Have you ever wanted to make your country a better place?
Often, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed or powerless in the face of our political systems. Even though many of us live in democratic countries, it seems like we have no voice to improve our lives and the lives of others. This especially feels true when it comes to passing bills.
Did you know that anyone can write and introduce a bill in the United States? It sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it? The reality is that even though anyone can petition Congress, it takes a great deal of strategy to reach the right people so that your bill has the potential to become law. Today, my guest knows all about passing bills and changing the lives of millions through writing bills and petitioning Congress.
I’m thrilled to have Amanda Nguyen on The School of Greatness! Amanda and her organization Rise have passed 32 laws to date, many of which have extended protection for the rights of rape victims. In this episode, you’re going to learn all about Amanda’s journey in passing her first bill, the Sexual Assault Survivors’ Rights Act, and how you also have the power to petition Congress to pass a bill. Let’s dive in!
Who Is Amanda Nguyen?
Amanda Nguyen is the founder and CEO of Rise, a non-governmental civil rights organization. She was the power behind the Sexual Assault Survivors’ Rights Act, which passed unanimously through the United States Congress. She was in Forbes’ 2017 “30 Under 30” Law & Policy list and was an invited speaker at the 2017 Women’s March on Washington. In 2018, California representatives Mimi Walters and Zoe Lofgren nominated Nguyen for the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize.
Amanda has a background in astrophysics and national security. She interned at NASA and worked at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Amanda someday hopes to become an astronaut herself!
Amanda graduated from Harvard University with a Bachelor of Arts in 2013. While attending Harvard, she was raped, and while seeking justice for the incident, she found that our criminal justice system was completely broken when it came to addressing sexual assault. This prompted Amanda to start her organization Rise and help author the Sexual Assault Surviors’ Rights Act.
How the Justice System Fails Rape Survivors
Amanda and I kicked off our interview by discussing how her experience of being sexually assaulted led to the formation of Rise.
“I started Rise because I needed civil rights. After I was raped at Harvard, I discovered a broken criminal justice system, like so many other survivors do. … And in my particular case in Massachusetts, before the laws I wrote passed there, rape kits, which are the evidence that’s collected after a rape, could be destroyed at six months, even if the statute of limitations for prosecuting rape is 15 years.” – Amanda Nguyen
Even though you can press charges against someone for rape long after the incident occurs, some states destroy rape kits after only six months. Imagine if the justice system destroyed evidence in a murder case after only six months! Rape destroys lives, yet it’s not treated with the same severity as other crimes.
After Amanda was raped, she went to a local rape crisis center in Boston and immediately realized how widespread sexual assault is:
“The waiting room was filled, and I didn’t realize how ubiquitous this issue was. I had cared about this issue before [but] had no idea how broken the system was and how many lives it impacted … until I walked into that room and became a survivor myself. … There are at least 25 million rape survivors in the United States. … That’s the entire population of Texas.” – Amanda Nguyen
Amanda immediately realized that rape impacted so many people. While in the clinic, she had difficulty accessing information about what to do after experiencing rape, and she knew that countless others were having the same difficulty.
She learned that the average rape trial takes two years, so she decided to press charges later before the statute of limitations ran out. She had received an offer to be a presidential appointee in President Obama’s administration, and she wouldn’t be able to work the job in Washington D.C. while also pursuing justice in Boston.
While in D.C., Amanda discovered that even though the statute of limitations for rape in Massachusetts is 15 years, rape kits are destroyed after only six months. She began investigating the laws dealing with sexual assault in Massachusetts and other states. She found that the laws protecting and seeking justice for rape survivors vary from state to state.
“When I started researching what rights I had, I discovered a patchwork of rights across the United States. So [while] some states destroy rape kits, other states didn’t, and I thought this was very unfair. We literally have etched above our highest court of the land, the Supreme Court, ‘Equality Under the Law,’ and that was not happening for rape survivors or sexual violence survivors. Literally two survivors in two different states had two different sets of rights. And I thought to myself, ‘Well, I have a choice here. I can accept the injustice or rewrite the law.’” – Amanda Nguyen
The rights of rape survivors largely depend on what state that they’re living in. Some states even require rape survivors to pay thousands of dollars for a rape kit! Imagine having to pay the police to collect evidence for a crime committed against you! Amanda observed that the ridiculous payment laws dissuade some survivors from even reporting rape.
“[Paying for rape kits] creates this social-economic barrier that disincentivizes survivors from coming forth, and many survivors don’t report their rape or sexual violence for many reasons. One of them being that they don’t trust the criminal justice system.” – Amanda Nguyen
Amanda realized that she had to do something to ensure that rape survivors receive the justice they deserve. Rather than letting herself be defeated by the broken justice system, she set out to change it and create laws to protect rape survivors.
