I just watched The Hunting Ground on iTunes. I was dumbstruck. I had no idea how many sexual offenses took place each year on college campuses or how successful colleges are at keeping such statistics buried. And virtually no college robustly investigates and punishes offenders.
I also didn’t realize that colleges aren’t required to automatically report ALL alleged offenses to the police. Rape and sexual assault are serious crimes and have no place in collegiate disciplinary committees, which are designed to handle academic dishonesty. The law should be changed. Colleges hiding incidents should be sanctioned by the Federal government.
As the father of a woman at college, I’ve advised my daughter to report any incident to the police first.
I’ve seen it! Im still not sure why so many people rely on universities that have little incentive to properly handle an allegation. Like they said in the movie, no school wants to be known as the rape school, and so it’s easier to bury it or blame the victims
I saw it and ‘dumbstruck’ is certainly a good word to describe how I felt as well. I wish high schools would show the film to all their graduating seniors who are heading to college.
Universities are businesses but have little to no control over their customers – so they have all the problems of PR related to the latter, and all the financial problems related to the former. You put that together, and universities have every incentive to be morally reprehensible, and no deterrent but …well, no deterrent. It’s only going to change with public pressure and changing the rape culture in America.
True story : DS had a friend-of-a-friend assaulted and after the ER visit, she had no way to get back to her apartment. The U policeman who had taken her to the ER called her a cab – and it was charged to her student account.
@exlibris97 every college is required by law to file a Clery report annually. If the school has been made aware of a sexual assault it has to be included in the report for that school year. You can get that data for every school on a year by year basis by simply using Google. The Clery Report is usually a link contained within the school’s annual security report.
School are not entities with an investegatory or adjudicative mission. Trying to make them so has been a huge mistake. Advocates of victims of sexual assault would better serve all if they focused on 1) Telling students that sexual assault is a crime that should be reported to the university only after a police report is filed 2) Demanding that the law be changed to require that the University cooperate with police and that no university affiliated organization can be put in charge of an investigation ( I.e such as University police, only local police) and that a student can demand a federal special prosecutor to review ( in case local police are too tied to the college)
I’m glad to see the corncern about this issue. I’m not sure how many of the comments above come from people who have worked directly with students who are victims of sexual misconduct, however. It’s really not the same type of crime as a stolen laptop, where an immediate police report might be the normal response. It’s so unbelievably complex. However, colleges have miles to go before they get this right. Just look at today’s news re Baylor.
The Hunting Ground is on our docket for this weekend’s viewing.
Stupid question: when did this start??? Honestly, I graduated college (large university) in the 70’s and I can honestly say I do not know of one single girl who was sexually assaulted. Obviously, that does not mean it didn’t happen but still. Not something to be particularly proud of now, but I did my fair share of partying and never once had a problem or an encounter. Why as this become such an epidemic? It’s horrible. And very, very sad.
I agree! Colleges and universities shouldn’t have the ability to handle these cases, it should be up to law enforcement. That is the only way to ensure that perpetrators are dealt with properly.
One of the girls pledging with me in my sorority admitted being raped in the 70s. I quit just before being tossed out during finals week, so never learned more or got closer to the members or fellow pledges.
The instate U campus I attended as a freshman was largely commuter and there were no frat nor sorority houses. Also, our school wasn’t that great about sports, so don’t THINK the athletes were gods and not subject to potential charges if accused, but no personal knowledge one way or another. I commuted, do know nothing of the dorm scene.
I know when I was a 1st year transfer student, I was invited to an off campus party by a casual male acquaintance who said it would be “lots of fun.” I mentioned I don’t drink or take drugs and I think he found another date. I was never assaulted then or to date, but erred on the side of caution, then and now.
This was generally my experience as well and I graduated in the 80’s. I am thinking that it may have been happening but women just did not have the courage to report it. I think this generation is much more willing to speak up given the heightened awareness of the issue. I don’t think there is any question that it is a problem on college campuses today.
Also, looking back the vast majority of us had steady boyfriends in high school and college. Attending a party with your boyfriend or a group of couples is going to put you at much less risk. This generation seems much less inclined to engage in steady relationships so it is a bit of a “free for all” at the end of the night. Factor in the alcohol and you have an environment conducive to this sort of thing.
Come to think of it, there was a much older married man in my Spanish conversation course who made me very nervous. He kept inviting me out on a date (I kept refusing), and then showed up at my workplace where I was alone (I quit that night because I had been promised I’d never work alone at that shop in Waikiki). I felt mildly stalked and it unnerved me.
I’m not sure the knockout drug was available in the 70s that was being put into drinks more recently. I’m sure that people have been plied with liquor for decades for various reasons.
I wasn’t going to watch it because I knew it was in essence an advocacy piece and quite biased in presentation but I did finally sit and watch it one night. I think it is fine to tell young people that bad things can happen but this movie really did nothing to help young people understand how to prevent bad things from happening and really glossed over important issues or ignored them completely as in the example in the slate article.
I think it certainly happened back in the '70’s and '80’s. It seems to be more around the party culture (fraternities) and the big sports worshipping culture - at least in terms of there being school cover ups (see Baylor, FSU, etc., etc.).
It’s strange that the drinking age is higher now across the country and the situation around drinking seems worse. Maybe because you have to visit a frat house if you’re underage and that’s putting yourself at additional risk.
I really don’t know how to tease out the likelihood of sexual assault having increased on campuses in recent decades considering how underreported it has historically been. I’ll leave that to the experts.
I think this has been going on forever – at least since the 1920s when young people were able to ride off in cars together and drink. People just didn’t talk about it, and mostly didn’t conceptualize it as rape.
The Justice Department finds that rape and sexual assault has decreased from 1995 - 2013 and that students are less likely to report it (20%) compared to non students (32%). There’s a lot to go through here:
We watched this documentary and the bonus material (Q&A on sexual assault on campus). Re the Harvard case featured, I can see how the victim could view any sexual touching as an assault even if all parties were black-out drunk, despite the findings of the investigations. She is taking the stand that it was a violation of her rights. I can see that. The documentary does not expose the complexity of sexual misconduct on campus, however. Viewers will need to seek other sources for that. Still, this sliver of the issue exposed by this film is very, very important.