Remember faces almost looking happy that they got confirmation of what my text messages were. And then I saw some faces that were said I didn't realize the gravity of the situation and that that's not something somebody in a power position does. That's not something a friend even does without consent. That's not something that is playful. And I wasn't my athletic director's friend. And I still had a hard time putting those pieces together. I think I wasn't as scared to tell the truth because I had my support person in the room. I wasn't blindsided. So I had had a few minutes for my brain to catch up and for the fight or flight to dissipate just a little bit. I felt like my nervous system was a little bit calmer. But I remember still feeling like I was in the wrong and that I created this situation because I was too friendly with my athletic director and that it was my fault that this happened. Lawyers were asking really specific questions and they wanted a lot of specific details. There was a lot of emphasis on him and what was he doing. And I still remember being scared that this was going to cause him to lose his job. And I didn't want that. I remember still being confused as to why people were making this a big deal. Why are you so invested in a situation that happened two or three months ago? How are you just coming to me now about this? My brain spent a really long time trying to remember the details because I had gone into protection mode, which I was already in from my sister. I'd never exited that mode. But anytime something traumatic or bad had happened to me, I immediately went into control alt delete. My brain was not processing things. So I remember coming out of that meeting really tired. And I just knew that this was going to impact him in a way that I was not anticipating. And I was still scared that I was going to hurt somebody that ultimately I cared about. And ironically, to this day, still care about. I still don't feel as though in this story that he was the ultimate bad one, that he was the one who stepped over the line. I think it wasn't right what he did. I think that as a young college athlete, I didn't understand boundaries on my own. I just wanted to be loved because I was already feeling so abandoned by my sister. And I just wanted to be accepted. I just felt like I am ruining someone's life. And I'm going to have to sit with those consequences. When the second meeting with the lawyers was over, as we were leaving the room, my teammates were in my coach's office at the time. I remember saying to one of my teammates, this is what's happening. I didn't do it. But this is the situation that I'm in. And that pretty quickly got out. I remember saying to my coach, if this gets out, the girls will never forgive me. And I was 100% correct in that feeling. I said, I don't know if I can do this because people are going to be really mad at me. And mind you, I still didn't know who had reported this. I didn't find out for years later. So in my mind, I'm thinking, did one of the girls say something? Did one of the staff members say something? I'm trying to figure out, realistically, whose office I'm about to blow into and rip to shreds because you didn't ask me if this was okay. You didn't communicate with me. One of the leading emotions that I had was, I am about to lose all of my friends. These girls are going to be so mad at me. And not a single person is going to believe that I did not report this. When it became a big deal, I got so scared that I was going to get labeled. And I may have projected some of that to my teammates, but they were also willing to pick up that projection and not put it down. I've been doing a bit of a spring reset with my closet lately, trying to simplify things and focus on pieces that I actually wear all the time. Less clutter, better quality, things that feel good and are easy to reach for. 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It just would have been this was an accusation. This was the person involved. This is the report that was made, etc. And that's kind of where the tricky part with lawyers getting involved comes is they make you feel like everything is a decision up to you. But there's really a suggestive nature behind everything that they're saying. These people are university title nine people. So they obviously know more than I do. I should follow what they're saying because that's what a school is your whole life. You have a principal, you have an assistant principal, you've got teachers, all of authority and you have to listen to them. I had no idea in college that I could think for myself in that regard. I thought I was following orders. I only made it on campus maybe two days after the lawyers coming to me. I couldn't be there anymore because I constantly was looking over my shoulder thinking, oh man, athletic director is going to come up to me. He's going to find me. He helped me create my class schedule. He knows exactly where I am. I didn't feel safe in the athletic department anymore. I didn't know who had reported it and that alone made me spiral quickly because it could have been my teammates. It could have been my athletic trainer. It could have been anybody and nobody was coming to me saying, hey, just so you know, this is who said something. Here's why they did it. So I remember being paranoid. Unfortunately, with a small satellite campus, everybody knows everything immediately. So it was a very isolating time. Going to campus, the anxiety was something that I'll never experience in my life. I was shaking. I hadn't told my parents. I hadn't told my siblings. I had told the guy that I was talking to at that time because I didn't know that he was the one feeding information and I thought that he could be a safe place and pretty quickly that relationship dissolved because he did not want to be associated with somebody who was going to be the pariah of the athletic department. I'm looking back and I'm