The Hunting Ground- Anne H

Anne Hruska
US Gov and Politics
Ms. Gordon
April 11, 2016
The Hunting Ground Response

1. There are a plethora of circumstances that contribute to campus sexual assault, which make it so prevalent in the university settings. The larger issue includes the monstrous industry that schools have become,  manufacturing students and preparing them for the world; these institutions have reputations and names that are worth millions of dollars. And anything that threatens this reputation is immediately shut down. This has become a shield of protection for those students that leave home ready to lead their new independent lifestyle at the expense of others. When students come to a university they’re ready to experience new things, which they’ve been promised all their lives, this includes engaging in risque behavior like drinking, doing drugs, etc. However, when you’re in an environment that is essentially a closed-off community of kids ages 18-22 who are in this same mindset feeding off one another it becomes a flourishing space for danger. And Lastly, the coverage that the institution provides to these students only further supports rape culture on their campus.

2. In terms of what colleges will do legally to help their students; there is no legal assistance. In fact, schools have gone out of their way to cover up sexual assault allegations made by their students, multiple schools even telling the victims not to report their assault to the local police in fear of legal punishment being brought upon the institution which will in turn scorch the university's reputation. The only other legal option this leaves for most survivors is a civil lawsuit that a student could bring towards the campus or directly against their attacker. If the survivor wins the case they will typically  be awarded a certain financial amount which is often no match to the emotional trauma of going through with a rape case.

3. As I’ve been saying throughout this response, the first reply that the university gives the victim is extremely defensive, immediately trying to protect the school’s image. Even when a student approached a faculty member of her institution to address her rape, the woman immediately questioned what the young girl had been wearing, if she was drinking, and then persisted with asking why she didn't try to fight him. This type of mindset is deeply rooted in the entire faculty’s system of “support” in many ways tells the perpetrators that their actions are alright. And because colleges and universities are as a whole meant to prepare students for the real world this blind eye that the schools are turning to this issue assures the young rapists that their actions will go unpunished in the outside world. A dangerous outlook for an 18-year-old to hold.

4. Title IX is a federal law which was instituted in order to prevent discrimination on the basis of sex in programs that have been federally funded, originally, it was meant to give young women equal opportunity in college sports. However, because of this general preface it also greatly ties into the idea of campus sexual assault. In this case, women who were sexually assaulted on campus tried to reach out for help and in turn, their rapist was protected by the university. This violates the rules of title nine under the pretense that their institution was a federally funded, and because administrators neglected to represent the girls on a basis of sex, it was a direct violation of Title 9 and federal funding could be revoked entirely from that institution. This was an incentive for all universities not only because they were now legally responsible for their negligence but they could also lose a substantial portion of their funding.

5. The main task that I see causing difficulty in changing campus rape culture is altering the huge money-making industry that has cloaked itself over universities and colleges. This is going to be extremely hard to do considering the money backing the names of these schools, and arguably even more powerful than that, the alumni of said institution. Once the reputations of colleges come second to actual statistics projected by them, I think it will be much easier to address sexual assault on campus. If it were federally required for all universities and colleges to investigate and report all allegations of rape then I think the college scene would appear a lot less foreboding in the long run considering that all future students can be sure that their voice will not be muddled by outrageous victim-blaming claims.