Women unite against assault

Sophomore business management major Krystin Heide sat quietly at Wednesday night's No Woman Left Behind Rally in Dede Plaza.

Heide, a victim of sexual assault, she attended the rally because she wanted to be a part of the awareness process.

"[I want] people to realize it does happen every day," Heide said. "You never know if it could be you."

No Woman Left Behind was a rally sponsored by Student Health Promotions to provide awareness about sexual assault.

Aimee Janssen-Robinson, outreach educator at the Student Counseling Center, started organizing the rally at the beginning of the year to bring awareness and give ways to prevent sexual assault.

Tory Bowen Flynn, director of media and public relations for Indiana Coalition Against Sexual Assault, spoke about dealing with sexual assault.

Bowen Flynn was raped at a Halloween party while attending University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 2004.

"Women, just by attending college, you are four times more likely to be a victim of sexual assault," she said.

Bowen Flynn was 21 at the time and never would have imagined being a victim of sexual assault. She said she had four drinks and one shot, contents still unknown, before she completely forgot the rest of the night.

"I woke up to a man on top of me," she said. She told him to stop, but he claimed that she had consented.

According to the National Crime Victim Research Study, every one in seven women in Indiana is a victim of sexual assault.

Bowen Flynn immediately asked to be taken home because she had no clue where she was and was completely distraught.

She said when she finally got back home, her roommate took her to the emergency room, where she stayed for seven hours undergoing a rape test.

During that time, Bowen Flynn pressed charges and started a legal battle that eventually would be up for review at the U.S. Supreme Court level.

But her offender still walked as a free man under the U.S. legal system.

The Supreme Court rejected Bowen Flynn's case.

She said she was stripped of her First Amendment rights during the trial. The judge made her sign an agreement to not use any of the following words: rape, sexual assault, rape kit or victim.

"I couldn't testify," she said, "or it would be perjury."

Bowen Flynn could not get a different judge under the Nebraskan legal system unless the current judge resigned from the case.

Since then, she has advocated awareness for sexual assault.

Part of the healing process is talking, she said.

Heide agreed with Bowen Flynn.

"You have to realize that that person cannot control your life forever," she said. "There are people out there that can help."