SOUTH CAROLINA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests
For immediate release Tuesday, February 25
Statement by Barbara Dorris of St. Louis, Outreach Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests ( 314 862 7688 home, 314 503 0003 cell, SNAPdorris@gmail.com )
We are grateful that Bob Jones university officials have reversed themselves and will let GRACE complete its report about campus sex crimes.
Still, we’re troubled by the school’s recent, sudden and unilateral move to cancel the report. We can’t help but be worried about university officials’ motives and whether they are trying – or may still try – to influence the report itself.
Regardless, it’s crucial that those who saw, suspected or suffered campus sex crimes or cover ups take two steps. First, they should report to law enforcement, no matter who the perpetrator is, what school officials have done or promised, and when or where the crimes happened. And second, they should realize that the GRACE report is just one step in a long process of slowly beginning to reverse an unhealthy climate of self-serving secrecy at this university.
Victims should stay in therapy, keep attending self-help groups, and continue working hard to recover from the trauma they experienced at Bob Jones. No one event magically erases a horrific betrayal or “cures” a victim of the nightmares, depression, addictions, insomnia, eating disorders and other devastating effects or rape and the sometimes almost equally devastating effects of institutional denial and insensitivity.
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