COLUMN: University involvement in mental assistance essential to students
As police officers used pepper spray and a taser to get the razor blade from her hand, Sasha Menu Courey yelled, “The system failed me! The system failed me!”
At this point in ESPN’s “Outside The Lines” investigation, I couldn’t hold back the tears. This University of Missouri swimmer was so talented, so intelligent and so young, but she was battling for her mental health after allegedly being raped by a football player. Her coach, Mizzou’s athletic department and the university — they did nothing to help her.
Less than three months later, Sasha Menu Courey killed herself by ingesting 100 Tylenol. She was just 20 years old.
I don’t know whom I am most disgusted with after hearing Sasha’s story. The man (or men) who reportedly raped her and videotaped it. Mizzou’s head swimming coach Greg Rhodenbaugh, who essentially cut Sasha from the team “to get her to go to counseling,” even though she already was. Or maybe the athletic department and university, who presented her with a university withdrawal form without her parents’ knowledge — even though she was on suicide watch in the hospital.
But when I think of what happened to Sasha, I realize just how quickly students can turn from people to commodities in the eyes of their universities — cushioned when we are worth something, discarded when we become a “problem” to the institution.
And this is what disgusts and frightens me most of all.
I’m not saying the same thing that happened at Mizzou is happening at the University of South Dakota, and I give a lot of credit to the work of those at the Student Counseling Center for providing necessary mental health services to students. But suicide is a serious problem in college — any college — with about 1,100 lives a year lost this way, reports the National Alliance on Mental Illness.
So, what is stopping the next Sasha from being at USD?
I can’t imagine the pressure experienced by a student-athlete at a Division-I school, but I do know what it is like to witness mental health issues in one’s family and wonder what will put me over the edge.
I know if I went through the trauma of a sexual assault, and was then re-traumatized again by being railroaded by the very university that was supposed to care about my well-being, I don’t know how much of a will to live I would possess.
But this situation should not happen in a just world. There should never be a question of whether the university cares about my mental health. It should be a matter of deciding from a number of resources, and with the input of parents, the student and medical professionals, what is best for me.
For Sasha Menu Courey, this option was never available. But that is why her story needs to be told. Universities and colleges need to be held accountable for not only taking seriously and investigating all reports of sexual assault, but for supporting the victims and providing them with the mental health services they need.
A recent story from The Volante about sexual assaults on campus are here.
