Volume 7

Title: Healing Communities
Presenter:  Amita Swadhin, Mirror Memoirs; Dr. Fuifuilupe Niumeitolu, 2021 UC President’s Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Native American Studies at University of California, Davis; Caroline Lovell, Women’s Wisdom Initiative; Saundra Shanti, BCC, Spiritual Care/Arts in Medicine
Moderator: Diane Le Strain, Graduate Student Assistant, Gender-Based Violence Consortium, University of Utah
Date: 4/16/21
Copyright: copyright Amita Swadhin, Fuifuilupe Niumeitolu, Caroline Lovell, Saundra Shanti, & Diane Le Strain ©2021

Transcript- Fuifuilupe Niumeitolu 22:26 – 23:46

Fuifuilupe Nieitolu: Thank you so much. Thank you so much, our relatives. It’s—it’s really a great honor to be here. I hope it’s okay with everybody—I actually just wrote some of my…just…I just wrote stuff, just because I thought it might be easier for me to read them because, you know. Often, I get a little emotional and I just didn’t want to forget things, so I’m just gonna—so I hope that that’s okay with you guys, because really I do love to always look into the camera and to see all of you, so I just wanted to say, mālō ‘etau lava, or “good afternoon, relatives.”

Transcript- Caroline Lovell 41:20 – 53:19

Caroline Lovell: Hi, everybody, thank you so much. I’m honored to be here today with all of you and to be here as a part of this panel on healing communities. I’m an artist. I’m not so much an artist in the traditional sense as a painter or sculptor, but an artist that uses creativity for healing and social change. Using creativity this way, I’m able to connect personally and profoundly with people and it’s also where I find my grounding and my connection to spirit.

As a survivor, I learned a long time ago that engaging in a creative process gave me a voice. I grew up on a large farm, the youngest in a family of five women, and I learned firsthand that women were strong and capable and very often victims of violence. For me, the place I grew up was a paradox. It was both profoundly beautiful and also filled with trauma and shame and fear and it was the land that we lived on which provided me with a refuge and help me to survive. My instinct was to creatively express the beauty it held for me, and it was through photographing the land that I saw my ability to act as an artist to fully express my voice and I was eventually able to match it with a cause that was both personal and universal. I grew to learn that my individual identity could be separate from the circumstances of my immediate situation. I became an advocate for the right of all women to be fully expressed, to say no, to be free of violence perpetrated solely on the basis of being female.

So, how do we personally connect with an issue like gender-based violence? It’s pretty overwhelming for most people and one answer I believe is through art. And more than 10 years ago, I created our signature workshop called “Traveling Postcards” and the idea came from thinking about the old-fashioned sewing circle where women would gather together in creative circles to make something for someone in community that was in need. And I believe when we use our hands, we step out of our heads and sink into our hearts and when we speak from that place of our authentic voice and when we’re asked to be of service, this is where empowerment and healing can occur. I also understood intuitively that when women gather and feel safe that life-saving wisdom is passed between generations and between survivors and that that was my intention with “Traveling Postcards.”

So, “Traveling Postcards” is a therapeutic workshop that centers empathy and connection and brings survivors and their allies to the table to make a handmade piece of art the size of a postcard as a gift for a survivor of gender-based violence. Each card contains wisdom, beauty, and compassion and is hand-delivered through our hospital bag program or via shelter safe house. Our participants will never hear back from the person who receives their card; instead, they’re asked to speak their truth to say whatever it is they think will help heal someone or whatever they need to speak to help heal themselves. Everyone who receives a card is asked to make a card. We have created and distributed over 5,000 postcards in the last 10 years and no two posts—no two postcards have ever looked alike. Not one postcard spoke of anger resentment; all contained voices of love, compassion, and empowerment. So, I want to play a video now that will show you much of what goes on in our workshop. We’ve recently created a campaign called “Speak Your Truth” that allows  for us to collect voices of solidarity from anywhere in the world on a on a new digital platform that I’ll—I’ll talk more about after the video. I’ll let Diane play that.

Do you have sound? Can you hear that?

Annie Fukushima: No, we can’t. So, you might have to click…there’s a little carrot.

Caroline Lovell: Yeah, I think you know how to do this better than I do.

Annie Fukushima: There’s that little carrot next to the microphone. You might just have to choose your same as sound—yeah, there we go.

Video Sound: The “Speak Your Truth” campaign is an opportunity for survivors to tell their truth to heal and to share their resiliency. When we ask the question “what would the world be like without gender-based violence?” we are asking you to imagine a better and more just future for everyone. As the pandemic grows, so does violence against women: the so-called “shadow pandemic.” More and more women are trapped in their homes in unsafe situations made worse by growing poverty, illness, and stress.

Gender-based violence primarily affects women: Black, Indigenous, and women of color experience a disproportionate higher rate of violence. So does the LGBTQ community. One in three women around the world will experience violence in her lifetime. We can’t ignore it and the more we speak out, the more we realize that violence perpetrated solely because we identify as female. It’s not normal but it sure is pervasive. But how do you personally connect to an issue like gender-based violence that can seem so overwhelming?

It has been far too easy to stay separated by blaming and shaming victims. How do we begin to see the resiliency of women, not just the victimization? You really have a chance to touch someone else in a way that’s not so physical. It’s that you know that you are putting yourself into this into this small—you know—only a few inches of white paper, but it turns into this piece that is you and completely your own and there’s no wrong way to do it and you can put as much or as little as you want on it. And, at the end of the day, you know it’s going to someone that is going to cherish it and draw strength from it and in a way that strengthens you to know that you are making a difference in someone else’s life. And that female to female or survivor to survivor or hand to hand, we can touch each other in ways that are sacred and safe and positive.

How do we begin to see the resiliency of a woman who has simply survived? Well, I made this card to reflect that after we go through things, we begin again. So, I use the phrase “begin again” on the message of my card to let people know that it’s okay to start over that when you’re down, when you are broken, when you are exhausted, rest and then begin again. What we have learned is that engaging in a creative process engages you in a personal expression and that personal expression is what most deeply resonates, so I included the sun setting in the corner. I have different shades of blue because I know that blue and teal is the color that represents sexual assault. And I didn’t fix my heart or can’t explain my crooked heart because it shows that we are all imperfect but is suitable to us. So, someone may get this card and not even see that or think that it’s crooked because it’s suitable to them.

Art is healing and you don’t need to be an artist to benefit from creativity. Art has another language in which to process trauma, and, through their creative process, we can begin to feel again. When we say, “Speak Your Truth,” all we mean is speak from your heart, speak from your heart. Share with another survivor, share your resilience, share your wisdom. Just has a huge impact on the like deep emptiness of why does this even happen? To know that other people are in the same healing process. How can you help someone else heal? What do you need to say that can help you heal? We have found that when we ask survivors and their allies to share their resiliency in the face of violence, we all benefit. There’s nothing more powerful than speaking our truth. We invite all those who may or may not self-identify as survivors or who are a part of a marginalized community that understands what it simply means to survive to join us in creating a world without gender-based violence. We want everybody to know, every survivor to know that they are never alone. We’re super excited about the “Speak Your Truth” campaign and we hope that you’ll join us.

Caroline Lovell: Thanks. So, as a survivor, the best way I was able to use my voice to help others heal without being triggered was through art and it was really important that I found that that mechanism and I think it’s really important to create opportunities for survivors to speak their truth and share their resilience in a safe and nurturing way. When the pandemic hit, and I could no longer travel to lead workshops, I thought there might be a way to gather voices online instead.

So, we have now created a living piece of art—that I call it—and one that grows with every new voice that’s added. And through a unique photo mosaic platform, anyone can answer one of our questions, which is “what would the world look like without gender-based violence?” It’s a simple question. Or “what is your story of solidarity or resilience?”

And now for those who don’t know what a photo mosaic is: it usually has one large image that’s actually made up of thousands of smaller images and it sort of underscores that a single voice contributes to the whole. So, we have created that large, single beautiful image that fills in like a coloring book with each pixel containing a creative response and a unique voice and I just invite you to come to our website and participate in the mosaic. You can, anybody from anywhere in the world can, upload a story, a visual, a poem, a dance, and our hope is just to be able to, you know, collect all these voices and have them archived. And hopefully they are used to inspire healing and hope and I also just want to say you’re welcomed anytime to participate in a “Traveling Postcards” workshop. We’re having one next—just next week in this community and we’re offering workshops both online and in person, when we can safely gather.

So, that’s it. Thank you so much.

Soul Care for Survivors of Gender-Based Violence by Saundra Shanti

In my work as a multi-faith chaplain providing spiritual care for hospital patients, I regularly encounter people who have experienced gender-based violence and other forms of trauma. In addition to physical or psycho-social injury, patients have often also experienced religious trauma or spiritual wounding resulting from an assault or unhealthy environment. I refer to this as soul violation which occurs when the connection to one’s essential self, intrinsic value, or personal dignity is ruptured. In my role, I also witness spiritual abuse. This occurs when authority figures invoke God or the Divine to exert power or control over another human. Spiritual abuse is an affront to our humanity. If access to the Sacred, God, or Transcendence is cut off because someone feels threatened, betrayed, or shamed the solution is to create space for that person to lament and speak their truth. Survivors need to be heard and received through empathic connection. This article offers reflections from my own experiences as a practitioner and exemplars of activities that I have facilitated through art.  

My purpose as a spiritual care provider is to come alongside people in pain and compassionately accompany them. I do not proselytize or advise or attempt to fix a situation. Rather I invite them to share their story, where I listen with an open heart and with precision. ¹ Through listening patiently, I invite their own wisdom from within to be expressed, moving survivors toward healing.² In this sense, something is offered and something is received. In our exchange I bring genuine interest in hearing what has happened in a person’s life and what they make of that experience. Together the survivor and I approach existential and universally human questions of identity, purpose, and belovedness. Involving religion in this discovery may or may not come into play.  

Religion, one component of spirituality, comes from the root religio, meaning to reconnect, to bind back together.³ If people have this kind of connective experience with religious practice or communities of faith, then this is a source of solace and healing for them. Our imagination of what might be connective, provide meaning, or inspire awe needs to be expansive rather than narrow. I find the arts to be another domain where humans are able to explore both suffering and beauty. Consequently, one way I introduce care for the spirit is to facilitate art-making. 

When someone is tangled in their trauma, it can be very difficult for them to sit face to face with a chaplain and articulate what is happening in their interior landscape. Creating art allows people to experience non-verbal and embodied healing, where participants of art-making bring forth their experience by putting color on paper. This is not art therapy to diagnosis mental health; this is care for the soul. Educator and spiritual teacher, Parker Palmer offers this: “In Western culture, we often seek truth through confrontation. But our headstrong ways of charging at truth scare the shy soul away. If soul truth is to be spoken and heard, it must be  

approached ‘on the slant.’ I do not mean we should be coy, speaking evasively about subjects that make us uncomfortable, which weakens us and our relationships. But soul truth is so powerful that we must allow ourselves to approach it, and it to approach us, indirectly. We must invite, not command, the soul to speak. We must allow, not force, ourselves to listen.”⁴  Facilitating art with people, and then skillfully asking questions and listening to them, allows for rich spiritual exploration.  

