No, I Will Not Stop Fighting

I grew up with a twin sister and my mom used to always yell at us to stop fighting. We were constantly arguing about something, even if it was trivial. Sometimes I think it was just something to do.

Fast forward to now — to the literal TODAY. The Today show anchor of over 20 years, Matt Lauer, has been terminated based on sexual misconduct allegations that NBC has reason to believe were not isolated. Over 20 years of his career, and his entire reputation, are completely scrapped because of this. And you know what? I don’t feel sorry for him. If there’s anything I’ve learned from the past year and the downright frightening number of sexual assault accusations, it’s not only that I should probably just stop leaving my house in the morning, but this: Even the people we most admire are capable of doing terrible things.

That’s a sentence I put in my own rebuttal when my perpetrator appealed his sentence.

I was sexually assaulted in March of 2015, after being sexually harassed and stalked by the same guy for almost a year. I was terrified. And when I went to the police, they took my statement, but overall seemed reluctant to help me. They told me there was a slim chance anything would come out of the case. That it might not be worth. So I didn’t do anything about it.

But that didn’t mean I got over it. How can you get over being violated like that? You don’t. The wounds start to heal, but the scars remain. So I knew that I needed to do something. I took him to my University’s Office of Student Conduct, had a hearing, and he got suspended for a semester. This was in the spring of 2016. And I thought, until now, that I was okay with this. But his co-op company kept him on — even after the University severed ties with him — and I’m so angry about that!

So no, I will not stop fighting. Because I’m angry! And I have a right to be.

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