Sexual Assault In The Hunting Ground

Sexual assault is defined by the department of justice as: any type of sexual contact or behavior that occurs without the explicit consent of the recipient. Falling under the definition of sexual assault are sexual activities as forced sexual intercourse, forcible sodomy, child molestation, incest, fondling, and attempted rape. Women aged 18-24, in college, are three times greater at risk than the average woman any age. (RAINN). The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights has 246 ongoing investigations into how 195 colleges and universities handled sexual assault under Title IX. (Huffington Post). Many ask, Why on college campuses? Why have these statistics been rising? For a rapist or an assaulter, college is

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.

‘Sexual Violence is more than just a crime against individuals. It threatens our families; it threatens our communities. Ultimately, it threatens the entire country’ (qtd. in Burleigh pg. 2). In the article, “Confronting Campus Rape” written by Nina Burleigh; a writer, journalist, and professor at Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, describes what students are doing to force universities to take a stronger stand against campus sexual assault. Moreover Burleigh describes what the government is doing to make a difference on the issue. This includes laws that have created consequences for the assaulter and laws that protect the victim. According to Burleigh, a young woman called Laura Dunn was sexually assaulted on campus. Dunn was a student of UW. On April 4th, 2014, Dunn lost her virginity to two UW athletes. That night, Dunn was attending a party at the university. Dunn was enjoying the party and lost count of her alcohol intake. Dunn remembers being led out by two older teammates, who she knew. Dunn was very intoxicated, enough to stumble on her way back to what she thought would be another campus party, as one of the athletes helped her walk. The athletes led Dunn to one of their apartments where she found herself on a bed with both of them on top of her. Dunn was so intoxicated that she couldn’t help but to drift in and out of conscious leaving her unable to stop the two men. Dunn began to feel sick and was led to the bathroom by one of the athletes, where he penetrated her from behind while she was throwing up. That was a date Dunn would never forget. Dunn like many other women at the UW have been sexually abused by other students. Although Dun’s incident is shocking, it is not uncommon for women to be sexually assaulted on campus. A woman at the  university of Wisconsin is more prone to being sexually assaulted than any other woman in the country because of alcohol intoxication; this is a problem that must be resolved.

The Hunting Ground features firsthand accounts exposing numerous rape cases on campuses around the nation. These cases were hidden and neglected by the universities in order to maintain low on-campus crime statistics. This movie features survivors sharing their cases and the neglect they received from their universities and their fight to receive justice. Two rape survivors, Andrea Pino and Annie Clark, established a network of other survivors and built a Title IX legal case against their university for how their rape cases were handled. Overall, this movie sheds light on a rape epidemic that is plaguing many men and women across the nation.

Current data and statistics involving sexual assaults on college campuses are very sad and depressing. According to Monique DiCarlo, who used data from the Department of Justice, 1 in 5 women are likely to be sexually assaulted during their time on campus (M. DiCarlo, personal presentation, October 17). However, many of these assaults go unreported to authorities or the universities. Some of the reasons victims do not report are because victims do not believe the school will do anything or help, do not believe it to be important enough to report and fear of reprisal (M. DiCarlo, personal presentation, October 17). With major advancements in policy including Title IX, the Cleary Act, and defining what is consent, one could assume sexual assaults on campuses should be declining. However, sexual assaults are not declining and many departments such as athletics and international student offices have to deal with the problem. In this paper, I will discuss the current climate of sexual assault on campus, provide a brief overview of rights and protections of Title IX, discuss how the office of international student services could be impacted and how Title IX coordinators are handling the problem and what still needs to be done to help protect all students.

Every 98 seconds sexual assault occurs. More than 570 people in the United States alone face sexual assault in the duration of 24 hours. A large percent of these victims are students. Rape and sexual assault is escalating rapidly throughout the country within highschool and college students meanwhile schools are not addressing these issues. Many factors contribute to the rise of sexual assault such as; illegal drinking, greek-life, lack of police related officials, and campuses are not supporting them. Although students don’t speak up about sexual assault because they are afraid of getting in trouble, these incidents are occurring more and more. Schools need to address the issue of sexual assault on campuses because it is the victims and their

Despite federal laws issued to combat sexual violence, each year 4,000 college women report to school officials that they've been sexually assaulted. What happens after they file those reports has stirred debate on campuses across the country, leaving parents and students fearful that colleges may not be the ivory towers of security and integrity that appear on their recruitment pamphlets.