I usually offer a prompt to patients to initiate creativity. One concept which I’ve adapted from A Window Between Worlds,⁵ a non-profit that utilizes art to transform trauma, is “What big emotion is swimming inside you right now?” There are always multiple feelings, but people readily locate one that is dominate such as anger, fear, shame or anxiousness. After that emotion is named, I invite them to draw that emotion as a monster. “Show me what your Anger Monster looks like.  It can be abstract color, or it can have literal form.” Once that rather nebulous interior feeing is imparted to the external, material world, we can look at the expression together. In safely held space, we collaboratively move forward through questioning and wondering, speaking and listening. Something is offered and something is received.  

Another example of art-making as healing process is what I call “Detangling Story from Soul.” I offer a patient a large black and white photograph of an unidentified person. They are invited to make up this person’s story, imagining their name, history, and what is going on for them in the moment. Once the creative juices are flowing, they write the story in the white background behind the image. Not surprisingly, a lot of their own story shows up in the narrative. After reading this together, I instruct them to cut out the image so that now the image and the written story are separated. Then we wonder together by reflecting on questions like: Are we our stories? Are we separate from our stories? How much do we get to decide? Answers are not as important as the questions. After this open-ended exploration, I provide art materials like paint and papers and invite the patient to imagine what this person’s soul looks like. By engaging the senses in this playful process, new potential for life emerges.  

Partnering with Women’s Wisdom Initiative⁶, another arts-based non-profit that focuses on healing gender-based violence, has led to the actualization of workshops in Utah. Take for example, the Traveling Postcards workshop at the university hospital attended by employees. Fifty professionals from across disciplines came together in small workshops to connect with each other around this topic, share their experience and wisdom, and create art.  Ordinary white postcards are transformed by adding images and words to create unique expressions of love and support.  These are then placed in beautiful cloth bags and gifted to survivors of sexual assault who enter our Emergency Department, or survivors of trauma who are on our hospital floors. This community process and tangible offering remind patients that they are not alone. Spiritually, we remind survivors that even though their soul has been violated, their wholeness is still present inside and healing is possible.  

Hospital and hospitality have the same root meaning⁷ and can be expressed as “welcoming the stranger.” You have a home and I have a home. There are many places to reside and we can extend hospitality to one another by visiting each other’s homes.  Similarly, when patients come to the hospital, I can extend spiritual hospitality through my care. We may have different religions or spiritual practices, but this does not need to divide. Rather, by extending hospitality, I welcome those of all faiths or no faith to the table.  

The message I impart to patients and especially to survivors of gender-based violence that I offer as a means to conclude is, “You are loved and you matter.” When violence occurs, more than bones get broken; the heart is also torn in two. The goal of spiritual care is to extend compassion, receive story, evoke wisdom, and gently walk together toward wholeness.  

References:

1. Brazelton, N.Listening from places of survival: the role of story listening in the empowerment of female victims of violence. International Journal of Listening. 2019; 33(3),154-157.
2. Evers, H. (Contemplative Listening: A Rhetorical-Critical Approach yo Facilitate Internal Dialog.Journal of Pastoral Care & Counseling. 2017; 71(2), 114-121.
3. Rohr, Richard, Seeing with God’s Eyes, August 2016. https://cac.org/seeing-gods-eyes-2016-08-17/.
4. Palmer, P. J. (2009).A hidden wholeness: The journey toward an undivided life. john Wiley & sons.
5. A Window Between Worlds, Monster in Me, November 2019. https://awbw.org.
6. The Women’s Wisdom Initiative: empowering survivors of gender-based violence through the healing arts, https://womenswisdominitiative.org.
7. Online Etymology Dictionary. https://www.etymonline.com/word/hospital.

Title: Leading Social Change to End Sexual Violence
Presenter:  Dean Elizabeth Kronk Warner, Professor of Law at the S.J. Quinney College of Law at the University of Utah; Tasha Toy, Assistant Vice President for Campus Diversity, Dixie State University; Dr. Julie Valentine, Associate Dean of Undergraduate Studies and Research Associate Professor Brigham Young University College of Nursing; Dr. Kozue Akibayashi, Professor, Graduate School of Global Studies, Doshisha University, Kyoto, Japan
Moderator: Dr. Yoshimi Anzai, Professor, Radiology, University of Utah
Date: 4/16/21
Copyright: copyright Elizabeth Kronk Warner, Tasha Toy, Julie Valentine, Kozue Akibayashi, & Yoshimi Anzai ©2021

Transcript- Elizabeth Kronk Warner 6:00 – 23:46

Yoshimi Anzai: So, it is my pleasure to introduce this fantastic session of Leading Social Changes to End Sexual Violence’s first speaker. Dr. Elizabeth Kronk Warner is the dean of and professor  of law at S.J. Quinney College of Law at the University of Utah. She was a former Associate Dean of Professor of Law at the University of Kansas School of Law, where she was also the Director of Trial Law and Government Center. Dr. Kronk Warner received her JD degree from the University of Michigan and also undergraduate degree from Cornell University. Dr. Kronk Warner is a nationally recognized as the expert of the intersection of Environmental and Indian  law. It is such a pleasure to have her speaking in this first speaker of this session. So, Dr. Kronk Warner, please take it away.

Elizabeth Kronk Warner: Thank you. Hello, friends. It is a privilege and honor to be here today. I just want to start off by thanking Dr.. Fukushima for having me today and for really not just  having me today, but also for  being the driving force of so, much wonderful change here at the University of Utah. We’re so thankful for her and all she does for us in our community, of which this conference is an important part. As was mentioned, my name is Elizabeth Kronk Warner. My pronouns are she and hers and as I do anytime I present, I like to start off by acknowledging that I (at least) am coming to you today from the Salt Lake Valley and that the University of Utah, and the University of Utah acknowledges that this land, which is named for the Ute tribe, is a traditional ancestral homeland of the Shoshone, Paiute, Goshute, and Ute tribes. The University of Utah recognizes and respects the enduring relationship that exists between many Indigenous peoples and their traditional homelands. We respect the sovereign relationship between tribes, states, and the federal government and we affirm the University of Utah’s commitment to a partnership with Native Nations and Urban Indian communities through research, education, and community outreach activities.

So, it seems really  appropriate that we should be gathered  here today on this land that was  traditionally a gathering place for Indigenous peoples in what is now Utah, that we should be gathering to talk about  this important—important—very important topic and one that’s near and dear to my heart. So, while I have never been in a relationship where I was physically  abused, I have been in past relationships where my partner engaged in power control tactics  along emotional control and financial control. So, this is something that is really important to me, and I really applaud everyone for being seized on these issues and I’m especially excited to talk about how we can be agents of change and how we can hopefully make the status quo a little bit better.

And so, what I want to talk today is really focus in on some exciting regulatory developments here in Utah in the legal field, specifically the Utah regulatory sandbox, but before I go into the sandbox, I kind of want to tee it up a little bit with my own experiences before I talk about the legal reform. So, as was mentioned I was previously—I came to the  University of Utah from the University of Kansas, and when I  was at the university of Kansas, I was a domestic violence advocate for our local domestic violence shelter and the advocates were not lawyers, so, I had to kind of take my—even though I am a lawyer—I had to kind  of take off my lawyer hats when I was doing that work. And so, we didn’t technically provide legal advice,  but we did help  survivors of domestic violence through really whatever they needed help with. Many of them needed help navigating the legal system, but many of them also needed help just ascertaining  resources and getting back on their feet after. Those assisting survivors and the woman who oversaw that group of  advocates was perhaps one of the most impressive advocates I’ve ever seen,  both those with JDs and those without JDs, although she had never completed and still has not completed her college degree so, it’s evidence that you don’t necessarily have to have  a degree in formal education in order to  be really  good at this type of work. And that’s  going to become relevant when we talk  about the relative regulatory sandbox in Utah. And she was excellent because, through her lived experience having run this  program, she was really good and possessed tremendous knowledge in a couple of  important places.

So, for example she taught me quite a bit  about trauma-informed responses. So, she taught me how survivors would respond to very different ways. So, we had some survivors who were extroverted in their emotions , but we had some survivors—in fact I  remember one survivor in particular who was very stoic  showed no  emotion and really learning from that experience—and it didn’t mean that  she had suffered any less, it just meant that her trauma response was a little bit different. And so, we had to respond to her in a different way. And so, this woman who ran the advocacy program really taught me that and taught me that  trauma can look very different from different people and that there’s also racial pieces of it as well.

We would often times find that our survivors of different race racial classifications  and backgrounds would respond to the  trauma in very different ways and that was also an important lesson, too, because not only would racialized individuals respond to trauma oftentimes differently, the comfortability of having law enforcement officers (whether that’s  actual police coming and resolve an issue or having lawyers involved) was  sometimes very uncomfortable for people in that community because of  their historic relationship negative relationship with law enforcement. So, that was an important lesson as well that I was taught.   She is also probably the best listener I have ever encountered in my entire life. Again, not a lawyer  and she really taught me what it means  to be an active listener and I think  that’s one of the skills that we don’t focus on in law. To be honest, oftentimes, sometimes students will get it in clinical education, but oftentimes we don’t talk to our students about what it means to really listen. And I think in  the legal sphere, there’s this savior mentality that many of us have that, you know, we’re here to save the day, and that’s not necessarily what’s needed in these contexts. And last, one of the things when I reflect on my time with her and everything I learned from her, she was—again despite—she did not  have a bachelor’s degree; she didn’t have a JD, didn’t have a master’s degree—she had a  tremendous knowledge of the system and  specifically the legal system and was able to give tremendous  support to our survivors as they learned to navigate those legal systems. And that’s  going to become relevant to our discussion today, too, because it’s evidence that you don’t  need to have a JD to really understand these systems.

And so, I reflect on this experience  because, of course, the broad takeaway is that you don’t have to be a lawyer to be effectively good in this type of work and she’s an  excellent example of that. At the same time, that, at least in my personal experience (and I would say that there’s been numerous scholarship written about this as well this idea that you don’t have to  be a lawyer to be a very good advocate) we know that we have a huge access-to-justice need in the United States and what that means is that there is a gap between the legal providers that are available and the people who need legal services. And some have estimated that that gap  would be monetized at approximately four billion dollars, just to give you some size, how big that gap is. And I’ve had it sometimes described—Justice Himonas, who is a  justice on the Utah Supreme Court, oftentimes compares JDs (lawyers) to thoracic surgeons and he said, “yes, if you need thoracic surgery, it’s great to have a thoracic surgeon and that’s who you want, but if you need to have a blood draw, you do not need a thoracic surgeon. And you certainly don’t need to pay for a  thoracic surgeon.” And I think that’s a really impactful.

I like that he uses that analogy because it points out that, yes, there are times when we need people who have been educated and who have JDs and perhaps can do  more complex legal analysis; however, for these day-to-day access-to-justice needs where some of these biggest gaps are, we don’t necessarily need thoracic surgeons in order to make a difference in that gap. And it’s also partially education, and this is where I think our College of Education can play a really important role as well. It’s not just having legal representation. It’s making sure that all members of our society have knowledge of when they have a legal  problem. Oftentimes people aren’t even aware that they necessarily have a legal  problem and could get assistance  from a lawyer or from some sort of  advocate. Also, again with this access-to-justice gap, another contributing factor is even in a situation where community members may be able to afford a lawyer and may have knowledge of the fact that they have a legal problem, sometimes an obstacle (again) is the negative relationships between certain communities  and  members of the law field because of historic negative—negative interactions. And we only have to look at  the news—sadly this past week has been a horrific week with another Black man being murdered—and to know that these (many) communities do not have comfort bringing police officers and formal legal officials into their communities because of this history of negativity  and abuse.

