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Chanel Miller, Woman Sexually Assaulted by Brock Turner, Releases Book

A book written by Chanel Miller, the woman who was sexually assaulted by ex-Stanford University swimmer Brock Turner, was released to the public Tuesday.

"Know My Name" chronicles Miller's sexual assault on the Stanford campus back in 2015, what it was like to live through Turner's trial and conviction, and how she felt the criminal justice system protects the accused and revictimizes the vulnerable.

A group of students gathered outside the Stanford bookstore Tuesday morning to show solidarity with Miller.

"We want to make sure that people know and Chanel knows that we're out here supporting her," Shanta Katipamula said. "We think her words really matter and carry a profound impact to students overall but especially to us on this campus given what happened here."

For years, Miller was known in legal proceedings as "Emily Doe," the woman assaulted while unconscious by Turner outside an on-campus fraternity house.

A jury found Turner guilty of assaulting Miller while she was incapacitated by alcohol. The emotional victim impact statement Miller read at his sentencing went viral, serving as a rallying cry for victims of sexual abuse.

In it, she detailed how the assault and the aftermath affected her life.

"My independence, natural joy, gentleness, and steady lifestyle I had been enjoying became distorted beyond recognition. I became closed off, angry, self-deprecating, tired, irritable, empty," Miller wrote.

Many people were enraged when Turner was sentenced to six months in jail in 2016 after his conviction for felony sexual assault, more than a year before the #MeToo movement took off.

Judge Aaron Persky, who imposed the sentence, was recalled by voters in 2018, the first judge to be recalled in California since 1932.

To critics, Persky embodied an outdated judicial system that treated sexual assault too lightly and seemed overly concerned with the male attacker, in this case an athlete with a budding career.

Stanford University released the following statement regarding Miller's book release: "We applaud Chanel Miller's bravery in telling her story publicly, and we deeply regret that she was sexually assaulted on the Stanford campus. As a university, we are continuing and strengthening our efforts to prevent and respond effectively to sexual violence, with the ultimate goal of eradicating it from our community."

Miller's author page on Penguin Random House's website describes her as a San Francisco resident and a writer and artist with a degree in literature from the University of California, Santa Barbara.

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