Kelly was an undergraduate student who was groomed and sexually harassed by a lecturer at her university. By the time she reported him, in 2019, the harassment had been ongoing for three years, and she had been hospitalised as a consequence of its deep impacts. She had to take a year out of her degree, but when she returned, she finally told someone at the university what was happening. She was signposted to specialist support during the reporting process. In her own words:
There was a sexual violence officer who met up with me once a week. She was just amazing. She had a real understanding of these kinds of abusive powers and [of] gender-based violence. … Because she was on my side, and because she believed me, and because I was heard – and that’s what it was about: it was about being heard, and when I spoke about it, having everything validated, as in, ‘This isn’t your fault. There’s nothing you could have done. This wasn’t your fault,’ and just being told that over and over again … All members of staff that were involved, as in my tutors, my supervisors, they also understood that this wasn’t my fault. They were able to see it for what it was. Whereas during it, I wasn’t able to see it for what it was.
This kind of specialist support – including the wider understanding from other staff – had not been available for interviewees in my previous study, Silencing Students. It demonstrates some of the positive impacts of changes that have happened some UK higher education institutions since the Changing the Culture report from Universities UK in 2016 and the #MeToo movement in 2017.
