We've been fighting to have a voice, just typically in this country, for over 400 years, we're constantly and have historically been marginalized, or dehumanized in so many ways. So I really think those two factors create this perfect storm.

Jon Vaughn

All the reporting agencies within The University of Michigan have essentially failed all the students and all the student athletes, because they've done nothing to support in any consistent manner, or protect in any consistent manner, professors have said if Jon Vaughn support or even help report a student's standpoint, it's like a career suicide.

You can not only celebrate parts of your history, you must deal with your entire history in order to root it out and change that culture, because the longer you ignore it, the more you perpetuate it and the more it empowers other predators, because they're watching the lack of discipline, or consequences for serial predators and rapists that then gives others the green light to make those decisions and prey on young men and young women.

I knew that there was nothing that I could do in my protest to change what happened to me. But we could uncover the truth here at Michigan, and also make this place safer for now, and in the future, so that these atrocities don't continue to happen, we want to change the narrative, as well as the culture. So until that's done, I won't be leaving.

They've shown the inability to police themselves on a consistent basis, as pertains to sexual assault.

I don't think the world right now is ready to complete that spectrum of the face of abuse and include African-American men.

The fact that they switched him out of general care to the athletic program as if they [ athletes ] were sort of disposable people says a lot about how the institution thought about how to deal with the problem person : they value athletics as institution, but the people who participate in athletics and make some money are disposable.

I think it is the athlete's dedication to this specific sport, and the overwhelming trust that they tend to have in their coaches and trainers because of the focus that it takes to be successful in sport.

So Board of Regents, so the University of Michigan — say my name, because the time is now for all of you who have been abused here to speak up for justice. We speak because every victim matters. I am not John Doe. I am Jon Vaughn.