--- title: Professor Details Alleged Sexual Assault by Virginia Lt. Governor description: Professor Vanessa Tyson came forward with an open letter about the alleged sexual assault by Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax. canonical: https://time.com/5523274/vanessa-tyson-virginia-sexual-assault/ author: Tara Law article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2019-02-06T23:35:50.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-13T08:22:02.544Z article:section: Politics og:title: Professor Comes Forward With Graphic Details of Alleged Sexual Assault by Virginia Lt. Governor og:description: Professor Vanessa Tyson came forward with an open letter about the alleged sexual assault by Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax. og:url: https://time.com/5523274/vanessa-tyson-virginia-sexual-assault/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltdfd73104d11546ab/698944b016d884531ec34928/vanessa-tyson.jpg?branch=production&width=300&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 300 og:image:height: 169 og:image:alt: Vanessa-Tyson og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Professor Comes Forward With Graphic Details of Alleged Sexual Assault by Virginia Lt. Governor twitter:description: Professor Vanessa Tyson came forward with an open letter about the alleged sexual assault by Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltdfd73104d11546ab/698944b016d884531ec34928/vanessa-tyson.jpg?branch=production&width=300&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Professor Comes Forward With Graphic Details of Alleged Sexual Assault by Virginia Lt. Governor > Sponsored content. 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Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=d8c046d2-7a9e-4530-ab54-b5fe3e2f2e2e&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Virginia Lt. Governor Justin Fairfax Denies Allegations of Sexual Abuse [Watch (HLS stream): Virginia Lt. Governor Justin Fairfax Denies Allegations of Sexual Abuse](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/RHmDSTKx.m3u8) (1:14)  _Published 2019-02-07. The college professor who accused Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax of a 2004 sexual assault has come forward – publicly identifying herself in a statement and describing the alleged attack in graphic detail. Fairfax has denied the claims._  by [Tara Law](https://time.com/author/tara-law/)  ## Tara Law Feb 6, 2019 11:35 PM UTC The college professor who accused Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax of a 2004 sexual assault has come forward – publicly identifying herself in a statement and describing the alleged attack in graphic detail. Fairfax has denied the claims.  by [Tara Law](https://time.com/author/tara-law/)  ## Tara Law Feb 6, 2019 11:35 PM UTC The college professor who accused Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax of a 2004 sexual assault has come forward – publicly identifying herself in a statement and describing the alleged attack in graphic detail. Vanessa Tyson, a Stanford University fellow and associate professor at Scripps College in California, released a detailed letter through her lawyers Wednesday in which she said she reluctantly went public to dispute what she called Fairfax’s “smear campaign” against her. “With tremendous anguish, I am now sharing this information about my experience and setting the record straight … Mr. Fairfax has tried to brand me as a liar to a national audience, in service to his political ambitions, and has threatened litigation. Given his false assertions, I’m compelled to make clear what happened,” she wrote. Tyson described herself as a “proud Democrat,” whose only interest was to refute the “falsehoods and aspersions of my character,” she wrote.  Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax speaks during an interview in his office at the Capitol in Richmond, Va., on Saturday, Feb. 2, 2019. Steve Helber—AP Fairfax, also a Democrat, released a statement Monday calling the accusations “false and unsubstantiated.” In another statement on Wednesday, he said that the encounter with Tyson was consensual. “At no time did she express to me any discomfort or concern about our interactions, neither during that encounter, nor during the months that followed it, when she stayed in touch with me, nor the past fifteen years. She in no way indicated that anything that had happened between us made her uncomfortable,” he said in a statement. Fairfax’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tyson’s letter. The letter comes after days of scandals in Virginia politics. [Gov. Ralph Northam](http://time.com/5522033/virginia-ralph-northam-resignation/), a Democrat, is facing calls for his resignation over a photo on his 1984 medical school yearbook page that shows a man in blackface beside a man in a Ku Klux Klan hood and robe. He has declined to step down, at first apologizing for the photo, then saying he planned to prove he was not either of the people in the photo. Fairfax would replace Northam as governor if Northam resigns. On Wednesday, Attorney General Mark Herring — the next in line for Virginia’s governor’s mansion after Fairfax — [admitted](http://time.com/5522949/virginia-attorney-general-blackface/) to wearing blackface to a party in the 1980s. Tyson’s letter was released through the law firm Katz, Marshall & Banks, which also represented Christine Blasey-Ford, the Stanford University research psychologist who accused Justice Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault in 1982. According to Tyson’s letter, she and Fairfax had struck up a “cordial, but not flirtatious” friendship while working at the 2004 Democratic National Convention after learning that they had a mutual friend. Tyson said that, on the third day of the convention, (July 28, 2004), she agreed to accompany Fairfax to pick up some papers at his hotel room in order to get some “fresh air” outside of the convention. While they were in the hotel room, Tyson wrote, Fairfax caught her off guard by kissing her. While the kiss was consensual, Tyson said, what happened next was not. She said Fairfax unbuckled his pants, grabbed her head and forced her to perform oral sex on him. “I cannot believe, given my obvious distress, that Mr. Fairfax thought this forced sexual act was consensual,” Tyson wrote. Tyson wrote that she avoided him for the rest of the convention, and never spoke to him again. “After the assault, I suffered from both deep humiliation and shame,” Tyson writes. “I did not speak about it for years, and I (like most survivors) suppressed those memories and emotions as a necessary means to continue my studies, and to pursue my goal of building a successful career as an academic.” Tyson’s accusation came to light last week after she wrote about it in a private Facebook post. Big League Politics, a conservative online publication, published a screenshot of the post on Sunday. Big League Politics also first published the racist photo in Northam’s yearbook page. Tyson is dedicating her current fellowship at Stanford to studying sexual assault politics and policies, according to her biography on the university’s website. In her letter, she wrote that she worked with sexual assault survivors both before and after the assault. She said that her decision to come forward was motivated in part by a sense of responsibility to the women she has worked with, and to her students. ## Transcript [00:00] The allegation is completely false as was indicated in [00:03] our statement. There's a possibility that I might be [00:05] elevated to the governorship. It's at that point that they [00:09] come out with the attacks and the smears. It is [00:11] unfortunate, it really is. But it's sadly a part of our [00:14] politics now. Sure. So, I met her at the convention. We [00:16] met. And talked. And I did not know her prior to. I [00:20] was 25 years old, unmarried, a campaign staffer at [00:23] the time. We hit it off. She was very interested in me. [00:27] And so eventually at one point we ended up going to [00:31] my hotel room. This was in 2004. She was, [00:35] you know, very much into Consensual encounter. She [00:39] even admits in the story there's consensual activity [00:43] going on. And I have children, so I'm going to be very [00:45] circumspect about what I say. But everything was [00:49] 100 % consensual. And not only that, the same person [00:53] called me sometime later. And wanted Want to meet [00:55] with me, want to come visit me. Southern Law School, [00:58] Columbia Law School want to come to New York City to [01:00] meet with me, wanted me to meet her mother. And [01:03] said that years later I was, months later in this case, [01:06] and years later now we have a totally fabricated story [01:09] out of the blue that's meant to attack me because of [01:12] who I am in politics. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5523274/vanessa-tyson-virginia-sexual-assault/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5523274/vanessa-tyson-virginia-sexual-assault/"},"headline":"Professor Comes Forward With Graphic Details of Alleged Sexual Assault by Virginia Lt. 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