3-17-14 rape joke-tanvi kumar interview

A Fond du Lac High School student  says she wrote an investigative piece for the high school newspaper to promote awareness  for a cause that she felt was being swept under the rug.  Tanvi Kumar’s article Rape Joke prompted school officials to censor the newspaper and that action has put the high school publication

and the Fond du lac school district in the national spotlight.  Kumar says the Huffinton Post and other national news outlets have picked up on the story.  The article focused on a rape culture at the high school and its impact on survivors of sexual abuse and assault.   Kumar says students and the public in general has been overwhelmingly positive in their response to the article and she thought it would be received positively by school administrators as well.  She was wrong.   Following publication of the article, superintendent Dr. Jim Sebert,  issued a mandate  that all stories have to meet the high school principal’s approval before they

are published.  Kumar says the high school broadcast team also faces the same restrictions.  “I can tell you right now our staff (Cardinal Columns) is very discouraged,”  Kumar told AM 1170 WFDL’s Between the Lines program.  “People want more hard hitting stories and now they’re (student newspaper staff)  worried they are going to get censored.”   On Friday’s  Between the Lines program,  Kumar read a statement from one of the rape victims featured in the article.  

“This topic is an important issue.  I am blessed to have the ability to have a voice and share my story.  Others don’t and that is the reason I did the interview.  Doing this interview helped me personally by knowing that someone out there cares and wants to hear my story.  I’m so glad my article made a difference and was able to help others come out and say I need help.  No one should have to suffer and go through this alone.  I always knew this would be a controversial article but I hope people see the good in it rather than how it is tainted by the administration.  Being silent should be a choice, not a requirement.”

Kumar says she talked directly with superintendent Dr. Jim Sebert about his concerns about a picture that appeared  in the article, some of the words used to describe sexual assaults and potential confidentiality breaches.   “Something Dr. Sebert mentioned several times during our meeting was that we had to keep in mind that our audience was between the ages of 14 and 19,”  Kumar said.  “Something I said in response was kids between the ages of 14 and 19  are getting raped, kids between 14 and 19 are acting as rapists.”
Kumar's interview can be heard on the WFDL Between the Lines podcast.