thinking like, did I create some of that? And the answer to that is absolutely, I absolutely did. I was so scared that I wasn't logically thinking, but also every single one of my teammates knew and none of them reached out to see if I was okay. And it had been communicated to me that they were all pretty upset and pretty frustrated. How could I report this? I'm such an evil person. I don't know if that was true, but what I do know is that no one reached out. No one followed up to see if I was okay. I was just exiled. I didn't exist anymore. I wasn't going to classes. I wasn't eating. I wasn't really sleeping. I was still going to work, but I was not the same person that I was before. And I was so concerned that these girls were never going to talk to me again. And it felt like I had experienced a loss like my sister all over again times 15. What did your school explain to you about why it was decided that you had to withdraw that semester, but he was allowed to stay? Because the investigation was still ongoing. And because they had a hard time with the fact that I had lied in the beginning, they had to spend extra time verifying the story. From what it was explained to me, other people were going to be interviewed. They were going to be reaching out to other individuals that had been there. That meant that because the investigation was still ongoing, there was no verdict. There was no, yes, this happened. Here's the consequences. It was almost explained to me as innocent until proven guilty. They presented options to me. You can go to class and just stay away from the athletic building. You can spend a couple days off campus and see if that makes you feel better. At that point, I still hadn't been introduced to Title IX. I had just spoken to lawyers. When I went to my admissions team, I remember saying, I can't be here. And the options were for me to withdraw and potentially get my tuition back or power through. I still had glasses with my teammates. Some of us were in the same major. The campus is a satellite campus, so it's not massive. I decided that I could not be in that school and on that trajectory anymore, and I needed someone to help. I went to them and said, I'm not coming back to campus. You need to figure out something. I need help. I remember getting an email after talking to my admissions team, introducing me to Title IX. The Title IX officer or person was brand new. I'm pretty sure just at a college, sweetest person. Felt like he was very willing to help me, very willing to look into this, felt very empathetic, didn't really know some of the steps. He was fumbling through things. I remember sending him an email saying, I can't be on campus. My admissions was CC'd on that, and I remember her emailing back and saying, just wanted to clarify that you're determining that you need to withdraw. I guess it's my decision, but no, it's not really my decision. You're putting me in a rock and a hard place here. I have a group of girls who has been explained to me are severely pissed off at me because they think that I'm doing this for attention. I'm just doing this to get out of classes, and I have an athletic director who is still on campus, still working. Access has not been denied to him in any aspect. It's discouraged for me to go to the athletic building. What options did I really have? It was a struggle, and I don't necessarily think it was handled appropriately. Did the Title IX coordinator explain to you that you could file for an informal resolution or a formal investigation by the school or any of the typical Title IX procedures? No, because lawyers were already involved doing an investigation. My school had already suffered a very public, very widespread scandal of athletics and sexual assault in another campus. Once lawyers got involved, it was explained to me that the Title IX team was really just there to help facilitate my needs, and it was never explained to me that there could be a formal or informal investigation. In terms of classes, Title IX indicated that it was my responsibility to email professors, give them some understanding of what was happening, and see if there was something that I could do to be withdrawn from their classes. Were you looped in as things progressed in terms of what they found in their investigation? Were your student rights anything of that nature? No, I wasn't communicated to from any of the teams. Ultimately, I wasn't given resources, I wasn't told here's what Title IX is supposed to do for you. I was not getting responses from my professors, so it felt like I was running up a hill with a thousand pounds on my back. I decided once professors stopped reaching out to me that I needed to take a step back and remove myself from the situation, and it was worth potentially failing out of college. On my transcript, I ended up getting 7 Fs, which tanked my GPA to a 1.2 and kicked me out of my major, and I was put on academic probation. Once I decided that I was not going to continue classes and that I was going to withdraw for the semester, it was explained to me that there was a possibility that I could potentially get my tuition back, but it wasn't a guarantee I would have to go through a long rigorous process to do which I ultimately ended up doing. The department where tuition was being reimbursed from had no ties to the department that was filing the investigation and things like that, and they weren't really allowed to ask questions, so it had to be very two separate events. I had to, one, explain to the financial department why I was asking for tuition back, and I had to get people who had been intimately involved in the situation, character witnesses as to why I should receive the tuition back. I ended up asking my coach to write me a letter, and she was able to after approval from the main college. She had to check in with the lawyers to verify that she was able to do so, and they did allow her to speak to it, which always made