A year after being raped, a former Midland Lutheran College student is attempting to reclaim her life.
She attends a university in another state now, majoring in elementary education. She belongs to a Christian group on campus and anxiously awaits this year's arrival of two sisters - one older, one younger - in the city where she now lives. The three young women have sung together since childhood and hope to continue when they're reunited.
It was spring 2002 when she left Fremont for good, giving up a college scholarship, her classes, her family and friends. She left in part because she never knew when her assailant would appear.
He, too, was a Midland student, a senior, and the fear of seeing him again, on the campus or the city streets, was too great.
She first saw him in the fall of her freshman year, dancing at a club that opened its doors to minors on Thursday nights.
They did not date.
But she saw him again in March 2002, when she went to an off-campus party.
It wasn't her usual way to spend a Friday night.
"I was going through a rough time with my family," she said, "and I was out drinking with my friends."
Several members of a Midland fraternity were at this particular party, including some who lived in the house. There were kegs of beer and a special punch.
She drank some of the punch.
She recalls feeling the initial effects of intoxication. But she doesn't remember how she came to be alone in a locked room with a man she hardly knew.
"The most memory I have is waking up, and trying to say no," she said.
The man was the student she'd seen dancing in the downtown club who was now tearing away her clothes, she said.
He tried to vaginally rape her, but failed, she said.
Due to the structure of her body, she has never had sexual intercourse and will not until a physician performs a hymenectomy.
So the attacker sodomized her instead, she said.
"He was saying things about my body," she said. "The whole time, I was trying to sit up and say no, but I couldn't because of the alcohol."
When he finished, the attacker unlocked the door and went into a bathroom to shower.
From where she lay, she could hear the water running. When he came back to the room, she too, left to take a shower.
She heard him arguing with a woman as she went downstairs to ask her friends for a ride back to the dorm.
In the early hours of March 2, 2002, there was no one on campus to talk to.
"Midland's a suitcase campus," she said, "and everyone was gone."
She spent the day alone in her room, except when she walked to the campus chapel where she sat and cried.
On Sunday, she confided in some close friends, who drove her to the Fremont Area Medical Center. Her older sister, a Midland junior who'd been away from campus over the weekend, also arrived.
When she told medical personnel her story, they said, by law, they would have to notify the police.
"(The police) were really helpful," she said. "They said, 'If you want to press charges, we'll help you.' But because I couldn't remember it all, and because it had been so long, I chose not to. I'd heard about cases being drawn out and not turning out well."
Her story didn't end in the emergency room.
She called her older sister "justice-driven."
"When she sees an injustice, she wants to right it. I do, too, but I wanted to be done with it," she said. "All these feelings were running through my head. I wanted to do something, but I also wanted to forget."
But she couldn't. Midland is a small community, and word gets around.
Soon, a member of the student senate approached her on campus, expressed his concern and offered his help. They talked.
Her sister advised her to go to the dean of students, which she did.
That action put into motion the college's system of disciplinary review, which eventually led to a March 18 hearing before a board of students, faculty and administration.
In the days leading up to the hearing, she said she received calls or visits from the dean at least once a day.
"I became really upset, because she kept calling and coming over, telling me what other people were saying, wanting to hash it over. I felt so much like she was putting me on trial. I felt like I was losing my strength. I remember thinking, 'I don't know if I can keep doing this every day.'"
Her parents, whom she had notified the day she went to the hospital, returned to campus to be with her. Ultimately, although she had the right to attend the hearing, she did not, issuing instead a detailed account of the attack to be read by the review board.
Her older sister and her father did attend, however, as did the assailant and several witnesses testifying in his behalf. One of those witnesses was the student senate member who originally had offered his support to her, she said.
In less than 24 hours, the board sent its decision to the dean of students.
The male student was found guilty of having committed "an assault" and placed on social probation through Jan. 24, 2003. He was not suspended and continued to attend classes.
She did, too - for a few days.
"I saw him one day, while I was driving," she said. "I left (Midland) because I didn't want to see him on campus and be reminded of it."
But fear of her assailant wasn't the only reason she left. Among the members of the review board were students she knew and one of her teachers. She felt betrayed by their ruling.
"It really distracted me the board would come up with that decision," she said. "What they decided made me step back and think I wasn't sure what happened, and that I was guilty. It was really confusing."
Now she's sure of one thing.
"Before this happened, I had no experience with legal or board discipline. It really gave me an inside to the realistic view of it," she said. "Schools don't always fight for what is right. They don't always fight for the victim. They do whatever they think is overall right. You can report it, know all the facts and they still might not do anything about it."
When the ruling came down, allowing her assailant to stay on campus, she said she was "past shocked."
"It just blew my mind."
In its review, the board suggested she - but not the assailant - get alcohol counseling.
"I think that's kind of funny," she said. "I hated admitting I was drinking, because I knew that would make my story less credible. I regret the drinking.
"But just because you drink, that doesn't give people the right to take advantage of you."
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