I have been involved with Trinity College Dublin since 2012. I’ve done my undergraduate, my masters, and now my PhD here. Never in all my years of attendance at this university have I felt less represented by the Students’ Union than in this last year.
I’m a disabled postgraduate student, who is also the chairperson of the Trinity Ability Co_Op. Disability advocacy and activism is our purview and something that I am very familiar with. Every day of my life as a disabled woman is a day of activism – of self advocacy. Having to justify my existence – having to justify my rights. The Trinity Ability Co_Op exists for this purpose: to advocate and try to improve the lives of disabled students on campus. The SU knows of our existence. We’ve been in contact. We’ve tried to weigh in and suggest ways we could work together towards a more accessible Trinity.
Imagine our shock and dismay when we saw the ‘campaigns’ for disabled students undertaken by the SU. Balloons filled with paper stuffed into the place of work of Faculty members. Balloons, the sensory nightmare for many disabled people, including myself, and an environmentally unfriendly product. All in the name of LENS Report compliance. Did these ‘campaigns’ work? No. It made this topic anathema. Our rights as disabled students, our struggles, were turned into a weapon to bludgeon people with. Who asked the SU to do this? Who consulted with them? I know it wasn’t the committee of the Ability Co_Op. When we contacted ringleaders of these grossly misjudged ‘campaigns’, our concerns and very valid objections were shrugged off. The SU will advocate for me whether I like it or not. These actions have damaged the already frayed relationship between disabled students and the disAbility Services, and the Faculty of the Schools.
I had been very concerned about the motives of this SU, and had essentially called them out in a public forum – namely the launch event of an Ability Co_Op poster campaign, which aimed to advocate and educate about disabilities. Members of the SU were present when I emphatically called for an end to performative activism.
It would seem my call fell by the wayside, as another ‘campaign’ erupted.
While I am 30 years of age now, pursuing my doctorate, I was once 20 years old – an undergraduate, who had been sexually assaulted by a classmate. I can easily imagine how damaging it was for survivors, recent or otherwise, to see the word ‘rapist’ plastered all over campus. To have the president of the SU emphatically encourage survivors to ‘take justice into [their] own hands’—a statement which borders on incitement of violence and vigilante justice. To have a mannequin hung – one way or the other – and to see it beaten. To be encouraged to “do whatever” to the body. Sexual harassment, assault, and rape are all inherently violent crimes. To be confronted and encouraged to incite further violence does not help survivors. To have floated the idea of encouraging survivors to place stickers on their abusers was incredibly tactless – I still shook with fear any time I saw a man who resembled my abuser in the streets of Dublin for years after the fact. Sometimes my heart jumps in fear even still. It is a small mercy that this sticker idea was left on the cutting room floor, as it would have been susceptible to abuse, and racially/ethnically charged misappropriation.
Above all, what has perhaps disgusted me the most was the action of placing anonymous accounts from survivors on the door of the Junior Dean’s office. These survivors did not consent to this. This was a violating action. In a college as small as this – in a country as small as this – there’s always a way to figure out who. Their anonymity wasn’t protected. Their trust in the SU was violated and broken.
I speak now to the outgoing Student’s Union.
Your job was to protect the rights of the students of this college. Your job was to amplify their voices, not drown them out. Your job was to support us. To provide help and resources. Not to inflict or incite further violence. Your actions have placed you at the centre stage of every campaign, as though you are collecting them for a portfolio. As a disabled woman and a survivor of sexual assault, I want you to know that you do not represent me. You do not speak for me. You do not have my best interests at heart. I will not be used as a weapon for you to bludgeon the faculty of this college. I will not have my struggles, my triumphs, my very existence used by you to further your own agendas. I will not be a buzzword or trendy campaign. Your actions impact real people. We are more than labels or concepts. Disabled students deserve better than your ableism performed in our name. Survivors of sexual assault deserve your protection, not further violation.
To the incoming Student’s Union.
Remember what you are here for. Remember that ‘minority’ and vulnerable groups still have voices, and you should listen to them. Learn from your predecessors, and please, do not repeat their hubris.