And so, I think for these reasons, we can—we can look at, creatively, how can we marry these two facts. So, we have individuals within our communities and—and hopefully we can educate more individuals and that’s hopefully another role that the University of Utah can play—but we have individuals within the  community which who do not necessarily have formal legalized training but have tremendous capacity for this type of work. And again, in my own personal experience, perhaps could even be better than lawyers at this type of work. And then on the other hand, we have this  tremendous need where there are these great access-to-justice issues both around education and people understanding where access-to-justice issues lie. And  monetarily, and people not being able to afford those “thoracic surgeons” lawyers and then also concerns with having  official representatives of a very  flawed legal system—which many have  argued  is a product of systemic racism—involved in their community.

So, what can we do to kind of marry these two things and hopefully bring it together? And this is where I’m excited about what the state of Utah and specifically the Utah Supreme Court has done, and I think it’s potentially an area of  social change that I encourage everyone to consider (because I think it  has a lot of value) and that is that the state of Utah is second—is currently in the second year (I believe we just moved into the second year of a pilot program in the reg—the legal regulatory sandbox). So, here in Utah, as you know, we have a reputation for innovation,  and we currently have regulatory reform and three spheres. So, we have regulatory reform in  financial technology, insurance, and then in the legal sphere. And so, it’s that last fear that I want  to focus on.

So, the Utah supreme court approved the creation  of the Utah regulatory sandbox in April  of 2020. It’s a two-year pilot so, again, we’re  through the first year and we have one more year  and after completion of the pilot. The Utah  court is going to do a review and determine whether or not to make the program  permanent. Now the program was really developed  by two individuals who were co-chairs of the committee that formed the regulatory reform. One of those was Justice Deno Himonas (who again is a justice of the Utah Supreme Court) and the other individual is John Lund, who is an attorney here  in Salt Lake City (and I’m proud to say  is also an alum of the S.J. Quinney College of Law) and he explains in an interview what the regulatory sandbox is and what it does.

And so, he said, “a regulatory  sandbox is a controlled environment where consumer-centered innovations can be tested and evaluated. The goal is to have legal service providers develop new offerings that the regulator can be confident will, if approved, benefit the public the regulator. The regulator calls for applications and specifies which regulations are open to being relaxed. Applicants must detail what innovations they intend to offer and how these innovations will work. Applicants must also benefits and risk to the public of the services. Those whose applications are accepted then roll out their services to the market and collect data on their performance. At the end of the evaluation period, the regulator decides whether to approve the innovation permanently.” 

So, how is this working in the legal sphere? So, in the legal sphere there are two rules of professional responsibility that would typically preclude somebody like the remarkable woman that I had the  privilege of working with at the Willow Domestic Violence Center in Lawrence, Kansas, from doing legal representation. And that is first, that you must be a lawyer in order to conduct legal services or provide legal services and second, that any sort of entity that is  providing legal services must be owned by lawyers. And so, what this legal regulatory sandbox does is it allows for applicants to put in proposals that restrict or eliminate one of those two  requirements. And so, for example, this work has been ongoing and has been very  helpful. So, specifically, the group has been looking at recommendations to the Utah Supreme Court  on how reform to the regulatory  structure of the legal profession can promote access-to-justice and provide  innovative solutions to these gaps. There’s a report titled “Narrowing the Access-to-Justice Gap by Reimagining Regulation,” which talks about how these existing regulations have really limited our ability to close this access-to-justice gap. Specifically, this narrowing the access-to-justice gap by reimagining regulation points out that substantially loosening  restrictions on corporate practice of law, lawyer advertising, solicitation, and fee arrangements (including referrals and fisheries) might help with this. Also, by simultaneously establishing a  new regulatory body under the supervision and direction of the supreme  court, it can implement and advance a risk-based, empirically-grounded regulatory process for legal service  entities offering services in a pilot regulatory sandbox structure.

So, what does this mean for  domestic violence? It means that we can have women like that woman that I had the privilege of working with do this type of work. So, there’s this  really  incredibly innovative space now which allows for organizations and advocates to come together to put in a proposal to the regulatory sandbox to say we can do this work of assisting domestic violence survivors or sexual assault survivors or human trafficking survivors. We have the expertise; we are not lawyers, and you don’t have to be lawyers under the regulatory sandbox,   so it’s possible to put in an application now and to start the work. And again, because we’re in this pilot phase, there is going to be this requirement that you track  your work and  basically they’re going to review it  after the—the pilot time to show that there’s been no increased risk  to clients than the status quo. And note that: no increased risk.

There is an acknowledgment that there could be some risk to providing these—these types of loosening of regulatory reform. So, it’s not without risk, but the Utah Supreme Court was willing to accept some risks. So, the showing is just that you are not endangering potential clients more than currently exists.  So, I raised this as a potential really exciting way for advocates who are not necessarily lawyers to think about how they might come together and put in an application to really bridge this gap and to provide better services to survivors. And I’m really hopeful. We’re currently at the S.J. Quinney College of Law working in collaboration with the  business school on a joint clinic that would hopefully help with this work. And we’re hoping to  launch it in this fall—fall of 2021—and, specifically, if you have any ideas, it’s something that, once the clinics launched, we’d be happy to work with you. The idea would be that the law students could provide direction on the legal aspect and the business students could  provide direction on the actual business formation.

So, again, I think I’ve run out of time and thank you very much.

Transcript- Tasha Toy 24:09 – 39:49 

Yoshimi Anzai: I am so honored to introduce our next speaker: Assistant Vice President of Campus Diversity and Chief Diversity Officer at the Dixie State University, Tasha Toy. She earned a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Higher Education Research and Policy from Seton Hall University, New Jersey, and also a Master of Art in Education and Instructional Technology, and a Bachelor of Arts and History both from North Carolina Central University. She has worked in higher education for over 20 years in various areas, with more than 10 years really specifically  focusing on diversity, inclusion, and equity. So, pleasure to have you, Dr. Tasha Toy. She is speaking so, please share your slides if you have.

Tasha Toy: No, it’s just going to be me. Hi, everyone. Can everyone hear me? Because I’ve been having technical difficulties all day. I see head nods and yes.

Annie Fukushima: Actually, and, one thing I want to suggest is if folks are seeing a lag or anything, you might want to close out the many windows that we tend to have open. It slows down the bandwidth a little bit so, if you have a billion windows, you might want to shut the other ones except this one. You got it.

Tasha Toy: Well as was shared with you, my name is  Dr. Tasha Toy. I’m the Assistant Vice President at Dixie State University and I would just like to say thank you for the invite. My presentation is not going to be as cool as the dean’s. Mine is going to be more along the lines  of grassroots efforts.

So, I really appreciate  having the time to speak with each one of you from my perspective. What I’m going to share is that, for the most part, when we—the work that I do really focuses on students that are on the outskirts, that are marginalized, unrepresented, and unheard. And for that reason, the most, that I would—the groups that I would like to focus on are the two that I see continually not  only on our campuses, but also in the media and also in our efforts have been our LGBT students and our Native American students.

It’s very important that we take a  moment to really think about what these particular environments are doing for our students not only on campus, but always the ongoing. conversation and need for them to have addressed—have their needs addressed when it comes  to  social issues on and off our campus. I do will—would like to share that I am a survivor of sexual assault, not only that, but also having to come to grips with that as part of my identity and coming to that  point really happened here at Dixie State when I was confronted with it.   Speaking a couple years as a sexual assault speaker and in doing that it really got me to start thinking about if I’m not—if I was—it took all this time for me to really address and come to grips and to actually speak those words about myself, what does it look like for our students?

Just to give you a little bit of an  overview: about one percent of our student population identifies as Native  American. For LGBT students, that is a lot less easy data to collect because we—it’s an emerging group and it’s a  group that we understand that is always changing. So, we have not had a very good  footprint or an identifier on what LGBTQ students look like at our institution. Now, please understand again that this information is not  directly for DSU but what I am talking about is what is the grassroots movement. What are some of the things that we can be doing as individuals walking across Utah to address the needs?

One of the things that I haven’t heard  not only here but all the other places that I have lived  has been “well that’s so, sad I’ll pray  for them” when they hear of an unfortunate event whether it’s  sexual assault or, unfortunately as we had last night, a mass shooting. But the thing that we  have been moving on with—with DSU has been the effort that everyone has a place and a space to be either—either an advocate an ally or an agitator within that cause. So, I want to take those two things and  put them together and ask you and implore you: what are you doing  within the lens, in within this space to address the needs of others those that are un  (are less) heard or underrepresented when it comes to sexual assault efforts?

So, we’re going to talk we’re going to talk real briefly about some of the statistics and  overviews of these two populations that I’m sharing with you, but also I want to walk away with some resources or some  additional  points that you can share with other individuals or employ  yourself to make a move or move the needle or bring more light to these causes. In larger, the  Black Lives Matter movement and the #MeToo  movement: these are—they’re really focused on individuals that are of African-American or Black descent, but when it comes to Native Americans, they are two times more likely to experience sexual assault crimes compared to all races and one of the three—one in three Indian women report having been raped during a  lifetime. If you take into consideration, that is 34%  of Native women have been raped in their lifetime. But if you also take into consideration the 2010 Gallup study, it also says that that— excuse me—the U.S. attorney declined to prosecute  67 of sexual abuse violations, homicide, and things like that, within the lives of Native American women.

Violence against Native American women occurs across the U.S., and it is—it ends it starts like most with verbal abuse and sometimes, unfortunately, continues with murder. With this, like most incidents, we always hear that women are most likely, Native American women, are most likely not to report their incidents. The other reason why this is coming to the forefront for us  at Dixite State is because we’re very  close to the Paiute—I wouldn’t say reservation—but to  the Paiute Nation, and with that being said, we have had a couple of presenters to come on campus to  give us overview about—unfortunately the taking on—unfortunately most likely selling of or sex trafficking of Native American women. What that means, to the forefront a lot of our students have asked themselves would that be for them, and we have continually tried to strive to give them support and to give them a voice that that would not be their outcome. So, some of the things that I would like to share with you when it  comes to our Native American  students, or when it comes to Native  American individuals, is that this is not—the resources that I give you at the end are going to be centered on LGBTQ but some of them also  cross over to our Native American, Native American individuals.

So, the next group that I would like to  bring to the forefront  is going to be our LGBT students  and in doing that, again, sharing some data and some perspective when it comes to LGBT. Those are the among the students that come to our area and most of them have expressed sexual assault and it could be unfortunately by a family member or it can be just because, as they were living their lives of—just expressing their identities. And, with that being said, the  National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence survey found that among LGBT students, 44% of lesbians and 61% of bisexual women experienced rape, physical assault, or stalking by an  intimate partner, compared to 35% for straight women. 26% of gay men, and 37% percent of  bisexual men experience of some type of assault (that’s compared to 29% of straight men). And 46% of bisexual women have been raped, compared to 17%  of straight women and 13% of lesbians, when we take in that consideration we are only talking about lesbians and bisexual individuals. But, if you taken also  the  intersectionality of sexual orientation  and gender expression, if 53% of people of color (according to the 2015 US Transgender Survey) that are Black said that they have experienced some type of sexual assault in their lifetime. In addition to that, the same study says that multiracial is 59%, American Indians is 65%, and also when it comes to 58% of Middle Eastern Individuals. But then if you want to take it down—take it and break it down into age, you can say that nearly half (which is 48% percent of bisexual women have been raped) who are rape survivors  experience their first rape between the  ages of 11 to 17.

