Kamilah Willingham is a Black feminist troublemaker, storyteller and civil-rights advocate. Her work is grounded in advancing the rights of survivors of sexual violence in prisons, schools, and beyond, highlighting the culture of silence and inequity that dominates social and systemic responses to gender-based violence. In 2016 Kamilah spearheaded the viral social media campaign, #JustSaySorry. This campaign encouraged survivors of campus sexual assaults and gender-based violence to petition for an apology from their institutions, calling attention to the resilience of survivors and the failures of schools to submit to basic measures of accountability.
Kamilah investigates the consequences of patriarchy and white supremacy, at the intersections of race- and sex-based power structures, and illustrates how our culture, norms and institutions are complicit in this abuse. She weaves this analysis into intimate storytelling, through which she invites survivors of interpersonal and institutional violence to explore healing from trauma as a path to resistance and revolution. Kamilah has trained a variety of stakeholders, from prison guards to campus officials, on their responsibilities to prevent and address sexual violence among their ranks and within their environments. Through her nuanced and personal perspective Kamilah helps audiences imagine alternative systems for healing and reconciliation outside of our justice system.
Since graduating Harvard Law School in 2011, Kamilah’s scholarship has been published in Teen Vogue, VICE, Huffpost, The Nation, and The Establishment, among other books and publications. Kamilah shared her personal experience of surviving sexual assault and civil rights violations as a student at Harvard Law School in the award-winning 2015 documentary The Hunting Ground. Formerly, Kamilah served as a Commissioner on the California Commission on the Status of Women and Girls and on the board of the Equal Rights Amendment Coalition & Fund for Women’s Equality. She is a mother of two based in South Los Angeles, where she is training to become a full-spectrum doula in order to provide advocacy and holistic support for birthing people in her community.
Kamilah gave an inspiring keynote at the opening session at the 2015 National Sexual Assault Conference on September 2, 2015.
Senator Barbara Boxer, Kamilah Willingham, and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand discuss campus sexual assault on a panel for CNN at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival
Kamilah speaking at GUESS Foundation and Peace Over Violence's #DenimDay Cocktail event at MOCA
Kamilah Willingham with Diane Warren, Lady Gaga, and The Hunting Ground director Kirby Dick following a special performance of "Til It Happens to You"
Kamilah with a copy of the book We Believe You: Survivors of Campus Sexual Assault Speak Out.
Kamilah Willingham at a Q&A following a screening of The Hunting Ground at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival
Kamilah WIllingham in The Hunting Ground
“For Some, the Lines Are Blurrier — Sex, Power, and Campus Assault,” Los Angeles Review of Books
"No Perfect Victim," The Hunting Ground: The Inside Story of Sexual Assault on American College Campuses
"Dear Emily Yoffe," We Believe You: Survivors of Campus Sexual Assault Speak Out
"To the Harvard Law 19: Do Better," Huffington Post
Original version published on Medium.com
Republished by The Harvard Law Record
"Why Harvard Should #JustSaySorry for how it handled my sexual assault," The Establishment
Kamilah Willingham, who faced intense scrutiny when she appeared in the film The Hunting Ground after accusing a fellow Harvard Law student of sexually assaulting her and another woman, talked about those that #MeToo has left behind.
..But it was Willingham who felt like roadkill in this process. In March 2016, she responded to the letter by Harvard Law faculty in an editorial clearly articulating the implications of their treatment of her case to a larger environment facing black women on campuses.
“Even while claiming without evidence that Black men are disproportionately and wrongly implicated in on-campus sexual assault proceedings, you — charged with shaping some of the brightest legal minds in the country — ignore well-established research on the disproportionate rate at which women of color are sexually assaulted. It is for these women that I write.”
On episode fourteen of OC87 Recovery Diaries on the Radio, we talk with Kamilah Willingham, a woman who is forthcoming about disclosure, despite her university’s wish that she remain silent.
On Wednesday, September 27, an incredibly inspiring speech was given in San Diego State University by feminist writer, speaker, social justice activist, and prisoner rape survivor advocate: Kamilah Willingham….
Kamilah’s story of strength in overcoming and growing from a tragic situation made a tremendous impact on the majority of the attending students.
Welcome to Episode ONE-HUNDRED! Anti-violence advocate, writer, speaker, all-around badass Kamilah Willingham is back to talk about surviving as a survivor in an era of Trump & co. — including Betsy Devos. We discuss our assaults in detail (it’ll be clear by my question that it’s coming up for those who need to skip ahead) and talk about our strategies for enduring.
Survivor activist and attorney Kamilah Willingham told me, “These myths and the norms they evoke are employed routinely to discredit sexual assault survivors. Rapists’ defense attorneys know they can rely on juries’ susceptibility to these unexamined myths, and more often than not, they are successful.”
“To every victim and survivor of sexual violence who reads this: I want you to know that you are not alone. I want you to know that no matter where you were or what you did before or after the fact, what happened to you is not your fault. Finally, and most importantly, I want you to know that there is more than one way to be brave. Even if you are not as vocal as I am, even if you didn’t report it or never told anyone about it, don’t think for a second that that means you are not strong or courageous…”
— Kamilah Willingham
Members of the university community filled the seats for Willingham’s talk, where she discussed the story of her assault and its aftermath, which was featured in the 2015 documentary “The Hunting Ground.” …
She made it clear that the intention of her speech was not to focus on her assailant, but to bring attention to the flawed policy of university administrations that enable sexual violence through corrupt policy and inaction.
After broadcasting their first few #JustSaySorry burnings on Facebook—including one in which Willingham set fire to the Harvard Law School acceptance letter that she had thought she would want to hold onto forever—Wanjuki and Willingham won a grant from the Awesome Foundation, an organization that gives out micro-grants, to produce a professional video for the project...
Willingham says that how men define their masculinity will inevitably shape how they talk about women...
“There’s still this misconception that there’s something to be gained by being a victim of sexual assault. … Rehashing a painful moment publicly is not fun, especially when you know that so many people who hear that story are cultured to question you.”
—Kamilah Willingham
As Kamilah Willingham, a sexual assault survivor and SB813 advocate, told Broadly, the bill's passage gave her "renewed hope in legislative reform, and the idea that legislative reform will eventually create a justice system that is safe for survivors."
Willingham worked at the California Women's Law Center when the first draft of SB 813 was submitted to legislators. "It was pretty exciting to be a part of this process," she says, "especially because it was something that so many people thought would never happen."
"I think we're in a moment where the world is finally valuing and paying attention to the voices and experiences of survivors of sexual assault."
“This is exactly what we’re talking about when we say that university administrations model a culture of denial rather than one of accountability,” Willingham said...
“I think it’s a terrible idea for him to go on campus educating about rape and rape culture,” said Kamilah Willingham, an activist who appeared in “The Hunting Ground,” the campus rape documentary. “He still doesn’t get it. He’s trying to have it both ways.”
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