Kat Sullivan was on a plane to
Orlando, in February when she watched ‘Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri’ for the first time, a movie about a woman who puts pressure on the local police to find her daughter’s killer by renting out a series of giant advertising signs.
That, Sullivan thought, was a good idea. “I was like, ‘I’m getting a goddamn billboard,” she said. “That woman totally epitomises the feeling of just having to do something.”
Sullivan said she was sexually abused and raped by a former teacher when she was a student at the
Emma Willard School in Troy, NY, in the 1990s. A report commissioned by Emma Willard concluded a teacher there named Scott Sargent had been fired for sexually abusing a student but was still given letters of recommendations to teach elsewhere; Sullivan was that student.
Because the abuse took place 20 years ago, the statute of limitations has long since run out, leaving Sullivan with no legal recourse. So, using money from a settlement she received from the school, she bought a month’s worth of ad space on three digital billboards, each about 50 feet wide, to call attention to the case.
One billboard is in Albany, not far from Emma Willard. Another is on a highway in Fairfield, Connecticut, near a school where Sargent later taught. The third is alongside another highway in
Massachussetts, near the town where Sargent now lives.
Three images will rotate through each billboard. One points people to Sullivan’s website, and says, across a picture of a man with a question mark over his chest, the truth will be revealed. Another is a picture of Sullivan and says: “My rapist is protected by New York state law. I am not. Neither are you. Neither are your children.”
Sullivan said the original design included Sargent’s name and face, but the firm that owns the billboards would not allow her to use them, for fear of getting sued. Sargent did not respond to requests for comment.
Representative Image
