UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — This Penn State alumna never thought that she would be the voice in the fight against violence against women or police reform in London — until she had to be.

In 2021, a local London woman by the name of Sarah Everard went missing after walking home from a friend’s home during lockdown. It was later found out that she had been kidnapped, sexually assaulted, and then murdered by a London policeman.

It was during the time that Everard was still considered missing that Jamie Klingler took to Twitter to voice her displeasure over the genuine safety concerns women face daily.

The tweet went viral.

Penn State experience

So how did a girl from Philadelphia wind up taking on the higher courts, advocating for police reform, and spreading awareness on violence against women an ocean away in London?

Klingler graduated from Penn State in 1999 with a bachelor of arts in film production and a bachelor of science in women’s studies. During her time in school, she ran the Can Film Festival, oversaw town relations for undergraduate student government, served as the alumni relations chair of Homecoming, acted as a captain for family relations for THON, and was a Lion Ambassador.

“The way that THON and Homecoming were run is better than any succession plan of any company I have ever been in,” Klingler said.

She credits her professional skills to her experiences at Penn State, which prepared her for a career in events management and film production. She learned about organizational skills, event planning and management, how to work on a team, and how to learn from mistakes.

“All of that came into play when I worked on 'Law and Order: Special Victims Unit' after graduating,” she said. “Film production is actually very related to events because every film set is basically an event. And it’s a daily event, with a million moving pieces.”

As a student, she was especially impressed with THON’s ability to fundraise and organize events. She said her experience made her a better communicator and planner.

“If you look at THON and what goes into THON, it’s nuts what a bunch of kids can do. And the scale of Homecoming, the amount of meetings, and the amount of ‘we have to get a parade together, we’ve got to fly these people in, we have to make sure the logistics work,’ all that logistical stuff has definitely influenced my career,” said Klingler.

When asked about what career advice she would give to current students, Klingler said that to be successful in the workplace, students need to find their niche and work to make it better. “Don’t be a cookie cutter,” she said. “You have to stand out. You have to have a unique offering.”

“Figure out where your skillset is and what you like and work to make it better,” she added. “Take classes and participate in clubs and internships that enhance your current skill sets, and that provide the skills to make what you love to do your lifetime career.”

The journey to transformation

Klingler’s journey continued with her move to London a few years after graduation. It was a whirlwind decision — she had roughly eight hours to decide whether she wanted to accept her job offer and move across the ocean. She did, deciding that it was like the study abroad she never got to do in college. Originally unsure about her decision, Klingler has now been living in London for the past 20 years.

Klingler has gone through some major life changes in the past few years, set into motion mainly by the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Klingler got sick during the beginning of the pandemic and, while it wasn’t COVID, it still scared her into deciding to use the opportunity while everything was shut down as a reset. She used the pandemic to reevaluate her life and engage in some personal growth.

“I was stuck on some really bad ruts,” she recalled. “My dependencies on food and alcohol were bad, and they were not serving my purpose. I recognized I had some habits that weren’t serving me. I was overweight and I drank too much, so I wanted to make a change.”

After her inspiring journey, Klingler was offered the opportunity to do a TEDx talk. Her talk, titled “Reclaim Yourself: The Most Valuable Investment You’ll Make,” was centered around how reclaiming your life and investing in yourself can have dramatic results on your future. While she believes the TED talk is one of the hardest things she has ever done, she was proud of herself for having the courage to do it. 

“That is no longer my story,” she said.

She went from being 240 pounds to 130 pounds and did a complete transformation of her lifestyle. While it is still work, and she still has bad times, she has gotten to a place where she is strong and healthy. 

“It’s putting yourself in a place where it’s worth doing it,” she said.

To her, the transformation process is not just a daily thing. It was about changing her lifestyle completely. She had to believe that the transformation was worth the time and investment.

“I am also a ton healthier and a ton happier,” said Klingler.

While her weight loss was about becoming a healthier human and taking better care of her body, it also had a large mental health aspect to it as well. Before she completely changed her lifestyle, she used to stay out a lot and be surrounded by people all the time. During her transformation, she learned to enjoy her own company more.

