On the Wrong Side
Nicole Bedera's new book on How Universities Protect Perpetrators and Betray Survivors of Sexual Violence
I know I just recommended Jessi Gold’s book, so please forgive me, but I absolutely must also recommend sociologist Nicole Bedera’s new book On The Wrong Side - to be released on October 1. (My friends, there are worse problems to have than extremely talented colleagues with books being published in the same month.)
For the last two years, I’ve had the privilege of co-teaching an undergraduate course on the law, politics, and policy of campus sexual assault. My friend (and co-teacher) Arghavan Salles directed me to some of Nicole’s scholarly work and her great threads on campus sexual assault and Title IX. A few weeks into teaching our Spring class, the new Title IX regulations were revealed (after years of delay), and we knew Nicole would have valuable insights.
Nicole - like many of the folks who dedicate their lives to preventing violence - is good people. She’s generous and kind and whipsmart and cares deeply about other human beings, especially those who have been betrayed by individuals and organizations.
I noticed Nicole had a book under contract and asked if she might be willing to be a speaker for our class next year. She not only graciously agreed but let me read an advance copy of On the Wrong Side.
As a professor teaching about campus sexual assault, reading this book felt like being seen. Most of the time, if I tell someone what my class is about, it’s more likely to shut down a conversation than open one up. Sexual assault feels too big, too messy, too horrible for most people to tolerate thinking on it too hard. But Nicole chose, again and again, to lean into this topic. She managed to do so in a way that honors survivors, rather than traumatizing them.
For anyone interested in campus sexual violence - teachers, students, parents, and (I hope) administrators - this is a must-have resource for understanding Title IX and the flaws that allow sexual violence to persist on college campuses.
The impact of sexual violence is shaped by everything that happens after it’s over. Does the first person you tell believe you? Does your friend group prioritize your safety over your perpetrator’s convenience? Did you get to choose whether to tell the police? Or your parents? And if you did decide to come forward, did you get the help. you needed? Are you safe now? Are there people to help you if that changes? The answers to these questions matter just as much as whether or not sexual violence occurred. The survivors who are supported are less likely to suffer. They are more likely to heal. They have greater capacity to flourish.
Nicole Bedera, On The Wrong Side
This is heavy material emotionally, but Nicole has written about it in a way that is accessible and even hopeful. Nicole has done what seems impossible - she’s written a trauma-informed book on campus sexual assault.
The debate over campus sexual violence is more heated than ever, but hardly anyone knows what actually happens inside Title IX offices. On the Wrong Side provides the first comprehensive account of the inner workings of the secretive Title IX system. Drawing on a yearlong study of survivors, perpetrators, and the administrators who oversaw their cases, sociologist Nicole Bedera exposes the structures that predictably punish survivors who come forward in the service of protecting—or even rewarding—their perpetrators. In doing so, she reveals that the system tasked with ending gender inequality on campus only intensifies it, upending survivors' lives and threatening the degrees that brought them to college in the first place.
Equally heartbreaking and optimistic, On the Wrong Side makes it easy to imagine life-changing interventions for the next generation of students by proposing specific solutions to the structural problems of Title IX. Bedera proves that ending sexual violence is within our grasp—and dares us to be courageous enough to take action.
Beyond the book itself, I’ve been inspired and impressed by Nicole’s work to prepare for publication. If you subscribe to her mailing list, you’ll find that she’s made accessible book clubs that are organized around the needs of survivors and advocates. You don’t have to read this book alone.
Other fabulous authors and thought leaders lent their praise to Nicole’s work:
"Nicole Bedera is one of the most important thinkers of our time about sexual violence on campus. Her case for how universities continue to protect perpetrators and their own reputations at the expense of survivors—even as they claim, in the post #MeToo era, to do the opposite—is eloquent, definitive, and, most of all, deeply urgent. I am grateful for her work."— , New York Times–bestselling author of Boys & Sex: Young Men on Hookups, Love, Porn, Consent, and Navigating the New Masculinity
"A brilliant, timely, and moving analysis of gendered violence on university campuses and the horrendous failures of universities to deal with it adequately (or often, indeed, at all). On the Wrong Side is a must-read for anyone invested in social justice."— , author of Entitled: How Male Privilege Hurts Women
If you’re interested in the health and safety of college students, grab a copy of On The Wrong Side for an explosive investigation into how the systems that claim to protect us from violence, leave us behind. And subscribe to her mailing list for updates on trauma-informed book club opportunities.