Now, I know I gave you a lot of data, but  the reason why I’m doing that is because the facts are very clear. When students  are experiencing or when our community are experiencing  these efforts or of these traumas, they are asking either themselves is it their  fault or the other question is “who do I turn to?” And that could be a friend, it could  be a family member, and as previously shared by the dean, it is understanding and being that listening ear, but also  understanding that there’s a gap when it comes to  individuals being  prosecuted. So, if there’s a gap in those things and they have seen it in their community, not only with  gun violence but also racial profiling in many different forms, when it comes to sexual assault, they’re  less likely to share that or take it or report it. So, that means that they’re going to be going to people that they trust that aren’t within those areas to ask for guidance and that is some of the things that I  would like to share with you that are resources.

To come back sexual assault now, there is also the one group that we are partnering with  a lot and giving students as a connecting  has been the RAIIN which is the Rape, Abuse, Incest National network. And for that organization, they really bring light to and give resources and take donations for meeting the needs of the students or the individuals, the victim survivors,  and giving them hope. So, that means not only are they feeding the soul and helping them heal, but they also are giving them food and giving them access to health care. The next one is, of course, everybody knows the Human Rights Campaign, but then let’s look at it a little bit closer  to the Anti-Violence Project, which serves LGBTQ individuals. And it’s a hotline that is bilingual,  24 hours a day, that number is 2-1-2 (of course that’s New York) 414-1124. The last part of it of course for us is The Network/La Red which serves LGBTQ,  poly, and BDSM survivors. That particular group is an emerging group  and that has been on the forefront of raising awareness and funds to help survivors. Yes, I will happily pass that last list on. The reason why, again, when we think about traditionally (or the conversations that I have been privy to) really when it talks about sexual assault, they’re talking about individuals that don’t look like me and do not identify [in the same] sexually oriented ways, but these  individuals are always on the outskirts (as I shared), on the outliers, and need our support. So, that is  why I’m using this time to share with you that sexual assault is not just with one group, it’s with all  individuals. And as we’re moving forward, all of us can be advocates—advocate  advocator advocates educate—agitators and advocates for this cause, and that is where you come from.

And I will  share this list and don’t keep it to yourself. Please share with as many people as possible. That what we’re doing is considered, this  form of outreach, is considered to be grassroots effort and that is where you can help each person overcome or, at least, like me  speak the words of their survivor so they can start the healing. Thank you. 

Transcript- Julie Valentine 39:52 – 59:12 

Yoshimi Anzai: Pleasure to have Dr. Julie Valentine. She’s the Associate Dean of Undergraduate Studies and Research and as also Associate Professor in the College Of Nursing at Brigham Young University. She has extensive research expertise, including quantitative mixed-methods and then participatory action research. She brings a wealth of expertise and research regarding sexual violence and trauma-informed response as well as forensic analysis so, pleasure to have you, Dr. Valentine. 

Julie Valentine: Thank you very much, Dr. Anzai.

I’m going to share my screen here and thank you, Dean Warner and Dr. Toy. I think it’s wonderful hearing these different perspectives on how we can lead social change to end sexual violence and that really goes right into my first slide.

When I consider what do we need to do to bring about this social change, we need to address this at every level and this is everything from, as Dean Warner talked about, looking at the access-to-justice gap, to what Dr. Toy talked about: how do we help survivors want to report. Liliana earlier today talked about “we need to do this in a survivor trauma-informed manner,” letting them drive what that justice maybe means, to also engaging men. I was looking through our participant list, right now, mainly females. We need to be very clear that that gender-based violence is not a female issue. Gender-based violence is a cultural issue that we need to have every culture, population, gender identification, sexual orientation, race involved in this because it cuts across all of those demographics. In fact, we know that we have some demographics like Dr. Toy talked about that are more vulnerable and what can we do to help them.

So, I’m a researcher, so, when I look at what can we do to instigate social change (which is a huge goal), I will look at it as what can we do as far as research to help drive this a little bit of background. I am a forensic nurse. I’m a sexual assault nurse examiner, as well as being a researcher with Wasatch Forensic Nursing, and I help our forensic nurses and I have been working in this field for many years. I still work with patients; in fact, I’m on call today at 4. So, I’m hands on in the trenches as well as doing research. I really got involved in research because I thought that’s the way to try to bring about change, to try to capture survivors’ voices, aggregate those voices and then see what we learn from our survivors through this research. So, when I began to do research, I really considered my goal as developing research findings to influence practice and I thought practice broadly: practice everything from forensic nurse and health care provider practice to law enforcement to the legal system, prosecutors, defense attorneys, to forensic scientists to victim advocates. So, I thought that’s why I want to do this research: to really influence practice. Well, then I really learned that influencing practice and developing education only goes so far. When we really want to look at how do we bring about social change, we have to realize that we have to influence policy, that policy is key. We can’t just provide education; we can’t just look at what practice changes do we need, we need to look at what is our policies, what is what is our legislation, what are our laws and how do we use research and evidence to inform those policies and laws and then we have social change.

So, this brings the chicken and the egg question. What happens first? Does policy change and then that creates social change or does policy lag behind and not change until we have this upsweep in social change?

Now this is something I have considered greatly in the last few months. In fact, in this legislative session, I was involved, and I have been involved for about the last three years with Representative Romero and other community key stakeholders in improving our consent legislation to affirmative consent this last year. Paul Cassell, and I’m sure many of you know Paul  at the University of Utah Law School so, Paul Cassell and I have worked together closely on a number of things, and we became very involved in writing consent legislation. And this year this was House Bill 78, which was that is affirmative consent and current Utah law is forcible rape is a felony I and then below that the next thing is a misdemeanor, which is sexual battery. There’s nothing in between and to reach that felony I of forcible rape, current law is that you have to prove that a victim said no or acted negatively for having any sexual contact. So, this bill would have created a third-degree felony so, we didn’t go from forcible rape that is very hard to prove and we see a real low amount of prosecution in our state, down to the misdemeanor.

Well, it failed. I will share with you this: there are states that have affirmative consent or have currently evolving affirmative consent and you’ve noticed we’ve designated Utah with that because we believe very strongly that we need to move in this direction of affirmative consent to improve our prosecution of sexual assault cases. I’m going to give you some research findings on what are our current prosecution amounts. Now, I’m going to bring up that chicken and the egg visual that I shared earlier. We had some pushback primarily from defense attorneys on this legislation because they said you can’t pass policy about affirmative consent because that’s not the societal norm and so, we have to wait until that is the societal norm: that people understand that that they should engage in sexual activities when someone says yes or implies “yes, I want to gauge—engage in this sexual activity.” Many of us feel that policy needs to change because we do feel in our college campuses, we’re talking about consent two years ago in the State of Utah Education guidelines changed and we now talk about affirmative consent in our educational system, we do feel that we are at the point that we need our policy to reinforce this change and that policy needs to reflect that social change and actually help to drive that social change.

So, that was an interesting experience: looking at what comes first, policy or social change. Something for you all to think about. I’m going to quickly share some research. I have a multitude of different research projects, but I’m going to talk about two where we’ve really seen that research has helped to ignite policy changes.

The first is the investigation prosecution of sexual assault cases (we have shared this in our reasoning or to support the move towards an affirmative consent legislation) and then sexual assault kit submission rates. I’m going to go through the numbers quickly because I have some information—more qualitative findings—on why the why of why we have low investigation prosecution and then the sexual assault kit submission rates. So, this chart shows I had done a study with the National Institute of Justice looking in Salt Lake County from 2003 to 2011 on the investigation and prosecution of sexual assault cases and implemented what is called the NIJ SANE toolkit and here’s our first thing that we looked at: is how many cases (and these are all cases where the victim was over the age of 18) at the time they had a sexual assault examination, and a fully collected sexual assault kit. They said, “I want to talk to law enforcement” and these were the numbers we found. That out of those that had fully collected sexual assault kits said, “I want to talk to law enforcement,” over the age of 18, that 34% of those cases were screened by law enforcement with prosecutors. Meaning that two-thirds of the cases ended at law enforcement.

So, I recently re-implemented (and this is a published study) but we recently re-implemented this study, and this is in the process of being published our new findings so, for Salt Lake County what we found is, boy, not much difference. We were hoping that we would find a significant difference on the percentage of cases that were screened or referred. And I also did this study in Utah County for the first time and you can see we even had a lower percentage of cases that were screened so, these were 73% in Utah County of the cases ended at law enforcement. So, we then looked at why—why did cases not move on from law enforcement to the prosecutor’s office—and you can see these findings and I think these  are something that we really need to dig into because this represents where we are socially on these issues. So, you can see uncooperative victim was the number one reason in Salt Lake County. We certainly could spend hours talking about what that means: did not victim did not want to pursue prosecution? I’ve been talking with you Tasha and Liliana on this: what do we do to help support our survivors in moving through the criminal justice system? Why is it that we have a number of survivors that have a fully collected sexual assault exam say, “yes I want to prosecute this case,” and then say, “I’m done. I don’t want to do this anymore.”

Now you can see in Utah County, the number one reason why a case was not referred for prosecution was a belief by law enforcement of lack of evidence or “unfounded.” We can spend a lot of time talking about that as well. You can see that was almost four times more in that jurisdiction than in Salt Lake County. So, then we want to look at the prosecution rates. So, you can see in the earlier study, we found that out of those cases (again all fully collected sexual assault kits, the victims said that they wanted to prosecute), 6% were prosecuted in the cases 2003-2011. We had improvement in Salt Lake County—now I showed you the earlier slide about law enforcement screening those cases. The improvement did not come from law enforcement screening more cases; the improvement came from the Salt Lake County DA’s office. They’re prosecuting more cases which is wonderful and then you can see Utah County. Even though there was a lower amount of cases screened, they did have a higher prosecution. These cases that are not yet adjudicated, many of those are cases of sexual assault kits that were previously not tested and have now been tested and they have reopened those cases, the SAK cases, which are is great to see. So, we shared these with many communities, this low prosecution numbers, with many community partners as we tried to push for this affirmative consent legislation to say, “we need to make a change; we need to find ways to increase this prosecution.”

So, then also I wanted to share a little bit about sexual assault kit submission rates and a study that I did looking at 2010 through 2014. You can see the numbers: there these were again, we’re all fully collected sexual assault kits we found only 38% of those kits were submitted. I’m going to catch you up to where we are now, but first we wanted to look at why some kits were submitted, and some weren’t the number one reason is the location of the rape. We found that we had one county where only 4% of the sexual assault kits were submitted, up to a neighboring county, it was 40%. So, that just shows the subjectivity of the decision to submit a sexual assault kit or not. Then we found that male victims were more likely to have their kits submitted. When I talked to some law enforcement about this finding, they shared, well I think there’s some thinking that if a male victim reported this and went through the exam, they might be more likely to believe them. Suspected-drug-facilitated were more likely to report. Less likely to report: the victim used drugs (which might mean they are less credible), they bathed or showered, and victims with physical and mental impairment (other studies have shown that they’re often seen as less credible), and than if it was a known suspect.

So, I just want to quickly show you: here’s our graph. So, those that research on looking at sexual assault kit submission rates led to House Bill 200 passage in 2017  and that mandated the submission and testing of all sexual assault kits. And you can see on this graph, this was before House Bill 200 took effect that law enforcement really responded and submitted these kits (which is wonderful) but when we compare the prosecution of cases, you can see there is a widening gap. So, then we have to look at how do we drive that social change to increase the prosecution. We are submitting more of these kits.

