Meerabelle Jesuthasan | Maintaining painful legacies

You speak English? | A real conversation on mental health starts by remembering the cases that have rocked our community.

By Meerabelle Jesuthasan 04/17/16 11:01pm

Student suicides feel strangely distinctive on campus. Associated Press journalism guidelines state that generally, suicides are not newsworthy “unless the person involved is a well-known figure or the circumstances are particularly unusual or publicly disruptive.” In this university bubble, however, each suicide resonates. This fact is connected, inevitably, to the institution of Penn itself, and with its complicity in the affair.

The response we have witnessed to Olivia Kong’s death — anger, profound sadness and a steely resolution to change things — seems sadly short-lived. My impression of the oft-cited “conversation” on mental health is that it is shaped more by short-term sensationalism than by organized student action and consciousness. To me, this is most apparent in the way that we have somehow let previous suicides turn into a mere statistic. When discussing mental health on-campus, we have stopped talking about suicide victims who, in many cases, were failed by this school.

To me, one of the most prominent examples of Penn’s institutional failures is the suicide of Arya Singh. She took her life in February 2013, which feels far off. A Google search reveals more recent developments in September 2015, when Singh’s mother filed a lawsuit against Amazon and Penn. She is suing Amazon for allowing the sale of cyanide, and Penn for failing to support her daughter.

Her lawsuit against Penn claims that the university and its employees failed to provide adequate support for Arya and were “unsympathetic, hostile, and at times vindictive” toward her. She was going through severe emotional and mental problems after reporting sexual assault, but like so many of her peers, found it difficult to schedule a proper appointment at CAPS. The alleged assaulter was not prosecuted or punished by the school, although he was eventually made to move out of her dormitory and cease contact with her.

Beyond this, according to the lawsuit, Arya found little support for her declining academic situation. As she failed classes and was put on disciplinary hold, the only administrative response she received was an expulsion from her residence. The day she was scheduled to move out was the same day she killed herself.

In this case, it seems clear to me that there was a shocking connection between Penn’s unsupportive environment and a student’s suicide. But I rarely hear Arya’s name mentioned. This may partly be because many of my friends were not here in 2013. Even so, with such a renewed vigor in the movement for better mental health resources at Penn after Olivia Kong’s recent suicide, I am struck by the lack of discussion of this case in which Penn’s irresponsibility was clearly to blame.

Tragically, as we call out Penn for calling a ruled suicide an accident and being unresponsive to these events, we have allowed our university to push Arya Singh out of our activism. And hers is only one case — I am afraid that we are forgetting the other victims even as we seem to push for better resources. I am afraid that our conversation is affected only by short-term emotion, rather than a real awareness of this deep-rooted problem.

Arya Singh, Timothy Hamlett, Elvis Hatcher, Madison Holleran, Stephen Wilshusen, Alice Wiley, Wendy Shung, Theodric Reed, Amanda Hu and most recently, Olivia Kong are all names we should remember. As a student body we have the power to reclaim the narrative of these individuals, rather than allow the Penn administration to dictate our memory of them.

The fact that so many articles and posts about mental health at Penn have failed to mention Arya’s name as a poignant example only shows that, frustratingly, administrative attempts to push this under the rug have to an extent succeeded. In contrast, Madison Holleran’s name is more recognizable. The track athlete’s suicide was widely covered by the media, leading to criticism that one student’s death was being glamorized and valued over others. It has certainly affected perspectives on campus — Holleran’s name is the one I have heard the most in discussions of student suicide.

But I do not want the media, much less the Penn administration, to dictate our memories of our previous fellow students. We may not have the power to force administrators into pouring more money into CAPS, but we are still important actors. It is imperative that we remember the cases that have affected our community. We must discuss the intersection of mental health with other issues like sexual assault, racism and financial instability. We should remember the victims through more than statistics — we cannot afford to forget them.

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