Paul’s and during the trial, supplementing a firsthand account with text messages and email exchanges. The book frankly documents Prout’s time at St. I Have the Right To: A High School Survivor’s Story of Sexual Assault, Justice, and Hope, the book Prout’s co-written with Boston Globe Spotlight Team reporter Jenn Abelson, is the next step in this shift from anonymous survivor to public advocate. It wasn’t until a “Today” show interview in the fall of 2016 that Prout came forward publicly, putting a name and a voice behind the label of St. No one knew what my weekly panic attacks looked like.” In nightly news clippings of her testimony, Prout spoke from out of frame, her voice distorted beyond recognition, as cable news cameras focused their lenses on Labrie’s face. “Someone could write adjectives - naive, flummoxed, preppy - but no one cared about who I was or what I was going through. “The perpetrator was given these shining accolades I was the nameless, faceless victim,” Prout told Metropolis during her recent visit to Tokyo. Prout’s father was fired from his job after taking a leave to deal with the criminal justice process, his boss remarking, “I certainly hope your daughter gains better judgment in the future.” Word counts were limited when it came to a full consideration of the costs facing the teenage survivor or the burdens placed on her family. Most articles at the height of the 2015 media fervor noted Owen Labrie’s soccer-captain status, his school service award and his revoked full-ride admission to Harvard, implicitly sympathizing with the dashed futures of the young man. While Chessy Prout remained anonymous throughout the trial, the perpetrator received extensive airtime. Prout (left) and her sister Lucy both attended St. American media outlets grabbed ahold of the case at the wealthy private school, turning one of Prout’s most personal and painful experiences into a national headline. The case exposed entrenched misogyny in the boarding school and affirmed the community’s unwillingness to confront its toxic campus culture. A criminal trial revealed that the perpetrator had targeted her months earlier as part of an archaic school tradition called the “Senior Salute,” in which graduating boys competed to hookup with, or “slay,” as many freshmen girls as possible. Paul’s School in New Hampshire when a senior boy sexual assaulted her on campus. In the spring of 2014, Prout was finishing her first year of high school at the prestigious St. Reflecting on the time that’s past since, she shared, “I’ve gone from a place of fear and anger, to a place of strength and anger.” I’m just so grateful to be here and be able to see the people that gave me the strength to know how to speak up.” The homecoming marked the first time Prout had addressed the community at her childhood school since an assault at the age of 15 dramatically altered the course of her life. “ This is my beginning here and I’m just wondering,” her voice breaking, “how that little girl… never think that this would be my life now coming back. “Right now my mind is spinning just being here and being overwhelmed with being here,” she said at one point during her talk at the Hiroo campus in May. Addressing a packed audience of students, parents, former teachers and family friends, she sat in front of a projected collage of childhood photos, collected memories of an upbringing in the Tokyo international community. Chessy Prout took the stage at the International School of the Sacred Heart (ISSH).
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