So, I’m just going to end with one of my favorite quotes and I want to thank you all for being here because you are part of this small group of thoughtful committed citizens that can change the world. Margaret Mead said, “indeed it is the only thing that ever has.” So, we have a lot of work to do. We have made progress, but it really is all of us working together, working to represent and bring all voices to the table that we can really drive this social change. So, thank you.

Transcript- Kozue Akibayashi 59:15 – 1:18:57

 Yoshimi Anzai: It’s my pleasure to introduce the speaker: she is a feminist peace activist, the researcher focusing on ending sexual violence in militarism in Okinawa. She’s a professor of the Graduate School of Global Studies in Doshisha University in Kyoto, Japan and she’s actually  speaking from Japan very early in the morning. Thank you so much. She has conducted a research on Okinawan Women Acting Against Military Violence, feminist peace movement, in Okinawa, Japan. She is the president of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom and a member of International Women’s Network Against The Militarism and Korea Peace Now! She is also extensively published in this space, including “Cold War Shadows of Japan’s Imperial Legacies for Women in East Asia” as well as “Okinawa Women Act Against Military Violence: An Island of Feminism Reclaiming Dignity. So, it’s my pleasure to have Dr. Kozue Akibayashi—welcome from Japan.

Kozue Akibayashi: Thank you very much for having me. It is an honor to be included in this very important symposium. I am in japan at six AM and I’ve not been able to join other stations. I only joined now and I’m I already starting to learn a lot, but I might have missed the previous, you know, discussions that took place, you know, earlier. And I’m—and I realized that I—I’m going to start my I’m going to start my PowerPoint…my PowerPoint and I’m hoping—I’m hoping my presentation today on sexual violence and militarism can contribute to deepen the analysis and structural understanding of sexual violence towards ending sexual.

My colleagues and I believe that it’s important to understand sexual violence in the context of militarism and that’s what I am going to discuss today. I have, well let me show where, where Okinawa is, and this is a version map and I hope you can see. I tried to point Utah and you can see how far how far I am—we are. I’m in I’m in Japan—mainland Japan. I’m originally—I am from mainland, metro Tokyo area. I think. Mainland Japanese, which is different from Okinawans, and you can see where—I hope you can see where—Okinawa is and I’m going to show a larger map in relation of Okinawa, in relation to mainland Japan and other neighboring countries in Asia. And this is where the U.S. military, on the islands of Okinawa, this is where the U.S. military has been stationed since 1945 in a very concentrated  manner than other places in in Japan. You can see how close, Okinawan, the islands of Okinawa is to other major cities in in Asia and that is the very reason geopolitical so, to speak, reason for high concentration of U.S. military in Okinawa. A little more of the population and around the area and so forth.

I’m also showing the map of the main island  of Okinawa, which only consists of about under one percent of the entire land area of Japan, the population-wise dissimilar, but you can also see that almost  about 70% of the U.S. military forces stationed in Japan is located in Okinawa. The colored area in on the on the map shows the military facilities that takes up about 15% of the main island, main island land area—main Okinawan island land area, where but the population is about 1.5 million and the U.S. military (this is a rough number) the old forces are there: four of them, air force, navy, army, and the marine corps and the rough number is that the number of troops is about 26,000 and out of that 15,000 is marine corps which is the largest station outside the United States. And they’re civilian workers and family members. The the U.S. military does not release those numbers and they were—they have become even more secretive in recent years. So,  it’s very difficult for us activist researchers, but also local authorities, of Okinawa and (professional government for example) to have these—to have these numbers.

A little bit of the other colonial history about Okinawa (and the…I’m showing the castle which is a replica of the Ryukyu Kingdom). Okinawa was an independent kingdom [the Ryukyu kingdom] until  1879 when Japan centralized—the modern nation of Japan—colonized the Ryukyu Kingdom and turned into Okinawan prefecture. It’s one of the 47—it’s a—a prefecture has much less autonomy than a statehood in the United States but it’s one of the it’s—it’s one of the political and administrative units and there are 47 of them in Japan and Okinawa is one of them. So, the independent kingdom was turned into one of those 47 prefectures in Japan in 1879 and during the course, very strict assimilation policies were imposed on them: the restriction of their language, prohibition of the usage of their own languages, and many cultural practices. The Ryukyu Kingdom had much wider relationship—amicable relationship with other neighboring countries in in Asia including China and Korean peninsula and down to what is now the Philippines and that and their wider relationship with other countries is reflected on the structure of this this castle, which is called Shuri Castle, which was actually burnt down during the during World War II. Because of this colonial history, Okinawa also went through a very militarized  history as well during World War II in the Asia-Pacific theater between 1931 and 1945. The Okinawa—the people of Okinawa experienced the direct combat on their island in 194, a very short period of time, but that caused devastating effects (to say the least) on the people of Okinawa, because the ground battle was waged. With the civilian Okinawans residing there, they were not evacuated so, they were evacuated from the island. It’s said that about one-third of residents were killed in this in this battle which lasted only for a three months or so, three months or so, until the end of the official defeat—of until the official end of the World War, but the actual—the actual combat prolonged even beyond that surrender of Japan to Allied nations. Okinawan people also went through very different history than mainland Japan vis-a-vis postwar period and between 1945 to 1972, the U.S. military directly occupied Japan—I mean, Okinawa—whereas the rest of Japan went independent in 1952. It wasn’t until 1972 that Okinawa—the Okinawa prefecture—regretfully was reported to Japanese administration (I’m showing some pictures of the Battle of Okinawa and also the time the time when they were…the Okinawan students who survived here the Battle of Okinawa were relocated to different—to camps). When the U.S. military started to build the bases when the Okinawans are kept on the relocation camp of 30-some locations for two to three years and the picture— and the picture is also showing…one of the pictures showing the one of the major bases: Marine Corps Airfield of Dema and you can see how—how close people live with the—with this with this era with this airfield. And that’s a result of the post-war so-called reconstruction led by the by the U.S. military.

Their history is also militarized, and the history of sexual violence is also militarized and a colonialized one. Okinawans I’m listing two major aspects of militarized sexual violence and  experience by Okinawans. One of them, the earlier one is, so-called “conflict stations” established by the Japanese and Imperial Military during World War II and the conversations is it’s a military sexual slavery where women and girls were kept to serve the military. And in this case, it was a Japanese military. Women who are already working in prostitution were sent to conference stations established in a different location in Okinawa and also under colonial rule of Japan, women and girls in on the Korean Peninsula also brought to these conflict stations in Okinawa.

Another, so, when the war ended— World War II ended that sexual violence, but the U.S. military [sexual violence] started in 1945. There are there are cases which I will detail a little more later, sexual crimes committed by soldiers stationed in Okinawa. It started even—it started when the U.S. military landed during the battle (which is now in 1945 and actually up in April 1945) and when war ended, it was a part of the other post-conflict “reconstruction” that sex industries were established. And Okinawa was also used as the destination of Western recreation that all for U.S. soldiers who were deployed in a different—in different regions to wage—to participate in the wars that the U.S. military waged and other agendas in other Asian countries and beyond that includes Afghanistan and Iran, Iraq and so forth.

So, I’m going to very quickly…I’m introducing Okinawa Women Act Against Military Violence and long-term military stationing and sexual violence there. And their analysis—the analysis understanding is that militarism and sexual violence reinforce each other. And about social change that we’re talking about, ending sexual violence, their argument is that we need to address the problem of militarism, which is the first—which is an ideology that places first priority to militaristic values. That means it’s—it’s an ideology that sanctions of use of the intercoercive force for protection. And this notion of protection is also is a very a gendered process, as we—I think we all we are also aware of, and sexual violence as a domination and demonstration of power. And it’s also, exercising force is accepted in a society where—in a society where militarism constitutes the core values of that, and sexual violence is an interesting, intrinsic part of the military.

I’m finishing with this one—with this one. I hope one of the activities is making sexual violence visible and compiling chronology of sexual crimes committed by U.S. military personnel and trying to—that is, to trying to close the gap between official statistics and reality. I think that was also discussed earlier. I think I’m going to—I’m sorry this is going to be my last slide. I have another one, but my time management—because of my time, this is one of their…a very, very recent activity: to remember victims of sexual violence by your [U.S.] soldiers. This is one of the hundreds of cases for the past seven years, and this—this one is the last week. They have this memorial gathering in Okinawa of the other victim who was killed by a sailor two years ago: she was sexually assaulted and killed by her former boyfriend, and she had had a military project order, but he was able to leave the base. And this happened not on the base—this happened outside the base, and this shows the—shows it’s just many aspects of the other problem of long-term military stationing in places like Okinawa, which is not in our conflict situation but directly affected by/around the conflict.

And this is, this, yes and, this is something that I wanted to share with you about a part of the U.S. culture and policies that has impacts outside the country—and outside the country and one and I was hoping to bring this the concept of militarism in understanding the structure of sexual violence. Thank you very much.

Title: Visions of Social Change
Presenter:  Ananya Chatterjea, Ananya Dance Theatre; Yolanda Francisco-Nez, (Diné) Executive Director, Restoring Ancestral Winds; Liliana Olvera-Arbon, Executive Director, UCASA; Keith Squires, Interim Chief Safety Officer, University of Utah
Moderator: Dr. Annie Isabel Fukushima, Assistant Professor, Ethnic Studies, University of Utah
Date: 4/16/21
Copyright: copyright Ananya Chatterjea, Yolanda Francisco-Nez, Liliana Olvera-Arbon, Keith Squires, & Annie Isabel Fukushima ©2021

Transcript- Yolanda Francisco-Nez 26:55 – 44:40

Annie Fukushima: Our next speaker is Yolanda Francisco-Nez, who is a Navajo or Diné, from the  Navajo/Diné tribe. She is the executive director of Restoring Ancestral Winds, served four years as a Board Chair of the Utah Coalition Against Sexual Assault, helped to establish Navajo Nation  Council Sexual Assault Prevention Working Group to address child abduction, sexual violence, and trafficking, received special recognition for her achievements from the Navajo Nation Council, co-authored reports on discrimination, women’s rights, and excessive use of force and has played a significant role in being—in being the first city to pass legislation to protect  LGBTQI2S from employment discrimination. And so, she’s been involved in those efforts as well. So, now I would like to  invite Yolanda Francisco-Nez to turn off her—turn on her mic and to turn on her camera, and I’m going to go ahead and do [the] screen share of her slides for her.

Yolanda Francisco-Nez: Good morning, everyone. Yá’át’ééh, Yolanda Francisco-Nez [introduction in Navajo]. I am the Executive director of Restoring Ancestral Winds, and I am very happy and pleased to be here this  morning. I sent a quick message to my  mom and thanked her for the past she laid for me as a matrilineal society, giving her respect and gratitude for laying the path  at her alma mater, the University of Utah School of Social Work.

So, today we’re going to talk a bit about the missing and murdered Indigenous people in Utah, colonization trauma, and violence. Go ahead and go to the next slide. First, I’m going to share with you a bit about the—I’m going to talk about who we are in our little organization located here in Sandy, Utah. Restoring Ancestral Winds’ mission is to support healing in our Indigenous  communities. We will advocate for healthy relationships, educate our communities on  issues surrounding stalking, trafficking, domestic, sexual, dating, and family violence. We’ll collaborate with Great Basin community members and stakeholders, honor and strengthen traditional values of all our relations. Next slide.