me feel like there was a little bit of an NDA type situation happening. It shouldn't have ever been a question as to if I was going to receive my tuition back, but Title IX and my department was really good at making it feel like this was my decision and my choice to withdraw. It just wasn't something that I had ever wanted, but I didn't feel safe. I didn't know where my safety was anymore. I ended up getting a full reimbursement about a semester and a half later. I lost so much of my community, but I also was still trying to protect everybody in that community, and I wasn't necessarily caring about myself. I was removing myself from the situation because it felt like I was the aggressor. It felt like I was the problem. I wasn't the person who created the situation. I wasn't somebody who wanted this attention. Did you ever have any sort of conversation with the athletic director? No, I was not allowed to. It was strongly advised to me that there should not be communication, and that really I shouldn't be talking to anybody about this because it would jeopardize the investigation. What do you know about how and why the athletic director ultimately resigned? It was described to me from the admissions office that there was a bit of an Olten medium that was provided to him. There was enough of a substantial case that if they had continued to investigate, it most likely would end up very public and something that his name would be associated with. He probably didn't want that, or he could resign quietly and move on to his next venture. If I were in his position, I probably would have chosen the same path that he did. I probably would have bowed out respectfully, especially because, again, he didn't know who reported this. No one knew, so he has no idea who to trust on his end to. After he left my college, he moved into the financial advisory space. I was never given a resolution to the investigation. I was never told if anyone else came forward officially. I was told by friends that other people came forward, but that's some speculation. I was never given an official document or an official call, email, any type of communication that said, this is our course of action. These are the options you have. It really went from, okay, you told us the truth. We're going to investigate. It's open season for anybody else who wants to say something, and it was handled very quietly because of the overall institution that I was at. They had to protect their image, it felt like. Are you aware of anything else that was going on with your college that could have been influencing the way that your situation was handled? Yes, there were very large allegations and convictions of sexual assault on a different campus that was extremely public and very traumatic for a lot of individuals. So much so that there were coaching changes and different things like that that were very controversial. The lawyers had to protect themselves. They had to protect the university. One of the things that I'm hearing over and over again in these conversations with these survivors as I'm listening to the podcast is that Title IX and administration and all of that, they're there to protect the university. Their oath is to the university and not necessarily always to the students. They have an image to obtain and maintain, and that's what the lawyers were looking to do. I can't confirm this, but I believe that there was some urgency from the lawyers and administration to distance themselves from me. Cravings aren't always about nicotine. They're also about the habit, the hand-to-mouth motion, the pause, the routine. And when you try to break that, that's when it usually feels the hardest. That's what I think is interesting about the concept of fume. It's a flavored air device designed to help you replace the habit loop. So instead of trying to quit something, you're actually giving your hands and your brain something else to reach for. It's simple. There's no nicotine, no battery, no vapor. It's just a weighted, fidget-friendly device that you can use when that familiar motion or urge shows up. And honestly, even outside of that, I get the appeal of having something tactile to reach for, especially in moments where you'd normally fall back into old habits or patterns. And that's really where something like this can make sense. 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You weren't going to take my major, you weren't going to take my opportunity to walk. And if I had to say, fuck you with my grades to every single person in that organization, that's exactly what I was going to do. And that's what I did. I got a 4.0. I was the most determined that I had ever been to really tell everybody to stick it where the sun doesn't shine. I just was like, you guys have taken so much from me, you're not going to take this. I came back alone. I didn't interact at school. I did what I had to do and moved on in different ways. But I drove by a lot for the games that My La Crosse Girls had. And I cheered for them silently in my car. I wasn't brave enough to go onto the sidelines or in the bleachers to watch them. I spent a lot of time wishing that I could be there and be a part of it. But knowing that for them, it was best if I wasn't there because the conversation didn't need to continue. We didn't need to be known as the team with the girl that was sexually assaulted and who got the athletic director to quit. I was too much drama at that point. And I didn't want that to impact them negatively at all. Even if they think I was callous and didn't care, I cared a lot about them and really wanted them to all have the best season. And they did. They had one of the best seasons of our school's career. Did you ever return to college sports? No, I did not. I never returned to any extracurricular activities within college. I really focused on keeping my head down and going to class. I ended up graduating with a corporate communications degree at