Dr. Nicole Bedera

And I could see them really grappling with not just the violence they experienced, but the way the system as a whole was no longer treating them like someone who deserved protection.

And instead they were being treated with suspicion and doubt.

I decided to go to graduate school and become a researcher to answer some of those questions in a better way, in part because when I looked up the answers in the academic literature for myself, I didn't like a lot of what I found.

Now I've come to realize that if you dig a little farther, you can find feminist anti-violence researchers who've been doing this work for decades, who've been finding the same types of things that I found.

I became a researcher because I wanted a better, more accurate answer to those questions.

The things I saw as a victim advocate really deeply shaped the way I saw my research.

When you've spent time with hundreds, we're probably getting close to thousands of survivors that I spent time with and talked to about their experiences and their stories, either as a practitioner, as a researcher, or just as a person who people know will talk about this stuff.

I hear it from people in my personal life all the time too.

You realize that no matter how different the survivors are from each other, the way they're treated by the system is the same.

And I think that insight has shaped my research more than anything else.

When I wanted to do this project, I was told by everybody at the university I was attending, you basically have a year to try to get access to a Title IX office.

You're going to fail and then you need to find a new dissertation.

Yeah.

is sort of the sentiment that I was hearing.

It was very clear that I would never be allowed to do this research at the University of Michigan, that the idea of criticizing the institution granting your degree, there was really no way they would grant you that degree if you're going to be that critical, which is telling on its own about the way all of this operates.

The way I got into Western University came from my years as a victim advocate.

It's a difficult job and it pays very poorly.

And so a lot of the people who I'd known from when I was a victim advocate had also gone to graduate school and had also tried to find other ways to serve and support survivors where they'd also be able to pay for their rent.

I reached out to the advocates that I knew all around the country and said, are any of you working at universities?

Do you think any of your universities would be willing to have a researcher come and observe what you're doing?