I’m going to talk a little bit  more in depth about inter—well IPV it’s referred to as IPV— interpersonal/intimate partner violence and how that is defined is “abuse or aggression that occurs in a romantic relationship.” “Intimate partner” often refers to both current and former spouses and dating partners. IPV can carry in how—can vary in how often it happens and how severe it is. It can range from one episode of violence that could have lasting impact to chronic and severe episodes over multiple years. IPV includes four different types of behavior and I’m not going to go into all of this, but the four are physical violence, sexual violence, stalking, and psychological aggression. It’s often also referred to as—sometimes as domestic violence and  dating violence as well. But it’s these other forms of—it’s connected to those forms of violence but also, it’s related to serious health issues and economic consequences. Next slide.

So, we’re going to talk about how  intimate  partner violence affects those who are living in Indian Country and that particular wording, Indian Country, is an official word of the U.S. government referring to Native Americans and Indigenous people as Indians. Next. I do want to offer a disclaimer that all data presented here is—is the best, imperfect data available to  understand how violence operates in Indigenous communities. Unless it otherwise states, next—did we skip one? There we go—so there are two studies that I’m going to talk about quickly. One is the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey, which was published in—well, the work was—[the] state report was done between 2010 and 2012. It notes that, with few exceptions, racial and ethnic minority women bear the greatest burden of—of victimization of sexual violence, stalking, and intimate partner violence, making targeted public health prevention programming critical. Specific patterns indicate that, excuse me American Indian and Alaskan Native women and men tend to have elevated  prevalence estimates that—estimates compared to other racial and ethnic groups. So, racial and ethnic minority communities may be  exposed to a number of stressors such as low income, less access to education, employment, and community resources that likely contribute to the risk—their risk of—risk for experiencing violence. Next.

So, to give you an overview of these experiences, I’ll share with you the—this overview that includes experience—people who experience—native people who experience violence in their lifetime. You’ll see here that about 84.3% of females experience violence and 81.6% experience violence of hose who are male. Of sexual violence, we have 56.1% of female[s] and 27.5% of male[s] and I’ll let you read through those other statistics as we continue to move forward. In this presentation, you’ll see that—oh let’s go back, oh thank you—relative to white women,  Native women are 1 and 1.2 times as likely to experience violence in their lifetime and, relative to white men, Native men are 1.3 times as likely to experience violence in their lifetime. Native men are more likely to have experienced  violence by interracial perpetrators and significantly  less likely to have experienced violence by intra-racial perpetrators. We’ll go to the next slide.

So, of physical violence, 55% percent of  American Indian and Alaska Native women and 40% to 43.2% of American Indian and Alaska Native men have experienced physical violence by an  intimate partner. Next, you’ll see here in the graph shown that over a lifetime of physical  violence, these are the types of violence that Native American men and women have  experienced. And then the sight, the view that you have of the right side of that screen, is physical violence by intimate partner perpetrators where you have that interracial and  interracial [statistic]. With Native American female and male and white female and male, you’ll see that incredible difference that exists with 90% female and 85% percent male of interracial  violence and then you have lower numbers of white female and male respectively. So, let’s go to the next slide.

So, our organization has a very, I think, a unique take in working with our Indigenous Two-Spirit LGBTQI community and we feel like it’s very  important as a tribal coalition to  give to uplift the voice of those who are also deeply affected by violence. So, of the Indigiqueer, Two-Spirit, and  LGBTQI [community], there was another report that is the National Coalition of Anti-Violence  Programs. A 2016 study noted that 15 IPV homicides and 2,032 reports of IPV occurred; 19% experienced physical violence. In a transgender survey in 2015, K-12, 49% were physically attacked. And then also The Diné Policy Institute in 2015 published a report as well, noting that 18% of Navajo people experienced physical violence in the last six months. Next.

So, now let’s talk about—we explored  physical violence, now I’d like to explore sexual violence.  Next. So, what we know is that over a lifetime, sexual violence that occurs with penetration among our Native American females is at 35% with about 10.8% male, and we know that among  white people, female is 20.1% with males at 5.1%. So, you’ll see underneath, that also, other forms of violence that I won’t go into because I’d like to spend more time toward the end of this. You can take a look there and see that at the very bottom that any sexual  violence among females is 56.1% versus females at—49% of white women are at 49.7%. Close, very close in in percentages there. So, let’s go to the next slide.

Among our in Indigiqueer, Two-Spirit, and LGBTQI population we have (the report noted earlier), in the 2016 study, that 7% experienced sexual violence in 2016. That, in the transgender survey in 2015, it notes that 24% of our community K-12 were sexually assaulted  and 65% were sexually assaulted (of adults). The Diné Policy Institute, among the Navajo, study, 20% percent of—20% experienced sexual assault in the last six months. Next.

Stalking is a form of violence, as you may know, and we have about 48.8% of Native women and 18.6% of Native men who experience stalking in their lifetime. Next—so I’m just going to show you quickly this graph here—the Native American victims who experience stalking over a lifetime, that is an incredibly high number of who receive unwanted phone calls. Female at 82.1% and 75.3% for men and then you have stalking by an intimate partner and perpetrators  who are interracial and intraracial among Native American females and males and also white people who are female and male. You’ll see those differences. There you can see that 90%  among interracial is much higher among our white  people than Native American males at 23%. Next.

So, among our again, our in Indigiqueer, Two-Spirit, and LGBTQI community. We have in this study that [those who are] trans are 2.5 times more likely to be stalked compared to our to Native survivors who were not trans and trans [people] are 2 times more likely to experience online harassment with about 2% experiencing  online harassment. The Diné Policy Institute in 2015 noted that 24% of Navajo [were] followed or—were followed or chased in the last six months. Next.

So, another form of violence is also that of psychological aggression. So, among American Indian and Alaska Natives, 66% (of course I meant women, Native women) 66.4% have experienced  psychological aggression by an intimate partner in their lifetime and 25.5% percent have experienced it in the past year. And among the American Indian and Alaska Native men, 73% have experienced psychological aggression by an intimate partner in their lifetime  and 23.3% have experienced it in the past year. Next. We’ll just I’ll let you observe this particular slide on the  psychological aggression by an intimate  partner. You’ll see, among the graph here, is the expressive aggression among female, male Native Americans versus the 44% (oh well 44.2%) of  female and 35.3% percent males experiencing expressive aggression. I’m not going to  go through all—all of this but you can look take a look at those numbers and—and you’ll see some very significant  differences. In particular, among the interracial female and also the white female: that is a large difference, 91% versus 22%, respectively. Next. 

Next, we’ll go—we’ll go near, okay good here—so, now with all  these numbers, what do we do with this? I want to just go into conclusion, here, with one minute left. What—what—what is it that leads to all of this? We have a much longer presentation that we offer, several reasons why, but I’m gonna go—if you would just go to the next slide—these are some of the reasons. Next. So, what we have is that, I want to just end with this. That is—that in the recent legislative  Utah Legislative session, Representative Angela Romero passed a bill that she sponsored on  continuing the work of the missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls here in Utah  that is set to begin over in June and will be a task force that is formed and will meet about 7 times and submit a report of recommendations to the legislature. And so, I’m sorry we couldn’t go through each of the rest of those slides, but I am happy to talk about this further and again  thank you Dr. Fukushima for allowing us to participate and inviting Restoring Ancestral Winds to be part of this discussion.

Transcript- Liliana Olvera-Arbon 45:08 – 1:01:00

Annie Fukushima: Now, I would like to introduce our next speaker. Our next speaker is Liliana Olvera-Arbon, who is the Executive Director for the Coalition Against Sexual Assault. She joined UCASA over a year ago with over 10 years of experience working in social services, demonstrating profound leadership while working at Los-Angeles-based rape crisis center and, later, a program coordinator at the California Coalition Against Sexual Assault. Liliana’s vision is to center and uplift the voices of communities marginalized by society and bring a deep commitment towards social equity and collective liberation. She is dedicated to educating  people of their rights and opportunities and envisions a world  free of gender-based violence. Now, I would like to invite Liliana to unmute her microphone and her camera.

Liliana Olvera-Arbon: You—Annie, can you hear me?

Annie Fukushima: I can hear you wonderfully. It’s so wonderful to see your face.

Liliana Olvera-Arbon: Thank you so much for having me. I’m so—I’m looking forward to sharing space and information with all of you today. I’m gonna go ahead and share my screen, so that I can  present my  slides. Okay. Thank you again for having me. My name, like Annie mentioned—or Dr. Fukushima—is uh Liliana and I am the Executive Director for the Utah Coalition Against Sexual Assault and I am extremely honored to, again, share space and time with you all in today’s discussion around ending  gender-based violence.

And so, with that I recognize always  the incredible work that the mothers of this movement and those who participate in this movement have placed and have done to provide a space for me to also be in this space with you all and in this position  of leadership at the Utah Coalition Against Sexual Assault. And I want to recognize my grandmother and  mother who taught who my—who—my grandmother taught me to be strong, taught me to stand up and against the injustices that we saw, and that my mother taught me to be empathetic, to be caring, and to see people for who they  were. And so, without their teachings, without  their essences, I would not be who I am today. So, I honor them, and I thank them for guiding me to the point where I am today.

I want to talk a little bit about who the Utah Coalition Against Sexual Assault is and what we do and kind of provide a quick overview of our programs. We definitely provide training and technical  assistance around the state of Utah, with webinars  publications. We also provide a 40-hour training for all victim advocates who are  starting their work around victim services. We  do and started with a rape recovery center. A year and a half ago, the very first Spanish 40-hour training here in our state—so very—not too long ago we provided that training together. UCASA continues to lead  by providing that Spanish training for our communities and, of course, we do one-on-one training  for those interested in knowing more and interested in creating space for understanding trauma response and understanding what best practices or promising practices are available to better serve survivors of sexual violence. We also do a lot of prevention work, engaging men in the anti-violence movement and working with young women of color as well. And of course, our Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner Program, where our nurses train nurses across the state of Utah to provide trauma-informed collection evidence of when survivors are reporting at the hospital. I’m so—creating a cohesive way to respond to this—a way where folks are able to connect with our three same nurses on ways to better support survivors during the forensic collection part and medical support. We also have rural programming where we serve sexual assault victims, survivors, secondary survivors, family members, anyone impacted by violence in rural communities such as Tooele, Duchesne, Daggett, and Uintah county.

So, Yolanda shared some of those statistics as well and now like to share  a little bit more of what we know about sexual assault in Utah. We know one in three women will be sexually assaulted in their lifetime. We know one in six men will experience some form of sexual violence. One in two trans individuals will be sexually assaulted. Rape is the only violent crime in Utah that occurs at a higher rate than the rest of the nation and remembering that these numbers are only based on those that have reported and we understand that rape is one of  the most under-reported crimes. Now, I’d like to kind of move into understanding  the pandemic, right, the immense necessity for us to think about sexual violence within marginalized  communities. We had Yolanda share about the Native community—56.1% of  Native Americans have been victims of sexual violence. More than 20% of Black women have been victims of rape according to the Institute of Women’s Policy. People who identify as Latinx, Hispanic, Asian Pacific Islander, or mixed race are also overrepresented as victims of sexual assault.