Sexual Assault on college campuses is a national epidemic. Most colleges aren’t doing anything about it. Brown University finally stood up and is in the process of doing something. They are setting an example for what other schools should be doing, especially being an ivy league. Education is a powerful tool and it should be used to educate students on what consent is and how to be an appropriate bystander. Sexual assault on college campuses is a problem that will take a long time to solve, but the ending must start

In Greek fraternities, a culture that supports and encourages sexual violence thrives. My paper will focus on the relationship between fraternity culture and sex crimes. More specifically, my working thesis is that the culture of collegiate fraternities encourages sexual assault through peer pressure, substance abuse, and college administration complicity.

“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.

In 2016, The United States Department of Justice released this chilling fact: one out of every four female undergraduates will be victim to some form of sexual assault before graduation. Even more terrifying, the American Civil Liberties Union estimates that at least 95 percent of sexual assaults on college campuses in the United States go unreported. These striking statistics resonate a dire call for increased prevention of sexual assault on campuses across the nation. With the passing of the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators in 1994, many universities and colleges began to enact sexual assault protection programs (Breitenbecher Hanson). However, as proven by the recent statistics presented earlier, these programs are

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

Throughout the United States there are several instances where college students are victims of sexual assault. Many big name schools like Florida State University, University of Southern California, Harvard, and Stanford have been noted in many popular sources as being not only great in academics, but also for the amount of sexual assault cases that happen on and off campus between students. Many of these universities attempt to cover up these acts for many different reasons; although, there is an Act passed by Congress that would revoke the school’s participation in federal financial aid programs by them not disclosing any criminal acts between students. This is a problem because it can cause a lot of emotional and physical damage to the

Sexual assault on college campuses is a growing epidemic. Twenty five percent of college women are affected by sexual assault (A. Amar, T. Strout, S. Simpson, M. Cardiello, & S. Beckford, 2014, p. 93). Sexual assault is the non- consensual sexual touching of a person, in which a person is forced to engage in a sexual act against their will. Taking advantage of a person sexually is morally wrong, and causes victims of sexual assault significant emotional and physical damage. Sexual assault is a big issue because it is destroying the lives of college students. No one, that is, attending college, and has their whole life in front of them should ever have to experience trauma from such an act and have their whole future compromised because of it. But the problem is that the majority of the victims of sexual assault don’t report it. So what solutions are there to prevent sexual assault? Sexual assault on college campuses can be managed by enforcing a strict no alcohol policy on college campuses, so that it can not be used as a weapon by rapists. Sexual assault can also be thwarted through sexual assault prevention workshops to educate students and staff about the issue, and through the college administration, reporting sexual assault to local authorities, so that the legal consequences of sexual assault can be implemented. Out of the three preventative measures, having the administration report sexual assault to local authorities is more effective, because the crimes are

Since the data about sexual assault vary wildly between sources, campus officials must cooperate to provide accurate statistics to serve as a foundation for combatting this issue with a sound approach. Evidently, a university may be discouraged from disclosing truthful data if they think it may lead to an unfavorable perception of safety on their campus. Therefore, it is imperative that universities see the larger picture of battling a systemic issue rather than allowing injustices to keep occurring in order to protect their reputations. Perhaps showing that universities are honest and actually dealing with these issues better serve their reputations than providing erroneous data. Moreover, this plan of action will be more effective if universities nationwide work together to improve the reporting process of such incidents and implement preventative measures – it is assumed that colleges will be more likely to enact change if others are doing the same. Once this new culture is normalized across college campuses, these institutions can become safer spaces for students to report sexual assaults without shame or fear of reprisal. Additionally, while prevention initiatives are the most crucial components of this proposal, universities must strengthen their justice systems and present real consequences to those who violate the rules. A strengthened justice system could ultimately contribute to sexual assault prevention, in addition to rightfully punishing criminal