Rape victim on '60 Minutes:' Now -- everybody knows her name

SCREEN CAPTURE / CBS

Chanel Miller is interviewed by Bill Whitaker on '60 Minutes.'

ASAM NEWS & VIEWS FROM THE EDGE

For years, she was only known as Emily Doe, a pseudonym  for the victim raped on the Stanford University campus. Last night on national television, the victim spoke out as Chanel Miller.

In the half-hour interview with Bill Whitaker on 60 Minutes that was aired Sunday (Sept. 22), Miller, whose mother is Chinese, recounted her ordeal from the night she was assaulted in 2015, the trial and her ongoing recovery.

Miller woke up in a hospital after blacking out at a fraternity party at Stanford not knowing what had happened to her. She admits she had drank a mixture of vodka, whiskey and champagne. She was unconscious during the attack.

Doctors examined the Asian American victim and told her she had been sexually assaulted. After her release from the hospital, Miller decided not to tell anybody, including her parents, until more details were unveiled. It took days before the story popped up on her social media news feed.

“In order to survive, you just shut everything down. You have to function. You have to go to work in the morning. So it’s much easier to just repress everything,” she told Whitaker.

“Yes. It was surreal having the news broken to me by the Internet. I was alone, sitting at my desk, surrounded by coworkers, reading about how I was stripped and then penetrated and discarded in a bed of pine needles behind a dumpster. And that’s how I figured out all of those elements. And they all added up. And I finally understood,” said the 26-year old author.

She acknowledges she had too much to drink, but doesn’t back down to those who may feel she had it coming.

“Rape is not a punishment for getting drunk," the Asian American writer told  Whitaker. "And we have this really sick mindset in our culture, as if you deserve rape if you drink to excess. You deserve a hangover, a really bad hangover, but you don’t deserve to have somebody insert their body parts inside of you.”

During the trial, Turner's lawyers portrayed their client as a star athlete, a potential Olympic swimmer whose life would be ruined if convicted. Upon conviction, Turner's father said his son should not have to go to prison for “20 minutes of action.”

During the sentencing portion of the trail, Miller was able to confront Brock in her statement in court. Her powerful hour-long testimony was published by Buzzfeed and it went viral as a statement in behalf of sexual assault victims around the world.

During the 60 Minutes interview, Miller read part of that testimony: "I had to force myself to relearn my real name, my identity. To relearn that this is not all that I am. That I am not just a drunk victim at a frat party found behind a dumpster, while you are the All­ American swimmer at a top university, innocent until proven guilty, with so much at stake. I am a human being who has been irreversibly hurt, my life was put on hold for over a year, waiting to figure out if I was worth something."

Brock Turner received six months in jail for sexual assault. He was released  after serving  only three months. The nation reacted with outrage to the high-profile case's light sentencing. Two years later, Judge Aaron Persky would be recalled by 60 percent of the vote.

Miller, who graduated from UC-Santa Barbara, wrote about her experience in a book due out Tuesday, (Sept. 24) by Viking Books, entitled "Know My Name."

Below is a portion of the 60 Minutes report. For the entire segment, click here.

Finally, Miller, concluded her victim's statement with a message to assault victims everywhere:

"And finally, to girls everywhere, I am with you. On nights when you feel alone, I am with you. When people doubt you or dismiss you, I am with you. I fought everyday for you. So never stop fighting, I believe you. As the author Anne Lamott once wrote, 'Lighthouses don’t go running all over an island looking for boats to save; they just stand there shining.' Although I can’t save every boat, I hope that by speaking today, you absorbed a small amount of light, a small knowing that you can’t be silenced, a small satisfaction that justice was served, a small assurance that we are getting somewhere, and a big, big knowing that you are important, unquestionably, you are untouchable, you are beautiful, you are to be valued, respected, undeniably, every minute of every day, you are powerful and nobody can take that away from you. To girls everywhere, I am with you."

EDITOR'S NOTE: If you are a survivor of sexual assault, you can call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 800.656.HOPE (4673) or visit hotline.rainn.org/onlineand receive confidential support.
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Asian American victim in Stanford sexual assault identifies herself

CBS NEWS

Chanel Miller wants to reclaim the narrative of the sexual assault.

The Asian American woman, a victim of a sexual assault on the Stanford Campus three years ago, known for years only as Emily Doe, has revealed her identity.

Chanel Miller, who was unconscious during the assault, will appear on a segment in 60 Minutes on Sept. 22 prior to the release of her memoir, "Know My Name." It is the first time the Vietnamese American has allowed her face to be seen by the public and agreed to a live interview.

Turner was discovered on top of the victim behind a dumpster by two graduate students from Sweden. When he ran away, the pair chased him down and detained him until police arrived.

In 2016, Stanford swimmer the then-21-year old Turner was convicted of sexually assaulting Miller outside of a fraternity party in 2015. He was found guilty of three counts of sexual assault, a conviction that could have landed him a 14-year prison sentence. Instead, the case’s judge, Aaron Persky gave Turner six months in jail. He was released after three months.

The judge believed that Turner showed remorse, despite Turner refusing to admit he had sexually assaulted Miller, according to The Huffington Post. Persky said he thought Turner would “not be a danger to others” and expressed concern that “a prison sentence would have a severe impact” on him.

The public outrage in reaction to the lenient sentence led to Persky being recalled and ousted from the bench.

At Brock's sentencing, Miller read her powerful 7,000 word statement. It was published by Buzzfeed and  it has been read by millions. It starts. Eighteen congresswomen read the statement aloud in the House of Representatives to bring attention to sexual assault.

Since the arrest and during the trial and the obscene sentence toTurner eventual release from jail, the focus has been on the rapist.

With the release of her memoir, Miller wants to reclaim the narrative. 

“You don’t know me, but you’ve been inside me,” Miller reads from her statement in the 60 Minutes clip released today (Sept. 4). “In newspapers, my name was ‘unconscious, intoxicated woman.’ Ten syllables, and nothing more than that. I had to force myself to relearn my real name, my identity. To relearn that this is not all that I am.”

That's also how she began her statement at Turner's sentencing while looking directly at her attacker.

Here's the 60 Minutes clip released today:

“I just remember being in my kitchen and reading this incredible, riveting piece of work,” Andrea Schulz, the editor-in-chief of Viking, the book’s publisher, told the New York Times. 

“I jumped out of my chair to acquire it, because it was just obvious to me from the beginning what she had to say and how different it was and how extraordinarily well she was going to say it,” Schulz said. “She had the brain and the voice of a writer from the very beginning, even in that situation.”

Miller has been writing the book since 2017, reports the NY Times, but since then has expanded the theme to include the conversations generated by the #MeToo movement.

According to a New York Times exclusive, Miller eventually graduated from UC Santra Barbara and living in San Francisco as an artist and writer.

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