that university with no real understanding of what I was going to do in life. I took a Myers-Briggs personality test to see what would fit well for me. And I ended up learning that my communication style would be really good as a teacher, but I would also be really good in finance, which is ironic because that's exactly what I do now. I work in finance as an educator. I emailed my coach a couple times and didn't get a response. I don't know if her email address changed or if she wasn't getting them, but I've messaged her on Facebook since and just thanked her for being the support that she was. She has since left the university. The person who reported this also has since left the university. How did you come to find out that it was the gentleman you had been texting with that had shared what you had shared privately with him? One of his teammates told me years later, I was still in college, but his teammate and I started communicating. He had come over my apartment and we were talking and he was like, hey, that was a crazy situation. And I hadn't really brought it up to anybody, but it felt nice for someone to acknowledge it and validate it and not look at me like, oh my God, you lied about all this. He had more information than I did. He knew about how this all came to be from the very beginning and I didn't. He said, do you know who ratted you out? And I said, no. And he was like, oh, it was my teammate. He gave your text messages to our coach. And I said, was your coach the one who actually reported it or was your teammate? And he said, no, it was my coach. He wanted the athletic director position. And I remember thinking like, holy shit, that makes so much fucking sense. As I replayed things that happened since the incident, that coach could never look me in the eye. That coach moved over when I was in the same hallway as him. He was always almost overly friendly to me when we did interact. And I think some of that was guilt because he saw how much it had destroyed. But ultimately, his career was more important. And his career was something that he was going to protect. I've been told that he used this as leverage, but he's never had a conversation with me. He's never told me why he did the things that he did. He's never come to me and say, I have a daughter and thinking about this daughter, I would want someone to protect her. If he had come to me and said any of those things or given me a reason for anything that he had done, I might respect it. But because he hid, I don't respect it. He took away my voice, my stability. He took away my community. And there was never, ever a conversation to me about how did this affect you? How can I do better? How can I support you while you're going through everything that I put you through? I feel like I was a pawn. I feel like the person who did this reporting did so because it benefited him. And consequences to me did not cross his mind. And if they did, he simply didn't care. I was a stepping stone to everybody in this situation. And it felt very frustrating that I didn't know who reported it. That to me will always be the biggest amount of betrayal. The option was taken completely out of my hand. The emotional assault of that was so much more damaging than the physical altercation that happened between me and my athletic director. I forgive my athletic director. I wish him nothing but the best. I think he learned from the situation. I think he was wrong. I think he handled it like a coward as well. He could have come to me as well. He had my number. He had my email address. But I forgive him. I'm not mad at him. I forgive my teammates for not knowing how to handle the situation. I hope they forgive me for not knowing how to handle the situation. But I hope all of those people are just as frustrated at the person who actually did this and actually took away my voice. I'm curious how this experience for you has opened your eyes in the sense of mandatory reporting when it comes to adults. I'm not educated enough in it to be able to say if it makes sense or if it doesn't. It makes sense for kids who are younger. I was legally an adult, but my mind was not an adult. I was not in an adult state of mind. I was still very much so young and I had get where that mandatory reporting could come into play. But if there was mandatory reporting, there were other staff members that were there that did not report this. And it just felt like this was used for gain rather than for actual concern. The intent and behind how you report when you're an adult really matters in this situation. And speaking to the victim and saying, how did this impact you? Do you want to do this together and just offering support? That's the biggest thing is offering support and saying, hey, I don't think this was right. You may need time to adjust to that factor. You may need time for your brain to kind of come up with that on its own. But if you're ready, and if you're willing, and if you need a hand, I'm here to support you. If somebody had come to me with that statement, I would have felt safe to be able to tell my story. Support, support, support the victims, listen to what their needs are, respect their decisions. How did this impact you emotionally and physically over time? I didn't have any self value or self worth between my sister, this happening, people not wanting to be my friend anymore. I felt like I wasn't worthy of anybody's love or that I was broken. So I allowed really toxic and broken people into my life and endured quite a bit of trauma from that until I met my husband. What made you decide to share so publicly with us? I'm so thankful that you did. There's a couple reasons. I was scrolling on TikTok not too long ago and I have been blocked by most of my previous team on all social media. So I'm not able to see how their lives are progressing, but I was scrolling on TikTok one night and came across a hilarious video of a wife video recording her husband. She