#Chessy prout cross examination full

It was during a panel that I did Yale Law School and Quinnipiac Law School for the resolution dispute program. When did it first occur to you to write a book?

So, I wanted to really outline what life’s like for a sexual assault survivor-just one of us, one sexual assault survivor-and help ease people’s minds and realize that the PTSD that I’m experiencing afterwards is normal and I can get through it and I can find a light at the end of the tunnel. And I felt that people were not taking into consideration my humanity and how the crime was affecting my life-people in general. There’s so little that people can garner and understand from media coverage when it comes to the human being behind the headline. In 2016, you decided to shed your anonymity with your Today Show interview-what pushed you to take your story further and to write a book? (Simon & Schuster)Ĭongratulations on your book coming out in March! It was really interesting and inspiring to read the entire extent of your story-all of the ups and downs of the last few years for you. Chessy Prout (right) with her younger sister and father at the Women’s March. Ms. spoke with Prout about the pain of the writing process, the impact of the #MeToo movement and the power of teen activists.

#Chessy prout cross examination full

Her book, full of honesty and reflection, provides profound insight into one teenager’s path to finding her voice-and serves as a roadmap for friends and family who want to support the survivors in their lives. Prout’s ability to transform so much of her pain into action and hope for not just herself, but for so many other survivors, is incredibly empowering. In her powerful memoir, Prout recounts not only the horrific event itself, but also the aftermath-and expands the important conversation she’s been sparking for two years. She subsequently started the #IHaveTheRightTo social media campaign, in which participants came forward to claim their rights, and she has spent the past year, since graduating high school in May, building the campaign into an official organization of the same name. Prout initially maintained anonymity during the criminal trial, but after facing down online trolls and backlash from her own school community, the teenager came forward to share her story on Today in August 2016. In 2014, when Prout was just a freshman at an esteemed boarding school in New Hampshire, a senior sexually assaulted her as a part of a school ritual known as the “senior salute.” As she and her family sought justice and healing, her attacker, who was convicted of three counts of misdemeanor sexual assault, endangering a child and the felony of using a computer to lure a minor, was lauded as an athlete and a student by the boarding school-and ultimately acquitted of rape. The young activist published her memoir, I Have the Right To : A High School Survivor’s Story of Sexual Assault, Justice, and Hope, last month, which she wrote with Boston Globe investigative reporter Jenn Abelson. “Rape is not a punishment for poor judgement.”- I Have the Right ToĬhessy Prout may just be 19 years old, but she brims with eloquence and fortitude.