Every parent lives to see the moment when their child receives an acceptance letter to the college of their dreams. College, after all, is the moment when your child finally goes off on their own to begin their adult life.
You read brochures about your college of choice and think about all of the fun times you will have. Most people assume that safety is a given when you enter a college campus.
This past Sunday, I was reminded by the documentary “The Hunting Ground,” aired by CNN, that there is no safe place. Especially not for college students.
This documentary was about college students who have been raped and/or sexually assaulted on campus and faced retaliation and harassment as they fought for justice. The victims in the documentary reported their experiences to their college administration in hopes that their attackers would be punished and the administration, along with their peers, would stand with them through these tough times.
What they didn’t expect was for their own administration and peers to turn against them. To shame them and accuse them of dressing too provocatively, being too drunk, or asking for it. They didn’t expect for their administration to doubt them and force them to deal with their assaulter being able to roam free around campus. When people think of rape and sexual assaults on a college campus, a lot of generalizations come to mind. They think of a stranger jumping out from a bush and assaulting someone.
But that is not the case. In most cases, it is not a stranger. It is someone you’ve sat by at lunch, seen on your way to class, or hung out with at a party. Less than eight percent of men in college commit more than 90 percent of campus rapes. What does this mean? This means that almost all of the rape and sexual assault crimes on college campuses are done by that previously mentioned eight percent. In the film, they showed girls that reported rape and sexual assault and learned that they were not the assaulter’s only victim. The film highlighted that, out of the previously mentioned eight percent of men committing the rapes, most of them are athletes and members of fraternities on campus.
These are two very renowned groups on college campuses worldwide. One of the survivors in the movie, who goes to Notre Dame University, discussed her conversation with the school administrators when she reported her rape. They said “Don’t do anything you would regret… messing with Notre Dame football is a bad idea.” So she shouldn’t report her attack because it would mess up a game of football? So in other words, she should not report her assault for the sake of football? The amount of sense that makes is minimal.
The scene that stuck with me the most was one of the final accounts of rape in the film. A woman by the name of Ericka, a former FSU student, detailed the specifics of her rape. She explained how immediately after she was raped, she went to the hospital and got a rape kit done. The rape kit confirmed the identity of the man she accused. She was raped by the Jameis Winston, the number draft pick for the NFL this year. Winston was never charged by police and was cleared by Florida State after a student code of conduct hearing. The officer who cleared him was an FSU alumni. The directors of this film faced threats of legal backlash for airing this film for that reason. FSU along with representatives for Jameis Winston believed that this film is a defamation of character and inaccurate in telling the events that happened on the night of the alleged rape.
The controversy surrounding this story is interesting, to say the least. I will leave it unto you to form your own opinions on what could have really happened that night.
Watching this film caused me to reflect on my time here at Stetson University and of how I believe my campus would handle any of these allegations. Honestly, I don’t know. And that’s what scares me. I feel like no one truly knows how to react in these situations until it happens to them.
