ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, April 21, 1996 TAG: 9604220077
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-4 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WILLIAMSBURG
SOURCE: Newport News Daily Press
KATIE KOESTNER pleads with William and Mary students not to duck the issue of rape in light of the scrutiny placed on her.
Darkness had fallen by the time Katie Koestner reached the end of her speech. She stood illuminated by two spotlights, tears shining in her eyes, and issued a plea. ``Please don't be silent because I went here,'' Koestner told a group of about 150 students, most of them women, in her first appearance at William and Mary since graduating in 1994.
``I felt bad for the women raped and assaulted here. ... that they wouldn't speak out because of how I was treated, and I'm sorry. That's what I came here to say.''
Koestner, now 23, attracted national media attention in 1990-91 with her story of being raped in her dorm room by a fellow freshman. On Friday, she gave the keynote speech at ``Take Back the Night,'' a program to raise awareness about violence against women.
Koestner said she was not surprised to hear about the controversy surrounding her return to campus, including the Student Assembly Executive Council's unanimous vote in March to deny funding for her speech.
``I know there's a sense of frustration, that maybe I embarrassed William and Mary,'' Koestner said. ``This college generally has been silent on this issue for 300 years.''
Koestner now speaks at schools across the country about preventing sexual assault. She charged $900 to speak at W&M - money raised by the Feminist Student Organization.
During a march across campus before her speech, Koestner carried a yellow poster reading, ``Women and Men Unite and Fight. Together We Can Take Back the Night.''
Senior Brad Stansberry, who came to W&M in 1992, said he remembered how Koestner's story divided the campus.
``I heard about a lot of people who didn't believe her,'' Stansberry said, standing outside his Phi Kappa Alpha fraternity house as the marchers walked by.
``I don't have a problem with her being here. I do think it was in bad taste for her to charge to come back.''
On Friday, Koestner described the night she said she was raped by the man she once called her ``Prince Charming.'' As she tells it, they drank some champagne, danced in her room and had a pillow fight before he pinned her down. She got away, then let him fall asleep in her bed.
When she climbed in beside him shortly after 5 a.m., Koestner said, he raped her. She bit a hole through her lower lip as she tried to fight back, she said.
``It's so hard, because I can almost see it - right over there,'' she said, gesturing toward the dormitories. ``If you think it's the $900 - that's why I came ... it's not that easy for me to be here.''
Koestner never filed criminal charges. When W&M found the student guilty of sexual assault in an administrative hearing but did not suspend him, Koestner went public with her story.
On Friday, she described jokes and cold shoulders from fellow students. One administrator, she said, told Koestner to try to work out the ``little tiff'' with her alleged rapist.
Students in the audience said Koestner's personal connection to W&M made her speech more powerful.
``She is one of the few survivors with the courage to speak out,'' said sophomore Lise B. Adams.
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