Revisiting His Birthday Poem

by Rachel E. Watson

Content warning: mentions of rape/sexual assault

In 2016 I wrote a poem about how I felt after the man who raped me was found ‘not responsible’ for his actions by my university’s student conduct. It’s called “The Birthday Poem” because the anniversary of the rape was just a few days after his birthday, and I was still processing my feelings that August about the student conduct decision made in February. I’m still processing. Their inaction on this incident, where I had proof, led me to not report a different sexual assault by a different offender in December of 2016.

The incident, and the way the debate team and the university handled it, drove me to quit competing in an activity that I had been doing since I was 11. We were on the debate team together, and the team’s coaching staff have absolute authority to decide to remove someone for any reason, whether or not they had done something the university considered a violation of the student handbook. The director of the debate program decided that the junior, who had more years under his belt in terms of college debate, took priority over the evidence of his harassment of me and a 17 year old girl that he taught during this university’s debate camp. This man repeatedly asked a minor in his care at debate camp to send him nudes. He confessed. I have receipts. The institution did nothing.

I quit debating for that team, but I didn’t leave debate. I still coach and judge, and carried that with me when I moved from Oklahoma to Pennsylvania. I now coach at a school in Philly. I also carried with me the emotional scars of the assault, and the knowledge that the university failed me. When I found out he now has a position as a graduate assistant at a prestigious debate school, and part of his role in that position would be helping staff another high school debate camp, I made sure the assault followed him, too. I told his new institution, and there was a new investigation. Although I’m not allowed to know the outcome, I do know he did work at that camp, in a position of authority over high school girls, and I do know he continues to judge at high school tournaments.

“I will never know what my debate career would have been like if I weren’t forced to choose between being on a squad with my rapist or not debating. ”

Because I’m still active in the debate community, I’m able to warn coaches and competitors about the schools I’ve seen hire and protect this man who has proven that he exploits young girls. He was twenty when he solicited me and another seventeen year old for sexually explicit images of our bodies. The institution he works for now is widely recommended, especially to girls and people of color, for its critical approach to argumentation. People don’t realize that since last year, they’ve been sending a predator more prey.

It’s legally very dangerous for me to put this out here in a public way, with my name attached. He could sue, because he was found ‘not responsible’ for what he did to me. But I do so in an attempt to protect other people from these experiences; I tell competitors to ask me about both the institutions he’s been affiliated with in every round I judge, which has opened up conversations with debaters and coaches about the places or people that are dangerous. Every tournament I go to now, I’m thinking about that aspect of student safety.

Mine is not the only story like this, right down to doing the ‘right’ thing and reporting, only to be ignored. Others have told me of their experiences, have said they’ve heard stories like mine about this person before. I will never know what my debate career would have been like if I weren’t forced to choose between being on a squad with my rapist or not debating. But I will always work, and look forward to the day where the victim is not the one forced out of the activity, where students don’t have to wonder if the leader at their debate camp is a risk to them or their peers. I’m happy to be working, even if subtly and slowly, towards this change, with every tournament I go to and every day I show up to coach my students.