Documentary Analysis: The Hunting Ground

Recently while reading Rolling Stone and looking for an article for this paper, and came across an article called “A Rape on Campus: A Brutal Assault and Struggle for Justice at UVA.” In summary, a freshman at the University of Virginia was at a frat party and her date was a member of that certain frat. She chose against drinking which is uncommon in most rape cases that occur on campuses. He later asks her to join him upstairs, and being an innocent naïve girl she decided to follow him. As soon as she entered the dark room and he did not turn on the lights she knew that something was wrong. Soon after she heard many different voices in the room and after seven different frat boys did horrid things to her she understood that this was something that some of these boys were doing this as an initiation into that frat. Of course, her friends who were so-called ‘loyal’ to their college urged her to keep quiet for fear that “she may never be allowed in a frat again” or “put a bad light on the university.” Furthermore, the UVA is under a federal investigation to try to determine if there have been other cases of rape that may have been ‘swept under the rug.’ In this essay I want to investigate the psychology of rape and the rapist, why it happens largely in college campuses and specifically fraternities, and also to understand the “rape culture.”

The Hunting Ground was a very emotional video that highlights a very important issue in our country that most people are not aware of. When it comes to sexual violence, college campuses are more focused on protecting the attacker rather than the victim. What shocked me the most in this film was that most of the faculty members the victims went to seek help from were females, yet the victims were still blamed for their rape. One administrator from UNC at Chapel Hill told a victim “rape is like a football game” meaning that if you look back to that day, what would you have done differently to prevent the rape. Victims who report rapes to university faculties are often questioned about the clothes they wore that day, how much alcohol they had to drink if they said no to the perpetrator, how many times did they said no, etc. Ryan Clifford, a male victim at the University of California, Davis rather than being helped, he was suggested by a faculty member to drop out of school until the situation “blows over.”

Sexual assault is a serious health issue in America concerning both physical and mental health. While it gets attention and is thought of as an issue, preventive measures and methods to seek help are not always affective. Thus, this campaign will give women and victims an opportunity to tell their stories and resources to affectively deal with the aftermath of an assault. Considering the high amount of assaults on colleges campuses, the target audience will be college students. One in five women are sexually assaulted in college, and therefore it’s reasonable to suggest something is systematically wrong with education programs in America. Additionally, colleges and universities tend to sweep sexual assaults under the rug or desperately try to hide the truth. With stories coming out recently surrounding sexual assaults in Hollywood, we need to re-examine every area of society, and prioritize places where sexual assault statistics are high. To ensure a safe place for female and male students, “No More Sweeping,” will acknowledge everyone’s experiences, creating an inclusive and informative environment. Here I will explain why a campaign like this is needed, and why for the future mental and physical health of sexual assault victims, we need to support victims and offer a safe platform for every experience.

In the past couple of years there has been a rise of sexual assaults across college campuses. While sexual assaults have typically been greatly under-reported, we have started to see victims all across America take a stand and demand change and justice. “Five decades of research on higher education campuses in the United States have revealed that approximately 20% to 25% of women will experience attempted or completed rape during their college career” (Franklin et al., 2016). There needs to be a improvement in regards to having lower campus assaults rates so that female students can walk alone across campus, are no longer considered easy targets, or be afraid of their fellow peers. The focus of this paper will be to identify potential victims, explain under reporting, identify the typical type of offender, and identify what type of education needs to be taught.

This is the Red Zone, the time period when first year college students are particularly vulnerable to sexual assault and rape. Statistics show that most assaults occur during the first several weeks of college and the victims are overwhelmingly young women who are first year freshmen (Senn 135). The feelings experienced by the victim and the setting for the crime are too common because the current system fails to adequately address sexual assault and rape. To add to the emotional stress involved with sexual assault and rape, victims are often unable to clearly define what happened and find it difficult to seek justice. Sexual assault and rape are pervasive issues on college campuses for several reasons. First, educational institutions do not provide the tools needed to identify potential harmful situations. Second, students do not understand where to seek proper support to help deal with the physical and emotional scars. Third, victim face a battle when attempting to navigate the process to seek justice. In order to prevent sexual assault and rape during the vulnerable first weeks in college, young women must demand that these issues are addressed. Specifically, early education, medical treatment and assistance reporting after the incident and an understanding of the path to prosecution will mitigate the risk in the Red

Before watching this film, I did not aware of the prevalence of sexual violence on college campuses. It surprised me how the school administrations suspected the victims are the wrong people.

