I went to the Biden event and it was a disrespectful mess

We know you were all expecting this piece to be about VP Joe Biden’s speech and the brilliant It’s On Us campaign. You expected us to go over his great points and initiative and add is a heart-felt personal story to top it off.

So did we.

Here’s what went down: we woke up at 8am to get breakfast and head over to the event. We arrived at the Petersen Events Center around 9:45am to see a line looping around the street. We waited until close to 11 to actually enter the building, at which point we were instructed to take the elevators up to the second floor. Why? Because the event was not held in the actual stadium, as we expected. It was held in the lobby of the Pete that holds maybe 150 people.

Since way more than 150 people were given tickets, the rest of us who were not press, officers, faculty, or other “special” persons were thrown up to the second floor where you could see all of the audience and zero of the actual show- or you had to wake up crazy early and stand in the cold by 8am and wait to be let in at 10:15am.

A good bit of people actually got turned away after waiting hours to enter.

And as you can guess, those people were not pleased.

That wasn’t the only unforgivable thing. On top of not being able to enter, since Biden was late (as is expected) they tried to fill in the empty areas with cheerleaders, the marching band, Roc, and a completely inappropriate musical playlist that included The Black Eyed Peas’ song “I Gotta Feeling.” It was almost as though Pitt didn’t take their own sexual assault campaign seriously and just wanted the publicity, effectively turning a sexual assault rally into a sexual assault concert.

For the survivors who attended this event, some of whom we are friends with, this was completely disrespectful. When you are trying to raise awareness of sexual assault and bring light to the fact that it occurs at numerous parties on college campuses, turning the speech into a party is not the way to go.

Finally, everyone who was shoved up to the second floor missed the entire thing. We were stuck staring at screens that weren’t even synced with the speech, so listening was impossible. Everyone was either bored or outraged.

The sadness and disappointment could be seen on the faces of the second floor attendees.

And yes, the screen thing was real. Since there was no hope of even getting close to the railing, TVs were our only hope.

Upset comments could be heard from all over the second floor crowd, for instance, “This is bullshit!” and “They made sure Pitt students couldn’t see.” Other comments included “Are you serious? This is it?”

We asked a guard if there was any other place we could go to view the speech, and even added in that we were the press (in our Tab shirts) and he told us that this was it, but informed us that Pitt did not have too much to do with it. According to the officer, once Pitt assigns a venue, the Secret Service gets to set up the security. Even the Pitt police were confused as to why they chose this area of the Pete.

The same guard told us that he understood that we were upset but that it was a speech and was therefore “meant to be listened to” and not necessarily seen. OK, cool, thanks for your assistance.

As far as the actual Biden speech goes, it was a complete hit. Biden said that we “have to change the culture of this society” and man is he right.

“Men, imagine it’s your sister or your mother, or your girlfriend, or your younger brother…”

The following video shows Biden describing a call that he listened to from a victim calling a hotline.

In addition, Biden explained the realities of what the government does to try to keep citizens safe.

Videos courtesy of Connor Desmond.

If only a badly organized Pitt publicity stunt, at least Biden gave a speech that no one in the audience will ever forget, and he’s a friendly guy. We hope he enjoyed his breakfast at Pamelas!

Photo courtesy of Morgan Intrieri

UPDATE: We were given permission to release this e-mail written to the dean from a student that was turned away at today’s event.

“Dear Dean Bonner,

My name is Dan Lapidus and I was one of (by my estimation) about 200 people who were turned away from the event featuring Vice President Joe Biden by order of the Fire Marshall. Those of us who were turned away were quite disappointed because we had spent over an hour in line waiting to get into the event but were not allowed in. Respectfully, I would like to know why the event was held in the lobby and not on the basketball court where capacity would not have been an issue? Further, I respectfully ask why more tickets were given out than there was space to accommodate people? Lastly, I would like to know why additional tickets were made available after the initial release of tickets thereby almost guaranteeing that there would be more people than there was space?

Respectfully yours,

Daniel R. “Dan” Lapidus

Vice President of Finance

Phi Alpha Delta Pre Law

Fraternity

University of Pittsburgh ’18”

UPDATE:

“Good Kids is unapologetic about the truth of rape culture and while it’s difficult to swallow the stories need to be told.

This is from our website in the IT’S ON US section: “Over 150 events across 35 states were held for last year’s Week of Action, including round table discussions, collecting signatures for the “It’s On Us” pledge, and more. Here at Pitt, It’s On Us will be collaborating with the premiere of Good Kids in creating open discussions on consent after two performances, as well as a candlelight vigil for sexual assault victims.

Our play ran for two weeks with talkbacks and pre show discussions. We were then asked to tour to SUNY New Paltz where we continued to spread the word and performed and facilitated talkbacks there as well.

Regarding today- at first we were invited to perform a scene from the play as a part of the programming for that morning which was a brave thought by the University. However then we were cut from the lineup last minute by a higher power apparently due to time constraints which seems a little fishy as there was plenty of free time.

Still in attendance as “VIP guests” our presence appeared to be confusing to those in charge upon our arrival. It was an honor to hear Biden’s passionate and powerful speech but being surrounded by a pep band and flashy fanfare until his appearance with such a serious topic at hand felt off. So many of our peers were sporting IT’S ON US shirts yet had no idea about Good Kids and the efforts being made right on campus a few short months ago. The long gaps of free time or space that was given to student speeches in place of our performance could have been filled with words from our directors about the importance of the play and given the “respect” that was being talked of in speeches to the survivors in attendance.

We were very excited about Biden’s trip to Pitt and to share the collaboration of Iizuka’s play and the campaign with him, but we unfortunately did not get the chance to even mention it to him. Regardless, the cast hopes the crucial message and urgency of this issue was heard today and we were happy to see such a large number of students come out to support the campaign.”