We Fight Together Anonymous

Title IX became important to me at a sleepover in the 9th grade, when a friend’s mother informed me that its 40th birthday was approaching. As a severely unathletic teenager, I was initially disinterested in a 37-word ploy to get me involved in sports, but I soon learned that Title IX had little to do with my aversion to softball: Title IX is a commitment this country made to protecting people. It committed to protecting my family, my friends, my classmates. It committed to protecting me.

I learned young that sometimes, what is intended to protect us falls short. Airbags fail to inflate, safety harnesses snap, bike helmets shatter. Laws fail, Title IX fails. I’ve watched it fail family, friends, and classmates, and they’ve watched while it failed me. I became a Sexual Misconduct Advisor (SMA) at Kenyon College in order to support the people Title IX failed to protect, and in some ways, to protect them myself when the law no longer could. During my time at Kenyon, I’ve collaborated with administrators to revise Title IX programming, I’ve worked with survivors and professional mediators to draft on-campus no-contact orders, and I’ve mediated informal conversations between survivors and alleged abusers myself. The Title IX system...