So, that really brings us to understanding that—sorry, I’m going to go back—to be marginalized means to be pushed aside. It is there at the edges that perpetrators of sexual violence often  seek their victims, counting on societal blind spots to protect and perpetrate their transgressions. People of color disproportionately represent victims of sexual violence. Inequities tend to intersect, creating webs of disenfranchisement that can be hard to escape and so we recognize that here at UCASA, and we work towards educating communities to  understand that survivors of communities of color, of marginalized community have added barriers to reporting to seeking access to healing: ultimately to healing from the violence that they have encountered. So, what we do at UCASA—our approach—is  really  looking at kind of a—our framework is a three-prong approach. We do individual program support at community  and institutional levels and collective power statistics reveal that far too many people from marginalized communities become targets of sexual violence. What these figures do not accurately reflect, however, are the actual number of victims. Like we  shared in those statistics earlier, sexual violence against disenfranchised  communities is thought to be greatly under-reported for all of the barriers that I shared before.

Now, these this framework that UCASA really centers is a way to look at ending sexual violence and envisioning a world free from sexual violence and we start with the individual program-level support we are extremely focused on finding ways  to better support marginalized  communities. Audre Lorde says it best by saying, “there is no such thing as a single issue  struggle because we do not live single issue lives.” That is so true for our communities. That is so true for each one of us, that we need to look at survivors as a whole. What represents that survivor, what puts that—what composes that survivor. So, our program and individual support  focus on centering survivors, supporting programs that serve victims across the state of Utah,  ensuring that they are intentional in their work, and reaching out to the most vulnerable (doing first responders trainings, which means that we all have the responsibility to know how to believe, how to work, how to  support a survivor when they’re telling us that they’ve been victimized. We do—like I shared earlier—saying education that programs within our state understand how to support survivors and how to understand the different complexities and intersections that  represent that survivor and that we continually talk about and educate around the access of medical care when someone has been victimized due to sexual violence. 

Our second approach is really focused on community and institutional change, promoting policies that support safe environment. Recently, we worked with Representative Romero and the Rape Recovery Center on the Prison Rape Elimination Act. The Prison Rape Elimination Act was enacted in 2011 or 2012 as a way to enact standards where those that were in detention had access to support, but also looking at ways to detect prevent sexual violence from happening within these systems in the United States, in our very own state of Utah. There is an over-representation of communities of color. We know, like we shared earlier with statistics, that our communities of color, our marginalized groups have higher rates of sexual violence and oftentimes do not report and seek services. And so, what this means with this legislation, for us in Utah, was that Utah was one of  two states in the nation that was not in compliance with serving incarcerated survivors of violence and so this legislation is enacting this so that we can look at ways to better serve those who are disenfranchised and are in our facilities. Again, creating more access to communities, to victim services, for those that are underrepresented.

Within the work that we are doing, we also look at institutional change by building leaders, youth leaders, within our  community. UCASA has introduced Mujeres Utah Contra La Violencia, an acronym for Unidas Adelante Holisticamente, that we know that community is empowered and should be empowered to find ways to heal and that, by building these leaders, they can  and will have the resources to heal from sexual violence. And we also engage with men that we know, that men also play a part in ending violence, and we call them to action by joining in conversations on how they can upstand, be part of this movement to end violence, and how they can be a voice of change within our communities as well.

And lastly collective power. We at UCASA are creating a movement that requires all of us to join and to be an active participant in ending gender-based violence. To really engage in this work, there needs to be both individual and collective change and an understanding of the dominant forces of our culture. Members of the dominant culture or institution should be engaging in  this work for other people as well as for themselves. Conversations around oppression and  inclusivity are about everyone’s freedom. We need to increase our consciousness to reveal our own unconscious biases and unrecognized privileges of identities from the dominant culture. We seek to transform the underlying conditions that result in domination, extraction, and violence and towards the vision of a world rooted in interdependence, resilience, and sustainability. We cannot, and I cannot say this enough, do this work alone. It requires the  collective. It requires envisioning a world free from sexual violence. It requires us to think what is our purpose or distinct role in services of the vision as a collaborative, what values do we  need to move away from a society, and what values do we need  to move towards. We are  celebrating and talking and doing a lot of work around Sexual Assault Awareness Month. Today,  in April, we must look beyond Sexual Assault Awareness Month and make this an everyday effort in order to end sexual violence.

We all  are deeply interconnected as human  beings and any societal change benefits all of us. We are honored to be part of a movement that looks at elevating those that have and historically have been underserved and we are inviting all of you to look at ways that you can contribute to this collective power by looking at ways that you start looking at ending violence, remembering that we are in this together. We may have moments where we may fall short but if we connect understand and uplift and believe survivors and create that systemic change or that paradigm shift that we are always talking about, we can achieve this as a collective power.

Thank you, Annie. 

Transcript- Keith Squires 1:01:00 – 1:17:35

Annie Fukushima: So, now I’d like to invite Keith Squires, who is the interim Chief Safety Officer  at the University of Utah. He has served in Governor Gary Herbert’s cabinet as a Utah Commissioner of Public Safety, retiring in September 2018 after 31 years of service. He holds a  Master’s degree in Homeland Defense and Security from the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School and a Bachelor’s degree in Administration of Criminal Justice and he’s also a graduate of the FBI  National Academy. So, I’d like to now invite Keith to unmute yourself and to turn on—turn on your camera. Sorry, that’s what I meant to say. 

Keith Squires: Thank you, Annie. And it—this has been wonderful. I’m very fortunate to have  been invited to join you this morning, especially with such other distinguished speakers and the  information that’s being shared.

I’d like to start out by introducing myself. My name is Keith Squires. I began my career in law enforcement and public safety way back in the late 1980s, but over the years, I’ve had just tremendous experiences. Many, many rough days, a lot of tragic situations that I’ve been involved with, but I’ve been very fortunate that over those years, I’ve had a chance to also see change. I’ve had a chance to see where police work and public safety services needed to be advanced, needed to be better realized, and the opportunities of doing things different. And despite the challenges that we have right now, that are going on around the country, and also here in  Utah, as it’s in regard to the police and how  policing is done, I think that the value from this is that it’s  serving as a catalyst. One that’s allowing us to make changes that normally don’t happen  in the timely fashion that they should, and so in that way, it’s a good thing.

As I served in my previous career of  public safety, I was with the Utah department of public  safety. I was able to serve in various roles and all of the different positions and ranks  of that  department and finished the last five years of my career  serving as Governor Herbert’s Commissioner of Public Safety overseeing the department and that includes the state police, the  highway patrol, State Bureau of Investigation, as well as the other public safety services, emergency management, even driver’s license division, and others. One of the things that I was able to be involved in, that I think genuinely ties into what we’re discussing today, is an opportunity that I had about almost five years ago.

For the first time in our state agency, I was able to take a couple positions that the legislature was giving us that could have been used for trooper positions, police officers, and we were able to use those to employ a social worker and two victims advocates. And so, the thing that I recognized not the onset (but also we managed through it), was the resistance the change might bring as far as the culture and the just the way that police usually do business or have been trained. But what I found from being able to combine those teams is that it didn’t take too long once they were interacting and understanding what each other brings to the situation, a level of response that we had never seen before. One that gives us other options in the  traditional ways that we’ve  policed or responded to calls or dealt with individuals who are in crisis. And I know that that’s the future, but it  has been a slow move and  in in our state, with the number of apartments there are, there still are  not near as many. Very few in fact. They’re doing this  at the University of Utah. 

Well, I retired from the state, as I said, about two and a half years ago and it  was  very shortly after I retired that I received a phone call from President Watkins at the University, and she asked if I would be available and able to assist  as part of an independent investigation team  looking into the tragic murder of Lauren McCluskey on campus. The university’s police department and other departments and their response to Lauren’s  requests and needs and I was fortunate that my employer at that time was able to give me leave, and I was able to spend about a month and a half on that investigation. And specifically, my role was focusing in on the police response and those  interviews of all involved there, but you know I was also given, right from  the beginning, it was like I was made known that there was no expectation to follow the information and I served without compensation. So, it was  truly an independent opportunity for us to look at everything and present our findings along with some recommendations  and so those recommendations were about 30. 

But it was very meaningful. Of all the things that I’ve been involved in in my career, Lauren’s circumstances, she was not unlike any of our family members, people that we know that  begin their university and college experiences but was found herself in a situation that was very scary and she was seeking help. And the toughest part about it is when you investigate something like that, is that you look at every aspect and you realize that where there were opportunities  and there were practices that should have been followed and incorporated into the way that we do our work. And that, had they  been incorporated the way they should have, would have made a difference in the outcome and so that has, like a few other incidents in my career, really inspired me to look for ways that  I can contribute still  and help make those changes in a healthy way and help others to be able to look outside of what we normally do and how we  provide police services to our  communities. All of our communities.

Of those recommendations that we made, I am excited to report that some great changes have  been in place, this past year especially. About a year ago my predecessor,  Marlon Lynch, was the first Chief Safety Officer for the University of Utah, was able to come in and change the  structure of the police department. Instead of everything rolling up into the police chief, which can tend to cause everything as part of that to be  police-centric, he leveled that structure out.  He created other positions and elevated  them to directors, such as our Security Services  Director both on main campus and with U Health, but also our Community Support Services Director, and that is a team of three right now  that have social work and victims’ advocate  experience and expertise. And we are in the process now, at the University of  Utah, developing a joint response protocol and having those teams be able to work together, as I described from my experience also with the Utah Department of Public Safety, and so I’m  very excited to be involved with that. And we are starting to make good progress  and I expect that we will be in a  situation very soon where that is working and taking advantage not only of  our team, but other resources that are available to us through the university.

The other thing I want to mention is that in August of last year, President Watkins created two committees to be part of university safety and work with us. One is the Independent Review Committee, and the other is the Public Safety Advisory Committee. Both of these committees  are comprised of members of our community, represented by students faculty and staff. I’ll first just mention the IARC, the Independent Review Committee, because  this is something also that is very unique, not only in Utah, but I believe across the country. At this point, they have been, since August of last year, this committee reviewing every complaint that comes in on any of our personnel and so that, as you can imagine, can be anything from rudeness up to dereliction of duty, excessive force, anything that anyone brings forward. Some of those complaints have even come in from within the department by others, which is also a healthy sign. When you have a culture where individuals are sharing information, but the independent review committee is working. They’re very thoughtful and the way that they look at each complaint and then they’re able to advise back, not only to me, but to the University President any recommendations they’re helping us with, policy considerations, training issues,  and that’s going to be a positive for the future.

The Public Safety Advisory Committee, also composed comprised of faculty, staff, and students,  is an advisory to the Chief Safety Officer. Our meeting next week, as just for an  example, is looking at the required notifications that go out on campus when certain incidents happen,  related to the Cleary Act, and what we are looking for is their insight  as recipients of those notifications on how we may improve that to be able, not only how we put the notifications out  but how we follow up and communicate  information to them that helps them understand that the situation’s now resolved or that it’s safe to  proceed.

So those are some key things. Another thing I’d like to mention is a great innovation. About six months ago, gentleman Brian Nichols, who comes to us with 10  years experience at the University having been in the Office of Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action, is now serving as a Senior Advisor to the Chief Safety Officer. And Brian has a dotted line in his responsibilities, but he also works weekly with the Office of Student Affairs as well as the Office of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion and so what that gives us is a chance to make sure that everything that we are working on is considerate of ways for us to address issues and incidents of racist, biased incidents, as well as making sure that our services are coordinated. And so, another great innovation that I’m  very excited about.

