A Rape On Campus Analysis

On November 19, 2014, Rolling Stone Magazine published an article that attracted over 2.7 million views, “more than any other feature not about a celebrity that the magazine had ever published.” The article, “A Rape on Campus: A Brutal Assault and Struggle for Justice at UVA” catapulted the issue of rape culture on college campuses into a national discussion. Encouraging this discussion and urging universities across the country to increase their efforts to combat this was the goal of Sabrina Rubin Erdely when she set out to find a story that encompassed just that. However, the article was ultimately retracted and removed from the website by Rolling Stone due to fabrications and ethical issues in the story.

“I felt his hands start to move down towards my shorts as if he was trying to unbutton them or pull them off. I was still crying at this point and felt so scared that I couldn't move” (Hummer, 1989). These were the words said by a freshman away at college after she had been sexual assaulted. From the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National network, statistics show that “over 90 percent of all gang rapes on college campuses involve fraternity men” (Hummer, 1989). Most often these woman may be labeled as trash, shameful, or ready for action, aside from a victim, prey, or survivor. Rape myths encourage these deprecating terms for women and cover the reality of a rape culture.

Had the story she published been a completely true story it could have shown a light on UVA to perhaps help Jackie and many others that have been victims of sexual assaults and help to prevent future attacks. The way Jackie’s case was handled could have been used to help change the way sex crimes are addressed by the University in the future. In the Procedures For Reports Against Students handbook, it states the procedures for reporting sexual and gender-based harassment, expectations of complainants and respondents, a threat assessment, and how the University of Virginia plans to resolve the issue when the students are victims of sexual assault on campus (Procedures For Reports Against Students).

Free-and-easy sex prides itself on being commitment free, no emotional ties attached. Today, this idea of leaving all emotions at the door is the supposedly, sophisticated choice on campus. It is now well understood that traditional dating in college has mostly gone the way of the landline, replaced by “hooking up”- an ambiguous term that can signify anything from making out to oral sex to intercourse - all complete without the emotional entanglement of a real relationship. As times have changed, students begin to view a relationship as “too time consuming” and something that no longer takes priority amongst their busy, high achieving schedules. However, hooking up threatens the sexual, physical, and psychological health of college-age youth. Today’s youth may want to think twice before engaging in the prevalent hook-up culture. Despite the popularity of positive feelings, hookups can include negative outcomes including emotional and psychological injury, and even more concerning consequences such as unintended rape. In order to protect our generation, and more specifically our women, society must acknowledge the detrimental effects of a hook up culture to create a greater understanding surrounding this risky sexual behavior and ensure a more powerful, positive presence for women in our society. The combination of a society seeped in rape culture and an alcohol infused hookup culture creates a compromising sexual environment where women have limited control, opening the

Sexual assault and rape among college campuses has been an ongoing issue across the nation for decades. In the state of Utah, this complex issue will not have a simple solution, but measures can be taken to prevent sexual assault and rape occurring on campuses. Utah Valley University is a campus that is taking considerably impressive measures to combat sexual assault, which will be a basis of this paper. Through university sex education, stricter laws and enforcement, and providing on-campus services to students, cases of sexual assault and rape in the higher level education setting will decrease, and students will be more likely to report these crimes.

Annie, also a UNC student, is a white woman from suburban North Carolina. She was sexually assaulted before she started classes her freshman year. She did not report her sexual report because she did not know how to. Once a friend opened up to hear, and asked how to report, she then reported her sexual assault. She was able to speak to a faculty member, the faculty compared rape to football. Annie was then victim blamed.

His mother, outraged, criticized how the school handled a child with difficulties as her son has changed from this ordeal (Nasser, 2017). While these responses are not a concern with many educational institutions, it is still an issue that should be addressed as students are having to suffer. This carelessness can cause a great deal of harm to students and it is because of this lack of support that there are already instances where people have already been caused distress. There is bias present in the article that supports Stephanie Hale’s case which can be seen by how the information is relayed. It focuses primarily on how Hale was negatively impacted by the events, reaching out to the reader’s sympathy, as well as UBC’s lack of care. There were no quotations taken directly from the university to provide their own explanation, merely information stated mostly by the victim. Hale’s poor health and education was repeated to display the inadequacy of her experience and the article included the possibility of discrimination against her without verifying with the school. While the Globe and Mail contributed in giving the necessary information, it emphasized the need of modifying the sexual assault policy in a

A young white Hartford student, Brianna Brochu, was arrested and charged with third-degree criminal mischief and second-degree breach of peace on Saturday for bullying her university roommate, Chennel “Jazzy” Rowe. Police arrested her after she boasted online calling her “Jamaican Barbie” and admitting to tampering with her belongings. She has confessed to atrocities such as “putting her toothbrush where the sun don't shine” and smearing period blood on the girl’s backpack for nearly over a month. Rowe was not aware of the harassment until she became fed up with feeling unwanted in her own room and as she was moving out a dorm an advisor approached her and showed her the post. This atrocious hate crime is being dealt with by the University but after they asked Rowe not to talk about it, she refused to let it be swept under the rug and livestreamed her story.