In the article “Athletic club weekend turns into a nightmare for college freshman” by Carol smith and Lee Van Der Voo, Emily Lorenzen shares her story of being a rape victim. Emily shares her account because she wants to help to prevent rape from happening to anyone else. After interviewing Emily the authors shared a statement expressing that “Emily lorenzen believes that if people hear her story, they will be more comfortable confronting the issue of sexual assault on campus. She wants more conversation, so that men get a clearer definition of rape, face stiffer penalties if they ignore it and administrators learn to reach out to women like her and show compassion. She especially wants bystanders to step up and protect people who are vulnerable.” Rape victims need support to not feel guilty or ashamed, and that is exactly what Emily and her father desire. On this topic, Shipman an influential contributor of the Spokane sexual assault

“Among undergraduate students, 23.1% of females and 5.4% of males experience rape or sexual assault” (RAINN). Rape is a threat virtually anywhere people go, but no place has a higher risk for sexual assault than college campuses. However, many of these occurrences go without penalties against the attacker, and even more are not reported at all. The lack of consequences for the accused indirectly suggests that rape and other forms of sexual assault are allowable and create further problems for the victims of the horrendous actions. Harsher punishments need to be given out for sexual assault on campus, as the current rulings are biased and immoral.

The alarming increase in sexual assault among male and female students is a source of concern. Despite improvements in the general statistics on rape cases, the college setting remains to be the hot bed of sexual assault, especially among the female counterparts (Allen, 2007). A victim, regardless being a male or a female, never feel safe in their life as something precious was taken from them once. Statistics show that 17.6% of women are likely to be victims of rape in their entire lifetime while only 0.3% of males are estimated to be the victims of sexual assault. According to the National Violence Against Women Survey (NVAWS), the most critical ages men and females are likely to be engaged in sexual abuse is when they are children or adolescents (Gonzales, Schofield & Schmitt, 2006).

College-age adults are known to be high risk for sexual violence and most studies show that one in three women have experiences some type of sexual assault whether it was through physical force or harassment. These statics are known by most women on college campuses to ensure that women know and understand that this could happen to them. The issue is more than ensuring that women are aware of how protect themselves and know how to avoid these situations because it shouldn’t even be happening. When women are taught that they should know how to defend themselves we are saying that this type of behavior is normal and inevitable. We should shift from this dynamic and start teaching both men and women that this behavior is completely unacceptable and that sexually assaulting or harassing someone is NOT normal. This paper will mostly focus on incidents of rape and sexual assault on college campuses and what the outcome and reactions of these incidents were.

The Hunting Ground (2015), explores sexual assaults on college campuses. The film shows many survivors conveying their experience with sexual assault and how their colleges or universities has handled their trauma. This film also shows the psychological toll sexual assault has on the survivor as well as their families. Additionally, the film presents how institutions cover it up and/or present a penalty that is not fit for the crime.

Rape has always been a problem, specifically in colleges across the US. There is also large amounts of misinformation and ideas surrounding rape. Author Jon Krakauer, who did not know much on the topic of rape before his time spent in Missoula; uncovered proof of the true seriousness of this problem. His nonfiction book set in Missoula Montana, tells the hard story of the awful experiences rape victims are forced to go through in this college town in order for justice. He uses investigative narrative to lay out a story that both informative and sensitive towards the victims. Even though he is only focusing on a few victims placed in one college town it is obvious these issues have a much larger

Despite having hundreds of sexual assault cases each year, most colleges take little action to resolve these cases. In fact, only 20% of female sexual assault survivors report cases, the rest believing that it was too personal to share, or that if they did, the police wouldn’t listen to them. If they did report, often times it was to the local police rather than the campus police in fear that they would be shamed or turned away by the universities.

When colleges and universities are constantly in competition with each other for students, there are certain issues that occur. Competition has turned into universities and colleges often mishandling sexual assault and rape cases. Campuses want to minimize the danger that they may pose which leads to sexual assault and rape crimes to often be veiled. With this veil in place, it counters the efforts of colleges and universities to address the issue of sexual assault and rape. In July 2016, a survey was released to 350 colleges and university presidents. The purpose of this survey was to showcase whether sexual assault and rape cases were handled correctly or mishandled. Over the last five years, “more than 40 percent of the schools had not conducted a sexual assault and/or rape investigation” (citation). It was revealed that

In this article, Kansas State University looks at if many students--mainly male and fraternity members—are getting away with the raping of other students, with no consequence. Two KSU students, Sara Weckhorst and Tessa Farmer, discovered this problem when they reported two rapes in 2014 and 2015 and nothing was investigated about the issue. This and other cases were expressed with the failure of the university to investigate and solve the problem of raping’s dealing with college students. “The Education Department has advised universities that they are required under Title IX to investigate accusations of