Emily Doe’s Plaque
When thinking of public memorials to honor tragic and traumatizing events, many people think of statues and sculptures. When it comes to sexual assault on Stanford’s college campus, a nameless garden takes the place of what once was the scene of Chanel Miller’s rape in the fall of 2015 and the birthplace of local and national debate about sexual assault and the criminal justice system’s treatment of those who perpetrate it and its victims. Originally built in 2017 as a healing and reflective space for survivors of sexual assault, Stanford’s intentional decontextualization of the garden and who it was built for has been the center of student, alumni, and public critique and outrage, prompting arguments about who gets to claim the space and determine its meaning. The highly debated plaque could offer visitors context as to why the garden was built, and for who; while without one, the garden stands as nothing more than a pretty garden devoid of meaning, or rather, stripped of it.
Plaques or other signage are used in memorialized spaces to provide visitors with context to what the space is and who or what it was built for, often utilizing quotes to contextualize the space. When the garden was built, Stanford and Miller could not come to an agreement with what would be appropriate to put on a plaque, defining the space and giving Miller a voice through her own experiences. Miller came to Stanford with a quote pulled from her victim’s statement which read:
You made me a victim. In newspapers my name was ‘unconscious intoxicated woman,’ ten syllables, and nothing more than that. For a while, I believed that that was all I was. I had to force myself to relearn my real name, my identity. To relearn that this is not all that I am. That I am not just a drunk victim at a frat party found behind a dumpster, while you are the All-American swimmer at a top university, innocent until proven guilty, with so much at stake. I am a human being who has been irreversibly hurt, my life was put on hold for over a year, waiting to figure out if I was worth something (Miller)
With survivors in mind, Stanford deemed Miller’s proposed quotes to be too triggering and did not want to put blame on one individual person, prompting Miller to send in her quote, pulling again from her victim statement. The quote read, “You took away my worth, my privacy, my energy, my time, my safety, my intimacy, my confidence, my own voice, until today” (Miller). The revised quote was rejected by Stanford and its provost, Persis Drell, suggested quotes from Miller’s statement that were vague and did not refer to the assault or to Miller directly. By removing any mention of Miller and suggesting ambiguous quotes from the same statement that could have been written by anyone, Drell and Stanford strip away meaning from Miller’s own quotes, deeming them too triggering for survivors like Miller and many others.
The battle between Miller and Stanford went on with Miller eventually pulling out of any involvement from a plaque’s installation, leaving the garden with no context or meaning. With decisions at a standstill, Stanford students involved in their virtual and augmented reality club, StanfordXR, took it upon themselves to give Miller’s words a life in the place where it mattered most; in the garden. After securing a round of funding, the club developed an AR plaque with Miller’s quote that would be superimposed in front of the garden when visitors used an app designed by the club. The project entitled “Dear Visitor” recontextualized the garden and gave Miller’s proposed quote its rightful spot in the garden, “centering her voice in the space as was originally intended” (Dear Visitor) and giving new life to what was a dumpster and concrete behind a frat house. The swift action from StanfordXR in contrast to Stanford’s response to the idea of a plaque highlights where each party stands on the importance of recognizing and validating victims of sexual assault on university campuses. Stanford’s inaction could be seen as a form of institutional betrayal; by not agreeing to a quote from the victim herself in a space that holds trauma, Stanford facilitates the erasure of Miller’s assault and the connection to the university, the frat houses, and actively delegitimizes sexual assault victims and survivors on their campus and other universities.
The debate did not end with a plaque on Stanford’s campus, but continued onto an international stage and creating a controversy unlike any other seen in its time, forever changing the discourse on what sexual assault means. During the case, Miller remained anonymous and was referred to in court documents and the twelve-page victim’s statement published on Buzzfeed as “Emily Doe.” The case lasted just over two weeks in court and ended in Brock Turner being sentenced to six months in jail, followed by three years of probation; a sentence that was seen as far too lax for the charges he was brought up on including multiple counts of felony sexual assault, attempted rape, and rape. Miller’s anonymously published victim impact statement along with the lenient sentencing started a conversation around sexual assault, rape, and its handling by local and federal justice systems, inspiring survivors to come forward on social media, and influencing California legislation to pass two laws that would change the law on sexual assault to expand the legal definition of rape to include digital penetration as well minimum prison sentences for assault on unconscious people. Turner’s “bright future” and academic prospects were cited in court as his defense, with the presiding judge Aaron Persky somewhat siding with him and giving him a lenient sentence, sparking outrage and debate about how white men with wealthy backgrounds like Turner were treated in the criminal justice system in comparison to men of color. Turner’s statements, his family’s, and those who came to his defense blamed alcohol and party culture for Miller’s assault, reinforcing the prevalence of rape culture and victim-blaming in society as well as the justice system.
Miller’s statement, Stanford’s response to a plaque in memoriam, and Turner’s widely debated sentencing all contribute to rape culture, institutional betrayal, and decontextualization of places like the Chanel Miller Garden that were initially created to honor and create a safe space for survivors. Nearly two years after the assault on their campus and after facing two years of public outcry, Stanford decided to install a plaque with Miller’s originally proposed quote as well as a marker explaining the significance of the space, honoring her, her legacy, and the years-long trauma she endured at Stanford’s expense and inaction. Without these changes to the garden, it would remain as nothing more than a space for students to relax between classes, rendering what happened just below their feet a few years ago as nothing.
