Vice President Joe Biden said in an open letter to the Stanford University campus rape victim that her account of the assault is “forever seared on my soul.”
The letter was first obtained by BuzzFeed News Thursday, following a national uproar over the sentencing of Brock Turner, 20, who was convicted of the sexual assault. Turner, 20, was found guilty by a California jury of three counts of sexual assault, but was sentenced to just six months in county jail after prosecutors pushed for six years.
The anonymous victim wrote a letter that she read in court to describe how she felt about the rape, and it quickly went viral. She described the night of the rape and how she was found behind a dumpster mid-assault.
She also described how she found out more details of the attack, as she read a news article that at the bottom listed Turner’s swimming times.
“This is not a story of another drunk college hookup with poor decision making. Assault is not an accident,” the woman said in her statement, expressing her disappointment that Brock has still not shown “remorse or responsibility” for the attack.
“The millions who have been touched by your story will never forget you,” Biden wrote to her. “And if everyone who shared your letter on social media, or who had a private conversation in their own homes with their daughters and sons, draws upon the passion, the outrage, and the commitment they feel right now the next time there is a choice between intervening and walking away — then I believe you will have helped to change the world for the better.”
“I am in awe of your courage for speaking out — for so clearly naming the wrongs that were done to you and so passionately asserting your equal claim to human dignity,” Biden wrote to her, calling her a “warrior” with “a solid steel spine.”
According to Biden, her coming forward will “save lives.”
“Your story has already changed lives. You have helped change the culture. You have shaken untold thousands out of the torpor and indifference towards sexual violence that allows this problem to continue. Your words will help people you have never met and never will. You have given them the strength they need to fight. And so, I believe, you will save lives. I do not know your name — but I will never forget you,” Biden wrote. “The millions who have been touched by your story will never forget you.”
Biden is active in the “It’s On Us” campaign, which aims to stop sexual assault on college campuses. He has made numerous speeches at campuses nationwide speaking out against sexual assault. Biden also wrote the 1994 Violence Against Women Act.
