img_5148

Yesterday I attended an event on my campus called 20 Minutes of Action. This was in response to the comment that Brock Turner’s father had made about his son’s 6-month sentence in prison being a steep price for “20 minutes of action.” For those who are not familiar with Brock Turner’s case, he was a student athlete at Stanford who had raped an unconscious girl and basically got off scot free.

The event on campus was supposed to represent standing up against campus sexual assault and campus violence. It was held in front of the UMC on the lawn and an estimate of about eighty people showed up. Camera people were there as well as our campus’s Victim Assistance department. We all gathered to sit on the lawn and be in silence for 20 minutes. To put it into perspective, it’s the time it takes to watch an episode of a show on Netflix, the time it takes to ride the bus from The Hill to the 29th Street Mall (with all the stops), or maybe the time it takes to do a quick workout at the gym. 20 minutes is usually a short amount of time but we never really know how slow time goes by when we aren’t doing anything except sitting in silence. I turned to my roommate who also attended and said, “this is a long time;” she agreed. It was good to see that there were just as many men there as there were women. I assumed there would be more women. Not only that but there were people of all ages, not just college students.

I can’t imagine how the girl must have felt when the judge deemed Brock’s life more important than hers. This experience was eye opening and there should be many more events like this one to bring about awareness.

Lily Lemire
Lily is a senior at the University of Colorado at Boulder and will be graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in Film Studies along with a certificate in Business. She is originally from Scarborough, Maine, but decided to venture to Colorado for it's beauty and to get back in touch with her birth place which is Boulder. She is a Film Studies major because she is very interested in the behind the scenes of what goes into making a film. Not only that, but her favourite hobby in the world is to watch movies. She recently went abroad to Sydney, Australia to get a taste of a different culture. While being there, she learned to not take life too seriously, and to slow things down. The Australian lifestyle can really teach a person how to be chill. You can find Lily at the movies, hanging on Pearl Street having a beer with friends, or at the breathtaking lookout of Flagstaff enjoying the view.
See More Articles From Lily Lemire