In 11/2017 @Stanford’s General Counsel sent me a letter that included the following detail, a detail still startling to me in the ugliest way: Prof Jay Fliegelman (the General Counsel wrote) assaulted me in 2000 after playing for me a “porno video.” 1/ documentcloud.org/documents/4323…
My response (in 2017 & today): I have no memory of being compelled to watch a “porno video.” (Was I drugged?) I do remember being compelled by Fliegelman to stroke a rare & expensive book covered with waste sheets from an 18th-c pornographic novel called Fanny Hill. 2/
From a 2/2018 article: «“I wanted the full report to know more about this detail that jarred me so much… it was this new detail out of nowhere after 17, 18 years. It was like the story suddenly changed,” Chu said.» 3/
During a 2/2018 meeting on Stanford’s campus, the General Counsel insisted to my face that Fliegelman had played for me a “porno video.” “No, you were not drugged,” she said. Ever since then I have wondered: How could I forget such an important detail? What else did I forget? 4/
Recently someone alerted me to the likelihood that the Office of the General Counsel at Stanford University quickly googled “Fanny Hill,” saw that there’s a film with that name, and didn’t even bother to consider that Fanny Hill might also be a book. 5/
If it is indeed the case that Stanford’s incompetence, ignorance, and carelessness have caused me five years of anguished doubt about my memory of the details of what Fliegelman did to me in 2000—I don’t know how to complete this sentence. 6/
Is there a hotline for victims and survivors of abuse in academia?
This is a serious question.
The reason why I posted this question: So many people in academia are suffering. The abuse encompasses sexual violence, labor exploitation, disability discrimination, racist aggression, microaggressions, intellectual theft, stalking, bullying, I could go on and on. 1/
Thank you to those who have alerted me to accounts screenshotting my words, spreading misinformation, and mocking me for being an “ungrateful alum.” Some facts:
(1) I’ve had a lot of advantages. Being a legacy is not among them. Being a “millionaire” is not among them.
(2) I am as “proud” to have degrees from Yale, Stanford, and Harvard as I would be “proud” to sport a necklace of blood diamonds. Yes, those degrees may “glitter.” But how much pain, injustice, conflict, humiliation, abuse, and violence does such glitter belie?
(3) Why did I attend such schools? I was trying to be a good daughter. My parents sacrificed a lot to give me a life less chaotic and violent than theirs. They trusted “good” schools to keep their daughter safe from the “bad” behavior of serial abusers. Their trust was violated.