was laughing and they were playing music and giggling. I remember loving the video and thinking, oh my gosh, this looks like this couple has so much fun. And I didn't realize that it was my old teammate. I had accidentally scrolled onto her page and I was looking at her videos and she has a child and her life has come so full circle for her. She looks so happy. I just was flooded with the emotions of like, I miss these people. We had great memories. We had bad memories. We had fights. We had laughter. We had all of these emotions. And they just ended and with nowhere really to go and no closure. And I always felt sad that they never knew the truth and they never knew how much it hurt me to not be a part of their lives anymore and to celebrate the things that they had going on in life. It also made me think about how naive I was in my early 20s and how I today would never do some of the things that I did. I would have communicated with them if they hadn't reached out and given them a heads up. Maybe I would have been strong enough to say, hey, coach, I need you to help me report this because this wasn't right or strong enough to even confront my athletic director and avoid all of the turmoil that so many people went through. But there were so many people impacted by the actions of somebody who only thought about how it would benefit them. I'm doing this with not my real name and no kind of identifying features. But I hope that if any of my old teammates listen to this and they recognize the story that they know who they are and they hear me when I say that I miss them and I love them and I hope that they're well. And I'm so sorry that all of this went down. The person who reported this was just given a whole theme title but has never reached out to me, has never checked in on me, has never cared about how this impacted me. And I am very angry about that. I feel like he took my voice over 10 years ago and I would like it back. I would also like my coach who I don't have interaction with to know that I hope nothing but the best for her and love for her and I never got to thank her sincerely for being there for me. I never got to come to her with a clear head and tell her how much her support impacted me and how sorry I was that she got thrown into this because it impacted her career too. So there's a couple reasons why I decided to share my story. But the most important thing to me is that all of the survivors that I've listened to this year and this season, they are so strong and they helped me so much because things that they said, I'm like, yes, that is exactly how I felt. I hear the frustration, I hear the sadness, I hear the conflicting parts of things because you did have good memories and not all of it was bad. That in itself is so confusing and mind rattling that I don't want any person in this world to ever feel alone. And the final reason is I still want to be able to help people. My sister passed away and wasn't able to tell some of her traumas and some of her stories and use that to help people. She sat with the burden too long and too quietly. Ultimately, it clouded her judgment. I never want to cloud my judgment with not being able to say the things that I need to say. I'm a mom now. I look at my son and I just think if you ever did any of the things that these two men did to anyone, I would be so disappointed in you. And I think he might look at me when he's older and say, mom, you let those things happen to you without sharing, without being the strong person that you're raising me to be. So the reasons, unfortunately, they continue to evolve and they don't necessarily end as to why I wanted to share my story. But I think boiling it down, it was time my body needed to tell somebody the truth as to what happened and hope that the people that were also impacted by this hear this. Thank you so much for trusting us with your story. Your voice matters so much. And I'm so grateful that you've chosen to share it with us here. I think there's a lot of power in taking your voice back and telling your story in your own words, especially after you had that taken from you. Thank you. Something was wrong. Season 25 survivor accounts have collectively illustrated the damaging institutionalized patterns within the Title IX system that survivors have long reported. Each of the survivor's experiences illustrate how institutional betrayal unfolded in real time, delayed responses, inconsistent enforcement, processes that often feel adversarial rather than supportive. Their testimony makes it clear that the trauma of sexual assault is often compounded by the systems meant to address it. Survivors describe being disbelieved, redirected, or burdened with proving their own harm, especially when the perpetrator was an athlete or someone similarly revered in their community. Their experiences illustrate another common thread, how institutional self-protection can overshadow student safety. And as we discussed at the top of this episode, Ashley's story forces us to reflect on the validity of mandatory reporting when adults are victimized. By centering all of the survivor's voices this season, what data and advocacy have long voiced becomes clear. That Title IX failures are not isolated, but part of a broader pattern that often re-traumatizes those who seek help. And we're seeing this elsewhere too. The families of the four University of Idaho students who were murdered in a horrific November 2022 attack have filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Washington State University, claiming that the school where Brian Coburger was both a Ph.D. student and teaching assistant knew about his disturbing behavior and didn't do enough to address it. The explosive lawsuit, which comes six months after Coburger was sentenced to life for the murders of Madison Mogan, Kaylee Gonzales, Zana Cronodal, and Ethan Chapin, further claims that their deaths were preventable if WSU properly responded