The 11th annual Domestic Violence Education Symposium gathered the Cabrini community on campus and virtually on Tuesday, October 5, for the 2021 program, titled “The Importance of Connection in Healing: Voices of Survivors of Sexual Assault and Dating and Domestic Violence.”
Presented by the Barbara and John Jordan Center for Children of Trauma and Domestic Violence Education—in partnership with Cabrini’s Social Work Department—the 2021 Symposium invited civil attorney and former competitive gymnast Sarah Klein to Grace Hall to share her story of resilience in the face of sexual abuse from U.S. Olympic Women’s Gymnastics personnel, Larry Nassar and John Geddert.
“We were so fortunate to have Sarah Klein as our keynote speaker for the 11th annual Jordan Center Domestic Violence Education Symposium,” said Colleen Lelli, EdD, Associate Professor of Education and Director of Cabrini’s Barbara and John Jordan Center for Children of Trauma and Domestic Violence Education. “Her expertise and experiences with sexual assault taught all of us at Cabrini how to be a positive bystander. Education is a key to prevention for issues surrounding sexual assault, dating, and domestic violence, and we are committed to providing education through the Jordan Center for the Cabrini community and beyond.”
Klein shared her story of physical and emotional abuse from the time she took up gymnastics at just seven years old, but focused much of her lecture on both legal and cultural solutions to the pressing challenge of sexual abuse.
“My message is always one of hope,” said Klein, whose legal practice has continued lobbying for victims of sexual abuse since she last spoke at Cabrini in 2019. “I speak not just as a survivor, but also as a mother and a crazy girl who changes laws that I don’t like.”
Klein noted how impactful trauma-informed professionals, like those among Cabrini’s Education faculty, can be in delivering justice for victims of sexual abuse.
When Klein and many of her former teammates first accused Nassar—the former U.S. women’s gymnastics team doctor and Michigan State University professor—of sexual abuse, they were considered liars. A detective in Lansing, MI, eventually found child pornography on a hard drive belonging to Nassar.
“It was a female detective who had been trained to believe [Nassar’s victims] who cracked the case,” Klein said. “The detective was trauma-informed and she took the stance that I’m going to start by believing.”
Klein’s firm has succeeded in civil suits against serial predators, awarding large settlements to their victims.
“These cases aren’t about the money though,” she said, “they are about justice. It sends a message to the institutions covering up this abuse that this is not acceptable. We hope that we blow the stigmas around sexual abuse and domestic violence to pieces.”
On Klein’s last visit, she commended the University’s It’s On Us campaign, which through a series of state-funded grants, enabled campus-wide bystander training for students, faculty, and staff, as well as education around survivors’ rights and sexual assault reporting procedures.
“This Jordan Center, the students here, the work you guys are doing is proactive, not reactive,” she said.
Klein said that time cannot heal all wounds, but she feels a sense of empowerment and progress through telling her story.
“Larry changed my life—for a long time I said for the worst,” she said. “But now, I would actually say that Larry Nassar changed the course of my life for the better, because I know that every single person watching this here or on Zoom is going to take in this message and go and change someone’s life for the better.”
For more information on the Barbara and John Jordan Center for Children of Trauma and Domestic Violence Education and a calendar of events, please visit the Center’s website. Follow the Jordan Center on Facebook and Twitter for the latest updates.