The head of a national women’s group says it’s “outrageous” that Bridgewater State University officials withheld the names of two men charged with rape on campus and did not notify students and staff about the incidents last month. “We know that rape is a serial crime,” said Terry O’Neill, president of the National Organization of Women based in Washington, D.C. “The names of the accused rapists really need to be made public.”
The local chapter of the National Organization for Women blasts the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals saying the agency took no action to protect victims of sexual assault. This, after a policy change allowed for victims to be billed for related medical services at hospitals.
O’Neill’s passion about public policy that works for the benefit of women is evident. She talks about every point with a conviction that seems born directly out of personal experience. While much of our conversation focused on economic justice, that’s just one of the six core issues NOW works to change. Constitutional equality, reproductive rights, racial justice, LGBT rights, and ending violence against women are also high on the NOW priority list. O’Neill says the equality for women can’t truly be achieved unless all of those issues are addressed.
“The NFL has lost its way. It doesn’t have a Ray Rice problem; it has a violence against women problem,” NOW said in the statement, pointing to other incidents like Carolina Panthers defensive end Greg Hardy’s recent conviction on domestic abuse charges and a FiveThirtyEight study into domestic violence arrest rates in the league. NOW’s statement goes farther than many of the other calls for Goodell’s resignation, saying whoever succeeds him should also begin an investigation into how the NFL can reform its policies for preventing domestic violence (presumably beyond the “new” policy Goodell instituted in August).
“The schools’ response tells young women that they are completely responsible for men’s behavior, which is an extraordinarily dangerous message. Women and girls are regularly blamed for the crimes committed against them,” said Chitra Panjabi, spokesperson for the National Organization for Women.