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PALO ALTO –Vanessa Tyson’s allegations of sexual assault against Virginia’s lieutenant governor could have served as a compelling case study for the Stanford symposium on sexual violence she headlined Tuesday night. But she never mentioned his name or the assault itself.
There was a moment, though, in the midst of the long-planned panel discussion on sexual violence research, when the Stanford fellow caught her breath and apologized to the crowd filling a small auditorium.
“Make no mistake. This is an epidemic,” she said of sexual assault that has affected 65 percent of women across the country. “It’s killing us, slowly. It’s taking everything out of ourselves just to function in this world and try to make it a better place.”
That’s when she choked up. “I’m sorry,” she said.
She received a standing ovation when she arrived from the sold out crowd, 100 mostly academics attending the event titled “Betrayal and Courage in the Age of #MeToo” at Stanford’s Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, where Tyson is a fellow. It was live-streamed through casbs.stanford.edu.
On advice from her legal team, Tyson would not discuss her personal experience with Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax during the 2004 Democratic National Convention that led to her accusations of sexual assault against him last week. He has denied her claims, calling their interaction consensual and her allegations part of a “smear campaign.” Fairfax also pointed out that Tyson had discussed in previous talks about being the victim of molestation and hadn’t mentioned him — a comment that Tyson said in a statement last week was “despicable and an offense to sexual assault survivors everywhere” and in no way proof he didn’t assault her.
Tyson’s allegations against Fairfax were certainly the elephant in the room. With the panel focused on sexual violence, Tyson’s personal pain was poignant, nonetheless, and her nuances were clear.
Sexual violence is “one of the ugliest aspects of humanity,” Tyson said from a stool at the front of the room. “Trust me.”
Given that Tyson’s area of focus during her fellowship is, in part, “the political discourse surrounding sexual assault,” her allegations against Fairfax and the resulting political drama couldn’t be more significant.
Tuesday’s symposium took place in a city that has been the center of several high-profile sexual assault stories, from Palo Alto University Professor Christine Blasey Ford’s allegations against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh last year to the conviction of Stanford swimmer Brock Turner for sexually assaulting an unconscious and intoxicated young woman in 2015. In attendance at the symposium was Stanford law professor Michele Dauber, who led the recall campaign against Aaron Persky, the judge who sentenced Turner to three months in jail, and has been a critic of Stanford’s handling of sexual assault cases.
Tyson, an associate professor of politics at Scripps College with a Ph.D from the University of Chicago, was joined onstage by Jennifer Freyd, a University of Oregon psychology professor. Both are visiting Stanford fellows this year.
Tyson expressed compassion for Blasey Ford’s ordeal, saying that she and other Stanford fellows watched the congressional hearings together last fall.
“We felt the pain that she so visibly demonstrated,” Tyson said. “I’ve been playing around with this idea that as survivors, one of the dynamics we’re experiencing is empathetic absorption. It’s understanding the weight that someone else carries, because in one way or another, we carry that, too.”
Tyson implored the audience not to look away from sexual assault survivors or to give more credence to those who are part of a dominant societal class, whether they be white or highly educated.
“Don’t be afraid to see survivors for what they are, the beautiful parts, the ugly parts and everything in between,” she said. “And they don’t deserve what happened to them. They have nothing to be ashamed of and they are not alone.”
Tyson’s allegations against Fairfax are just one facet of the political and moral chaos now slamming Virginia’s top three Democratic leaders — with calls from both Democrats and Republicans for all three to resign. Not only has a second woman come forward with sexual assault allegations against Fairfax, which he also denies, but the governor and attorney general have both admitted wearing blackface while dressing up in costumes during their younger years.
So far, all three have refused to step down. The debate has become more fraught as some consider the specter of whether the two white men accused of wearing blackface should remain in office while the black man accused of sexual assault should be ousted.
Tyson first made her allegations about Fairfax to the Washington Post in 2017, just after Fairfax was elected to the No. 2 position in Virginia’s state government. Unable to corroborate her story, in part because she didn’t tell anyone about it at the time of the alleged assault, the Post said last week that it declined to write a story. The allegation surfaced last week after a conservative website reported that Tyson had posted a cryptic message on her private Facebook page alluding to Fairfax, who was in a position to assume the governorship if Gov. Ralph Northam resigned.
Tyson then hired the same law firm that represented Blasey Ford, who accused then Supreme Court nominee Kavanaugh of sexual assault when they were teenagers.
In Tyson’s statement last week, she explained that she met Fairfax at the convention in Boston, where both were working. Fairfax invited her to walk to his hotel room while he picked up some papers, she wrote. There, “what began as consensual kissing quickly turned into a sexual assault” when he strong-armed her into performing oral sex, she wrote.
“Utterly shocked and terrified, I tried to move my head away, but could not because his hand was holding down my neck and he was much stronger than me,” she wrote. She began to cry, she said. “I cannot believe, given my obvious distress, that Mr. Fairfax thought this forced sexual act was consensual.”
The largely female audience who had come to hear Tyson speak — most of whom had signed up for the symposium weeks before Tyson’s story went public — understood the ground rules of Tyson’s talk.
But they were happy to show their support anyway.
“I totally believe her and support her completely,” said Shelley Correll, director of The Clayman Institute for Gender Research at Stanford. “We have to demand more from our politicians than this.”
One of the most poignant moments during the discussion came when Tyson and Freyd talked about the importance and difficulty of reporting sexual assault. Tyson’s comment left the room silent.
“Sometimes you have to lead by example,” Tyson said, “no matter how hard it is.”
