Let's Talk About...

14. The rape culture: campus epidemic

On my last post I talked about what defines rape culture and how male college students related to it. This post is based on a fantastic 2015 documentary I came across. The Hunting Ground, by Kirby Dick, exposes rape crimes on US college campuses, their institutional cover-ups and the toll they take on students and their families. The documentary also follows two rape survivors, Annie Clark and Andrea Pino, who took action and are making a difference on campuses across the country.

Parents believe a college campus is a safe place to their daughters. "It's not," says Professor John Foubert of Oklahoma State University. Clinical psychologist David Lisak adds: "We've known for probably 25 years now that the problem of sexual assault on college campuses is enormous." Statistic data shows that over 16% of college women are raped on campus. The number should be much higher, though, given that only a small percentage of victims report rapes.

Why is that? Schools pressure students to keep quiet in order to protect their reputation and hence blame the victims. Moreover, aggressors are not strangers—they were supposedly friends or someone met at a party—and victims are bound to come across them on campus. Kirby Dick interviews a large number of victims in his documentary. I'm not mentioning them all here because there are far too many, but virtually all victims say they were questioned about what they were wearing and drinking, how many times they said no and why they didn't fight harder. The school either ignores them or advise them not to wear short skirts or drink.

In one case, the college not only did nothing but took action against  the female victim, while a sexually assaulted male student was advised to drop out  until things cooled down. All victims say schools seem more concerned about the perpetrator's well-being. One student, for instance, was told that "You don't know what he's going through and neither do I. He could be really having a hard time." The most ludicrous response was given to a girl providing a written admission of guilt from her aggressor: she was told that the written admission wasn't enough evidence and could only prove he loved her.

"There's a lot of victim blaming for this crime, which has a silencing effect on survivors," says Caroline Heldman, a professor at the Occidental College. From the total number of victims on campus, 88% of women do not report. Colleges protect their brand, not students. Having their brand linked to sexual assault is bad for business, and former employees confirm that institutions discourage students to come forward so to keep the numbers artificially low.

Harvard went against federal laws when it excluded a rape victim of the hearing that reinstated her assailant into the university. To 135 reported sexual assaults between 2009 and 2013, Harvard had 10 reported suspensions. At Stanford, in 18 years, 259 reported cases led to one expulsion. Such disparity between crime and punishment is similar in all institutions. Often there is zero punishment for sex crimes. In a 15-year period, the University of Virginia registered zero expulsions for sexual assault against 183 expulsions for honor board violations.

As a result, the rape situation never changes. It hasn't changed in decades, as attested by a major student protest against rape back in 1979. Often rapists attack multiple victims, as they go unpunished even after several victims have reported them. Former Chapel Hill assistant dean Melinda Manning confirms that aggressors can get away with it. During her term, at least 100 assaults happened, with zero punishment, and she was aware of individuals who committed sexual assault repeatedly. If the school staff speaks out, they end up fired.

Hope Brinn, from Swarthmore, tells her story: "My assailant has done much worse to other people. He has assaulted at least four different women. That's just who I know of." Occidental College student Leah Trujillo was raped and knew of at least two other reported victims of the same aggressor, who was allowed to remain on campus: "It seemed like prime hunting ground for someone like him." Rape by two assailants is not uncommon, nor is gang rape.