Reclaim These Streets

During quarantine, after Klingler had gone through her transformation, is when she heard about Everard. She could not believe that the police who were supposed to keep women safe were a part of the problem. Klingler recalled the police telling local women that the only way to ensure their safety was staying in their homes, when they were already in lockdown due to COVID.

“Sarah literally did everything right,” Klinger said. “She was in a bright sweatshirt, she was in sneakers, she called her boyfriend and said ‘I’m on my way home,’ and never made it.”

Klingler tweeted her thoughts and the tweet gained traction. Klinger then decided she wanted to give women a safe place to come together and mourn. Through her previous experiences, she knew how to maximize her reach on social media, and she tweeted that she was organizing a vigil for Everard. With other women she met online, she started organizing the vigil. Then, she was surprised once again by the police.

“They said we would not be able to move forward and it [the vigil] would be illegal,” she said.

With the help of a team of human rights lawyers, Klingler and the other organizers decided to take the Metropolitan Police to High Court for their human right to assemble. To go to the High Court in the United Kingdom, you need to be able to demonstrate that you can pay the other side’s court costs if you are unsuccessful in your action. In this case, it would be more 30,000 pounds sterling (roughly $36,400). They were able to crowdfund 37,000 pounds (almost $45,000) in 42 minutes.

The judge ruled that the police should have given the parameters to do the vigil. They had to make a proportionate review between their right to protest, the public health risk, and consider everything and then make a decision.

The police did not comply and said that any protest of more than two people was illegal. They were told that pressing ahead could risk a 10,000 pounds fine (approximately $12,140) for each of the women organizing the vigil, as well as prosecution under the Serious Crimes Act.

Klingler and her group, Reclaim These Streets, decided to cancel the vigil and launch a fundraiser with a goal of raising 320,000 pounds (roughly $388,600) for women’s and girl’s groups rather than paying the police fines, which would have also amounted to 10,000 pounds for each location where vigils were expected to be held.

The original organizers of the vigil made a group decision to pull out of attending the event and use the money they had raised for the cost of potential fines to donate to women's charities instead. They raised 600,000 pounds (about $728,640).

“We fundraised the money that the police would have gotten in fines and gave it to actual women in need,” she said. “Not only did that make them the bad guys yet again, but it also made us have a purpose when canceling the event.”

The protest still went ahead, even without the original organizers.

“Watching the police storm in and physically assault and manhandle women at a thing that I told them to go to was one of the worst things to manage,” she said. “The guilt of not showing up after we told women to go there, even though we announced that it would be illegal and people could get arrested.”

“Before this, I had blinders on. I was not political at all. I was not an activist,” Klingler said. However, seeing the effect this had on the conversation about women's safety stoked the fire in her.

“One of the biggest things we can claim has happened here is the conversations about sexual assault that only used to happen at 2 a.m. between women has now come to the dining room table,” she said.

Klingler often wonders how she has somehow become the face of women's violence and police reform, but added, “I’ve found my purpose and I’m continuing it.”

The founders of Reclaim These Streets are now finding ways to use the platform they never expected to have to continue furthering the conversation around violence against women. “We aim to use legislation, education and community action to make sure no woman needs to ‘text me when you get home,’” Klingler said.

“The last protest I have done about this was in 1999, the Take Back the Night event at Penn State. So it’s 20 years later and nothing has changed?” Klingler asked. With Reclaim These Streets, Klingler wants to get the message across that “the violence that is done to us is not about our behavior. This is on men and men have to fix it. They have to take ownership of the misogyny and violence against women,” Klingler said.

On March 11, 2022, a year after the vigil for Everard took place, the women of Reclaim These Streets were vindicated in the High Courts. The Metropolitan Police were found to have violated their human right to protest in a landmark judgment. The Metropolitan Police tried unsuccessfully to appeal the ruling multiple times. Klingler will forever be one of the claimants who set precedent in the U.K. about police powers and protest rights in a pandemic.