After he threatened court action, however, the school relented. Ms. Brzonkala was so devastated by the assault and VPI's failure to adequately protect her from her assailant that she was forced to withdraw from college. Denied local justice, she sued her attacker in federal court under the civil provisions of the 1994 Violence Against Women Act. The federal right to sue allowed Christy Brzonkala to control her own access to federal justice rather than rely upon an indifferent or hostile prosecutor. I agree with Michigan Congressman John Conyers, Jr., Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee, that the Court's majority wrongly disregarded the mountain of evidence compiled by Congress in support of our constitutional authority to protect women.
Federal studies reveal that, all too often, the violence against American women begins in childhood.
A majority of the women in recent federal studies disclosed that they had been physically assaulted as children. We know that the pervasive violence against women in our society continues beyond childhood into adult life. Nearly 2 million American women are assaulted each year. For three-quarters of them, their assailant will be someone they know and trust. We also know that the widespread brutality suffered by women in our society is often not reported to local authorities.