If you’re just joining this saga, I have been documenting the horrendous experience of reporting my rapist to his licensing agency. (So far, The Agency hasn’t done anything meaningful about him at all.)
In fact, after 394 days of sending them documents and pleading for their partial attention, I demanded that they give me a legally-mandated meeting with a female employee. Stuck by the law, The Agency relented, and scheduled it.
That meeting was Tuesday.
My wonderful husband came with me, a file folder in his arm and several important points to make about witnessing my full-bodied attempt at justice against a system that barely saw me, not to mention the nonsensical logistical errors in their own dismissive decision letters.
We get there. The Woman comes down in an elevator.
She seems so nice. She has a lip ring.
Yeaaaah, of course! she keeps saying.
When she turns away from us, I shoot Drew a look of hope.
We walk into the conference room, we get water, we sit in front of her. Between us is her computer. I cannot see her screen.
“Well—” she begins.
“Thank you,” I say, quiet hope in my voice.
Maybe she will be the one who sees me?
“Yes, thank you,” Drew says.
We sound exhausted.
“Yeah of couuuuurse!” The Woman says, “Now let me introduce myself before I hear your goals for this meeting today,” and she begins her spiel. She explains her background, her role in The Agency, and why she is perfectly suited to understand my situation. But, she notes, she will not be able to discuss the specifics of my complaint today, only my concerns about the complaint filing process itself.
“Oh…” says Drew.
“Huh,” I say, that new hope draining out. This enormous limitation was not discussed when we scheduled the meeting.
“Yeaaaaaah,” she coos, “So I know you have lots to say about the reporting process itself, right? So today we will fill out this form for you and you can summarize your experience to me, and I will write it down.”
She means a form on her own website. A form I can fill out at home, with my own fingers. No thanks.
“May I record this?” I ask, pulling out my pocket recorder.
The legal answer, of course, is yes. I am sitting in a government building, speaking to a government employee, and I may document my own case. Yes.
But she says no.
In fact her eyes become saucers.
“I was about to get to that,” she says, “I was told to tell you no.”
“Why?” I retort, “This isn’t a court room.”
“It’s not, but we know you’re a journalist, and this is about your complaint, not about you educating the public.”
My body begins to shake. I cannot believe what I am hearing. It is the sort of moral dilemma they set you up for in journalism school, but you never expect to encounter in real life.
Someone, whether the person in front of me, or her superior, wants me not to record my own meeting, because I am a reporter. She might not even realize what she is saying, but she is saying something devilish, something bordering on prior restraint.
My body turns hot and shakes.
I turn on the recorder.
So begins the next hour of my life.
More soon.
I'm livid. But also, so so proud of you. You do things I could never do, speaking truth to people and power despite their clear desire to belittle, bully and erase you. I first felt it when you were interviewing folks like Laurie Spagna (sic??) and I thought wow she is brave & brazen - but yet, kind & curious. Those interviews were exhilarating to listen to, although my introvert self writhed in horror at the thought of such confrontation. But to do it now, when the stakes are so much higher and involve your own personhood and the rights of all victims (and apparently now journalism & the Constitution), I'm just in awe. I don't know how you keep going but as long as you feel you can & must, I'm 100% excited to see what happens next, because it fuels me and helps me see how maybe, someday, when I have to, I could do what needs to be done, too.
Maybe she didn't mean to say ' We don't want you to publicly expose how bad we are at this', but, uh, she kind of did.