Myers Park administrators are sending teens the wrong message on sexual violence

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To rebuild trust, MPHS must change its approach

As a licensed clinical mental health counselor specializing in adolescent trauma, I have treated many students from Myers Park High School. I believe schools have a responsibility to ensure a safe learning environment.

In the face of reported sexual assaults at Myers Park, the school has sent a clear message to students: You don’t matter.

While several brave young women have shared stories of sexual harassment or violence at the school, there may be others not coming forward because of the precedent the administration set.

When adolescents are not heard, or worse, not believed, they shut down and lose faith in the system that’s meant to protect them.

As a licensed counselor, I have heard the many reasons that students no longer go to this administration. According to news reports, some students say they never received a response to their complaint, or their concerns were not taken seriously, or they were manipulated into remaining silent.

How is a student supposed to feel safe after being violated if the administration blames them for being where they were when the attack occurred, or asks if they realize how this will affect the perpetrator?

These are textbook responses of what not to say to someone who reports an assault.

By taking this path, Myers Park administration is teaching the next generation how to gaslight a community in order to avoid responsibility. It’s also perpetuating a toxic culture of distrust and silence.

My hope is that the Myers Park administration takes accountability for not doing what was legally required, improves training on Title IX requirements, and begins to approach these matters with the sensitivity students deserve.

Administrators must show through their actions on campus that they are working to rebuild trust.

After all, adolescents need to be shown what healthy leadership and accountability is as they transition into adulthood.

Diana Levitt, Charlotte

Biden has been too slow in aiding Afghan allies

The writer is an anti-war activist.

In July 1995, I joined a dozen demonstrators at the White House protesting U.S. and U.N. abandonment of Bosnians who’d sought refuge in the un-declared “safe area” of Srebrenica. On that day, 8,000 men and boys were executed by the Serbs while U.N. soldiers stood aside.

Now, reruns of the Srebrenica Massacre are looming in Afghanistan.

President Biden is following in President Clinton’s shameful footsteps, leaving most of the 18,000 interpreters who worked with the U.S. military, along with 40-50,000 of their family members, to be executed when Kabul falls to the Taliban.

The killing has already begun. According to former Afghan translator Janis Shinwari on ABC’s This Week, the Taliban are going door to door in newly captured towns looking for former U.S. government supporters and killing them.

On Aug. 6, the head of the Afghan Media Center was shot and killed at Friday prayers in Kabul.

President Biden announced U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan on April 14. An operation to evacuate the interpreters and thousands of other targeted Afghans who helped Americans, should have commenced immediately. So far, only 2,500 have been cleared to be evacuated to Virginia. Another 4,000 interpreters and their families are supposed to be evacuated to third countries, yet to be named, and the evacuation has not yet begun.

In his July 8 speech on abandoning Afghanistan, Biden stated to the interpreters “There is a home for you in the United States if you so choose, and we will stand with you just as you stood with us.”

Biden is faced now with presiding over a possible massacre greater than Srebrenica. If that happens, Biden’s promise to the interpreters and their families will live in infamy.

Andrew Silver, Durham

This story was originally published August 6, 2021 at 9:59 AM.