Faculty-Student Alliance and SAAVI to hold event in response to Kavanaugh decision
Tuesday, the newly-formed Utah State University Faculty/Student Alliance will host – in partner with Sexual Assault and Anti-Violence Information – a teach-in on issues of sexual violence.
The event will also discuss human rights and political action to foster discussion between students, staff and faculty in the wake of the Brett Kavanaugh’s contentious Supreme Court confirmation hearings over the past month.
The program, titled “Supreme Stakes: Understanding Sexual Violence,” will alternate between brief “lecturettes” from faculty and visiting experts, and student-led discussions on various topics related to gender and violence.
Organizers see the teach-in as a simultaneous call to action and healing moment for USU students and faculty to come together to educate and exchange ideas of empowerment.
“It’s about building a capacity for people to believe that they can resist, regardless of the change being immediate or change being in the future,” said Cana Itchuaqiyaq, graduate student and FSA member. “I think that’s part of healing, this idea that we can, and we should still fight.”
The teach-in, which will run from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the Anthropology Museum in Old Main 252 and is structured in 10 to 20-minute increments to allow students the opportunity to participate in as many or as few of the program’s lectures and discussions as they have time for.
Other plans for the teach-in include readings from creative writing students, a student panel on sexual assault experiences, and agency perspectives from Bear River Health and SAAVI. Speakers will cover topics related to sexual violence and its intersection with all parts of life, with lectures such as “Law, Women, and Loss,” “Missing and Murdered Indigenous Womxn” and “Who Gets to Get Angry?”
The program is heavily tied to the conversation around women’s stories and rights surrounding multiple accusations of sexual assault toward Kavanaugh and the national response. The teach-in will also take place at a USU changed by increased awareness and scrutiny of sexual assault and misconduct by students and faculty alike in recent years.
Jess Lucero, a professor of social work at USU and member of the FSA, said a goal of the event was to take national events and focus them down to the local community.
“We think it’ll be a really cool opportunity to respond to the decision, to demonstrate, to gather, to assemble,” she said “I think it will be a really healing event.”
Outside the museum, visitors can view a timeline of notable moments during Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court candidacy. Kavanaugh was sworn into the Supreme Court on Saturday following a 51-49 vote in the Senate to confirm.
Jennifer Sinor, an English professor working with creative-writing students for the event, emphasized the importance of the event for students at this time in history.
“I think it’s really important for our students to see, because they’re angry, and they’re upset, and they’re disempowered and disenfranchised,” Sinor said. “And for the community to come together and say ‘we notice, we see this, we are aware, and we can do something.’”
Members see the FSA as an egalitarian group where students and faculty hold equal weight in planning and decision making.
“As a student that has watched this entire process I’ve really noticed the absolute willingness of the faculty to have student involvement in this form of activism and education—to share this stage with students as collaborators, and as equals,” Itchuaqiyaq said.
Alissa Brown, a senior in the social work program, voiced similar sentiment. “We’re working together, and that makes me feel empowered, like I’m not just a student—I’m a woman who can change things.”
Though no future plans for the group exist yet, Lucero was optimistic that the FSA will continue to fuel on-campus events and activism beyond the passion of the moment.
“[The Kavanaugh hearings are] the reason we organized, but I suspect that there will be ongoing efforts from this group of faculty and students,” she said. “It’s been really impressive to see how quickly things have come together with effective and coordinated gusto, so I don’t imagine that energy will just die.”
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