I interviewed two women and one man about the University of Iowa’s efforts with respect to sexual assault on campus. The first person I interviewed was a twenty-one year old woman from England named Gina. Michaela, an eighteen year old female from a small-town Southern Baptist high school, was the second female I interviewed. The only man I interviewed was Matt, a 19 year old male from a mid-sized town.

A shot appears with Jacob sitting down in the court in front of the camera, saying “It was just something that happened, y’know? I’m not gonna just sit around and wish it didn’t”, only to continue the pattern of absurd statements that make you stop and think, and perhaps even laugh. Those two sentences alone imply how rape cases are treated in society. School Officials and Coaches would rather sweep the entire case under the rug, and forget about it completely, rather than punish the perpetrator. The video continues on, next to describe how Jacob tried to put the rape behind him by scoring a career-high 37 points in the next game. Using anything to put less focus on the rape, the report switches the subject to the basketball game to once again portray Jacob as an incredible player and

Sexual assault is defined as any vaginal, oral, or anal penetration that is forced upon another, regardless of sex and sexual orientation, using any object or body part. The issue of sexual assault in America is primarily encouraged by rape culture. Women Against Violence Against Women is an organization that defines rape culture as a complex set of beliefs that encourage male sexual aggression and supports violence against women. The acceptance of rape culture, rape myths, and the disregard for sexual consent also allow for the perpetuation of sexual assault against women on college campuses. Recent examples of sexual assault on college campuses show how prominent this issue has become and how hostile campuses have become for female students. Some examples include the University of Southern California’s “Gullet Report,” Miami University of Ohio’s “Top Ten Ways to Get Away with Rape,” and a sexual assault on the campus of Kansas University. Sexual assault is perpetuated by the acceptance of rape myths and rape culture, lack of effective sexual education, and the disregard for consent. The solution to this issue lies with defeating rape culture, increasing awareness and funding for campus sexual assault crisis centers, and enacting more prevention programs on campus.

College is a place for trying out, experiencing and learning new things and being sexually assaulted should not be one of them. Sexual assault in college campuses over the past decade has increased by over 50% as stated by Laura Stampler in her article “Report Sees Surge in Sex Crimes on College Campuses”: “The number of sex crimes reported on U.S. college campuses soared by 50% over the course of a decade, according to a new government report Tuesday, even as total campus crime decreased” (Laura Stampler). A national survey made by and released in April of 2014 by the White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault states that at least one in five college students, including men and women, experience some form of sexual assault during their time in college. In another article published on bestcolleges.com, the author states that over 95% of college campus rapes go unreported, which implies that there might be more than one in five students that gets sexually assaulted by the end of their college career. Not only that but the article on bestcolleges.com also states that women are most likely to be sexually

Kamilah Willingham, a victim of rape at Harvard University was questioned about not fighting her attacker who is over 200 pounds with a height of about 6’3 according to the victim. She was also questioned about their friendship, that maybe her attacker confused their friendship with something more than just a friendship. Caroline Heldman, a professor at Occidental College mentioned that victim-blaming has a silencing effect on survivors. Lack of action from university

Sexual assault has been a huge issue for many years on college campuses and universities nation wide. As society has evolved, thoughts on sexual assault have also evolved, becoming more focused on the details of victim treatment than ever before. The topic of sexual assault is debatable and sparks many opinions on weather sexual assault on college campuses is becoming more frequent, or if there is just heightened awareness. Sexual assault can happen to anybody no matter the gender, race, religion, or age. Recently there have been many studies conducted on sexual violence on college campuses and universities producing ample amounts of statistics. One may argue that sexual assault rates are the same, but there are simply more studies and attention on sexual assault in the past 20 years. Gender roles have played a huge part in sexual assault on college campuses. Women and men have different expectations when it comes to roles in the relationship, men are often expected to make the first move. One may ask what causes a perpetrator to sexually harass somebody and think it is acceptable. There are various reasons as to why perpetrators do what they do, and may vary from person to person. Although sexual violence is a large problem for many colleges and universities, there is a surprising shortage of federal laws/rules and regulations regarding sexual assault. Colleges are able to develop their own personal policies and procedures for how they will prevent and deal with sexual

An article run by the school's newspaper, The East Carolinian, exposed the university for inappropriately handling student's cases. One victim revealed that during a group support session, the students were asked what they had been wearing when they were assaulted. It is this kind of approach that makes victims feel as though it is their fault and makes it less likely that students will feel like they can go to the university for