Lastly, I just  wanted to mention there’s a lot of things going on. Another personal experience that I had, again about five years ago in my previous position at the Utah Department of Public Safety, we also had responsibility for policing on the Salt Lake Community College Campus. And so, at that time, I had a couple sexual assaults that had taken place on campus that we were working, that we were, you know, doing all we could to identify the suspects and resolve that to get help for the victims. But what I recognized (and there was also  some other incidents on the news from other parts of the state and on other campuses) but was that there was a need for us to  have more of a proactive  effort to help all students, but especially young women coming onto campus, to understand some of the hazards that may be there to understand situational awareness better and to have some understanding to help with their safety  and going into that new environment.  And my family was also, you know, at ages where I was able to talk to them and their friends and found that really, what we had was a chance here (the same as in law enforcement) if you have thought about something beforehand and had some training on it, you’re more inclined to be able to react to it, so I’ll finish up here by just letting you know that we were able to bring a program here and started at the Salt Lake Community  College that is really making a  difference.

And thank you, thank you so much, and so interesting to think about institutional change in the face of so many of our communities needs.

Title: Gender-Based Violence Consortium Visualizing Change, Resisting Violence Symposium Opening Remarks
Presenter: Annie Isabel Fukushima, PhD, Division of Ethnic Studies with the School for Cultural & Social Transformation, University of Utah
Date: 4/16/21
Brief Description: An introduction to the Visualizing Change, Resisting Violence GBVC symposium.
Copyright: copyright Annie Isabel Fukushima ©2021

Transcript

Annie Fukushima: So, I just want to welcome you all to, again this Gender-Based Violence Consortium’s event: Visualizing Change, Resisting Violence. My name is Dr. Annie Isabel Fukushima and I’m an assistant professor in the Ethnic Studies Division. I want to draw your attention to two people that can support you during this event. You can always—many of you are familiar with the chat function, but, if you’re not, you can always directly chat myself and—hey, Diane, do you want to just introduce yourself to folks and say hello really quick?

Diane: Sure, thanks Dr. Fukushima. Hi everybody, my name is Diane. I use she/her pronouns and I am the graduate assistant with the Gender-Based Violence Consortium and I will be helping with technical support. So, feel free to message me whenever it is you need support.

Annie Fukushima: And Diane will be moderating the last panel today, so she’ll also be a part of our programming, but throughout the day, until that moment, she will be able to support you. So, feel free to chat us if you have any questions, technical—you know—issues or what have you. And we’re happy to support you.

Alright, we are the University of Utah and the University of Utah acknowledges that this land, which is named for the Ute tribe, is a traditional ancestral homeland of the Shoshone, Paiute, Goshute, and Ute tribes. The University of Utah recognizes and respects the enduring relationship that exists between many Indigenous peoples and their traditional homelands. We respect the sovereign relationship between tribes, states, and the federal government and we affirm the University of Utah’s commitment to a partnership with Native Nations and Urban Indian communities through research, education, and community outreach activities.

And so we also want to remind ourselves that many of us are fed, sustained, on Indigenous or Native American lands, and so we want to acknowledge that. So important, to recognize the land that feeds us and allows us to be here at such an important event.

And so, you’re here joining us for the symposium, which is “Visualizing Change, Resisting Violence.” This is a two-day symposium. For today’s events, you will have an opportunity to join a range of programming. Feel free to come in and out as you see fit for your realities. We recognize that everybody’s capacities and abilities to show up is impacted by the world that we are living in. We are living in a world that’s very complex—complicated by global pandemic, ongoing racisms that impact our communities, heterosexism, sexism, and classism, and the many types of oppression that impact many of our lives. And so we recognize that many folks are showing up here today as the best as they can be and so, we appreciate all of you for your presence, for your participation, and we so appreciate our speakers for taking the time out of their busy day to join us.

So, today’s programming is quite dynamic. We will hear about Visions of Social Change starting at 10 AM. I will introduce those speakers right before that starts as well as we will have another panel on Documenting Violence Knowledge from the Margins. We will then have our third session at 2 PM (Leading Social Change to End Violence) and then the final panel will commence at 3:35 PM, which will focus on healing communities.

We want to acknowledge our sponsors. This event has been made possible by a range of folks. In particular, we are so appreciative of the Women of Color Academics Collective and especially so, so, so appreciative of the Women’s Resource Center at the University of Utah, who has been providing us support for our many events leading up to this that could make our events possible. And we’ll be here as well throughout the day as well as there’s other resources that we’ll share in a bit. We’re also appreciative of the support of Utah Presents.

We’ve had many promotional sponsors and we’re so grateful for folks sharing with our communities about the Gender-Based Violence Consortium events: The School for Cultural and Social Transformation, the Women in Health Medicine and Science, the S.J. Quinney College of Law, the Violence Prevention Center, the McCluskey Center for Violence Prevention, the Utah Women and Leadership Project, as well as a community organization such as Alight, The Healing Center for Complex Trauma, and the Sojourner Group. And so, we appreciate all these promotional sponsors as well as all of you for sharing the events with your local communities.

The GBVC’s commitments are to research innovation collaboration and awareness at the U. We have a vision to increase public recognition of and deepen public knowledge about violence through research innovation, collaboration the creation of research communities, and enhanced educational efforts. The Gender-Based Violence Consortium comprises of multiple individuals who are part of our founding as well as our leadership and so these folks listed here are our folks who are comprised of our executive board. They include myself as well as Doctors Sonia Salari from CSBS Family and Consumer Studies; Dr. Yoshimi Anzai from the School of Medicine; Dr. Leslie Halpern from School of Dentistry; Dr. Antoinette Laskey from the School of Medicine; Dr. Kathleen Francek-Roa from School of Medicine; Dr. Richard Medina from CSBS Geography; Dr. Heather Melton also from CSBS but in Sociology; Dr. Caren Frost from the College of Social Work; and Dr. Jessie Richards from the School of Business.

We also have students who have been a part of our leadership as well as our efforts, our student leaderships, who are also on the executive board includ[ing] PhD student Yifat Levenstein and Master’s student Diane Le Strain and we’ve been supported by undergraduate researchers who have been participating in our research efforts including: Mikaila Barker, Veronica Lukasinski, Sohyun Park, and Taylor Aiko Smith.

Today, I’d like to announce our faculty affiliates. We are so honored to have colleagues joining in our leadership and so, here we’re going to show you (when the screen populates) our colleagues who have joined our faculty affiliates. We had interests from colleagues outside of the University of Utah and in our initial first year, we will start with the University of Utah faculty and, eventually, our goal is to expand to allow other faculty to affiliate from other institutions, but for now it is University of Utah faculty. We had wonderful community members who expressed interest as well and so, we so appreciate those folks, but I do want to introduce our faculty affiliates which include: Dr. Yoshimi Anzai from Medicine and Radiology.

You can check out their bios here and so, we will plop into the chat the here—I’m going to plop in two things into the chat. The first one is going to be the Prezi link for this. I will share in just a second. You will be able to follow along at your own leisure and you can even see what’s ahead. So, this is the Prezi that I’m using for today and then the link to our faculty affiliate, so you can, you know, peruse their different bios and learn more about the researchers that we have here at the University of Utah.

And so we have Dr. Shima Baradaran Baughman, who is Associate Dean of Research and Faculty Development in the College of Law. We also have professor Paul Cassell, who is the Ronald Boyce Presidential Professor of Criminal Law and University Distinguished Professor of Law in the College of Law. Also in our faculty affiliates is Dr. Lisa Diamond, who is a professor of Gender Studies and a professor of Psychology. Also, Dr. Leslie P Francis who is a Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and the Alfred C. Emory Endowed Professor of the College of Law. Dr. Kathleen Francek-Roa, who is with the School of Medicine Pediatrics; Dr. Caren Frost, who is the Interim Associate Director of the MSW Program and College of Social Work faculty. We also have Johanna Greenberg, who is an Assistant Professor in the Family and Preventative Medicine [Department]; Professor Amos Guiorda, who is a Professor of Law at the University of Utah; Dr. Leslie Halpern, who is a Professor of Dentistry and an adjunct Assistant Professor in Surgery; Dr. Antoinette Laskey who is a professor in the School of Medicine Pediatrics; Dr. Chris Linder, who is an Associate Professor of Education, Educational Leadership and Policy and also runs the McCluskey Center for Violence Prevention. Dr. Richard Medina, associate Professor of Geography; Dr. Heather Melton, Associate Professor of Sociology; Dr. Jessie Richards, who is with the management department. We also have included Sonia Salari with Family and Consumer studies (a professor) and dr Lien Fan Shen, who’s with Film and Media Arts as an Associate Professor.

So, those are our first introduced faculty affiliates. We are super excited to introduce our colleagues into our community of the Gender-Based Violence Consortium faculty affiliates and we hope to in the near future welcome a wider network of scholars who are doing such important work on gender-based violence in Utah as well as work that impacts communities across the United States and globally.

The philosophy of the Gender-Based Violence Consortium is understood, where we understand gender-based violence as a violence that results in physical sexual or psychological harm or suffering based on a person’s gender, where coercion or arbitrary deprivations of freedom occurs in public or private life. Gender is complex and a multi-level cultural construct structured by intersecting identities. Gender-based violence occurs in Utah from the campus to the broader community, taking the form of incidents and patterns of violence that include intimate or ex-partner violence, sexual assault, dating violence, hate crimes, stalking, abuse, and human trafficking. The Gender-Based Violence Consortium engages communities to improve health and quality of life through research, knowledge creation, and information sharing.

Our commitments are also to recognize GBV, or gender-based violence, as racialized, classed, and impacted by national origins. For this month, we want to acknowledge that April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month and that our event intentionally participates in these kinds of programmings. We wanted to make sure that we could include a symposium that would raise visibility around sexual assault. There are historical legacies regarding sexual violence in the United States and there are efforts that have been resisting it and addressing it at different localities. What we know when we visit the NSVRC website is that we learn that the first rape crisis center was founded in San Francisco in 1971 and the first that [the] first Take Back the Night, which is a march addressing sexual violence in our communities, was held in the same city in 1978 and while San Francisco has had a ton of history, we too here in Utah have been participating in a range of activities that address the multiple violences in our lives.

The issues and work to address—I’m sorry—the work to address gender-based violence has also been transnational and folks that you will hear from today include folks who have been doing that transnational work, whether the transnational work is Indigenous communities working with organizations and people that are from the U.S. as well as those who are crossing international boundaries from other countries. And so, we hope that you’ll be—you’ll participate in a range of programming that includes those range of perspectives. We also recognize that the arts and the community of performances have been so central to making visible sexual violence in our communities. In particular, here, I’m thinking with Emma who did this performance called “Carry This Weight,” in which she was making visible on her campus the issue of sexual violence. And so, we know the arts have been integral to making visible different ways that we might talk about issues of violence which is why on our first night of our symposium we started with the Utah Women’s Narratives recognizing that the arts are so central to raising making visible issues of violence.

We have experienced, in our political moment, the complexities when people um speak visibly about their experiences from Anita Hill to Christine Blasey Ford the U.S. has had many public discursive discussions around sexual violence and addressing when violence happens in the workplace. And you know, these conversations in the political sphere have implications for our different localities, but they also impact how we understand when we have conversations around what it means to document violence and to actually turn to state structures or to formal structures to make visible our own experiences.

And so it’s really important to think about our events today as making visible the conversations of what what it means to turn to the state, to actually talk about violence and so we hope that this—today, we hope that you all will join us for the multiple panels that will be inspiring, that will be food for thought, that will help to deepen our own knowledge base around visions of social change, documenting violence, leading social change to end sexual violence, and healing our communities.