to his quote, inappropriate predatory and menacing behavior. The lawsuit alleges that almost immediately after Coburger arrived on campus, he began displaying a pattern of concerning behavior. Alex Cooper spent years playing Division I soccer at Boston University. My coach started to pay extra attention to me. I figured it was probably because I was playing well. But in a new Hulu documentary, Cooper alleges it was there that she was sexually harassed by her former coach, Nancy Feldman. She'd pull me in, just be staring at me, sit next to me on the couch, put her hand on my thigh. Every time I tried to resist her, she would say there could be consequences. Cooper attended the University on a full tuition scholarship. Before her senior season, she said she and her parents reported the alleged abuse to be you. They said, well, we're not going to fire her, but you can keep your entire scholarship. That's it. No investigation. Within five minutes, they had entirely dismissed everything I had been through. We're learning tonight that a federal investigation is now underway into Liberty University and its handling of sexual misconduct complaints. This, after 24 people have come forward, saying the school failed to respond appropriately. According to the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights, as of April 15, there were two pending investigations into Liberty University for sex discrimination. Liberty students telling ProPublica, a non-profit newsroom, that federal agents have been at the school's campus this week. This, after yet another lawsuit, where a former student alleges she was raped and LU did nothing about it. Northwestern University is facing a new lawsuit over allegations of disturbing hazing and abuse in its football program. Former quarterback Lloyd Yates filed the latest lawsuit today. He first described a toxic culture of abuse at the school last week. Head football coach Pat Fitzgerald was fired earlier this month after a university investigation. He has denied any wrongdoing. I want justice for all the victims of this horrific hazing. I want closure for myself and hundreds of other Northwestern football players who suffered in silence. I hope that by speaking out, future athletes will be free from the physical, emotional, and psychological trauma that I experienced as a collegiate athlete at Northwestern University. These recent national headlines, as well as season 25, affirm a troubling theme. When institutions respond with indifference, bureaucracy, or self-preservation, they perpetuate harm. These experiences are neither rare nor exaggerated. They are part of a systemic failure that demands accountability and change. That's why we want you to know your rights. To learn more about the Title IX process or to help support survivors of on-campus sexual assault and discrimination, visit AdvocatesForYouth.org. Advocates for Youth is a national non-profit that advances the rights and well-being of young people by educating them about consent, bodily autonomy, sexual health, and justice. Know Your Nine is a key initiative of Advocates for Youth that educates students about their rights under Title IX and empowers them to advocate for fair, survivor-centered responses to sex discrimination and sexual violence in schools. Founded by survivors, the initiative provides accessible resources, policy guidance, and advocacy tools to help students hold educational institutions accountable. We are so grateful to each survivor, expert, and guest this season. It is because of their strength and advocacy that we're able to bring awareness to a topic that often does not receive the attention it deserves. Over the next few weeks, we are putting the finishing touches on Season 26 and will be airing some bonus expert episodes, including a roundtable Q&A with several of the experts you've heard from already this season. These episodes provide valuable insights and answer listener questions we've received throughout the season. If you'd like to help us continue to bring you future seasons of the show, please consider supporting us by becoming a community contributor and gain access to unlimited ad-free listening via Apple Podcasts or purchase a sticker from our new sticker shop at brokencyclemedia.com. We're working on bringing ad-free listenership to other platforms as well in the future, so stay tuned. Lastly, we'd like to congratulate the incredible Abbiomi Lewis, who provided her gorgeous cover of Gladrag's You Think You This Season on making it to the top 20 on Hulu's American Idol this season. At only 16 years old, we're so proud of you and we will continue to root for you in the future. Thank you so much for listening. Until next season, stay safe friends. Something was wrong is a brokencycle media production created and executively produced by Tiffany Rees. Thank you endlessly to our team, associate producer Amy B. Chesler, social media marketing manager Lauren Barkman, graphic artist Sarah Stewart, and audio engineers Becca High and Stephen Wack, Marissa and Travis at WME, Audio Boom, and our legal and security partners. Thank you so much to the incredibly talented Abbiomi Lewis for this season's gorgeous cover of Gladrag's original song You Think You from their album Wonder Under. Thank you to music producer Janice JP Pacheco for their work on this cover, recorded at the Grill Studios in Emeryville, California. Find all artists' socials linked in the episode notes to support and hear more. If you'd like to share your story with us, please head to somethingwaswrong.com. If you would like to help support the show, you can subscribe and listen ad-free on Apple podcasts, purchase a sticker from our sticker shop at brokencyclemedia.com, share the podcast with a loved one, or leave us a review. Want to stay up to date with us? Follow us on Instagram and TikTok at Something Was Wrong podcast. As always, thank you so much for listening. Until next time, stay safe friends.