Vanessa Tyson Receives Wave Of Support After Detailing Sexual Assault

Vanessa Tyson has received an outpouring of support from fellow academics in the days since she publicly came forward with allegations of sexual assault against Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax (D).

More than 740 academics and allies signed onto a letter of support for Tyson as of Friday afternoon and demanded an investigation into her allegations, organizer Nadia E. Brown, a political scientist at Purdue University, told HuffPost.

“As scholars we ... know that decades of empirical evidence make clear that problems with reporting sexual violence are ones of under-reporting, not of fabrication, and that rates of reporting are particularly low for women of color,” the letter states.

It continues:

This evidence makes clear as well that people who report sexual assault stand to gain nothing and, in fact, risk a great deal. Vanessa has fought hard to carve out a career as a woman of color in academia. She has been incredibly successful, not only in terms of her external successesas a tenured faculty member and the author of an important bookbut more importantly, on her own terms. [...] Such a woman would not risk her career and reputation for anything less than a grave injustice. We therefore trust her when she says that a grave injustice has been committed.

Colleagues and friends have also rallied around Tyson on social media using the hashtag #IBelieveVanessaTyson.

Tyson, a Scripps College professor and Stanford University fellow, accused Fairfax of allegedly forcing her to perform oral sex on him in a hotel room while they were both attending the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston, Massachusetts.

Five people, including several professors, in interviews with The New York Times said Tyson told them in conversations in 2017 and 2018 that she had been sexually assaulted at the 2004 convention. Three of them said Tyson named her attacker either as Fairfax, a lieutenant governor, or a rising politician.

The allegations have rocked Virginia politics at a time when several other top officials, including Gov. Ralph Northam (D), are facing calls for resignation.