Meet Jackie, a freshman at the University of Virginia. She just got asked to a fraternity party by a really cute guy she knows.
Long story short, Jackie says she spent hours preparing for her date only to be gang raped for hours by seven men in her date’s fraternity, Phi Kappa Psi, according to a Rolling Stone article.
Meet Jackie’s three friends, who tell bloody-clothed and abused Jackie to second guess going to the hospital because they worry “she’s gonna be the girl who cried ‘rape,’” and they fear they’ll, “never be ?allowed into any frat party again.”
Aside from the obvious rape issue that has repetitively come to surface at many universities across the nation, the ignorance toward rape has seeped into the minds of the students attending these schools.
Jackie’s friends told her not to go to the hospital simply because her reputation would be tainted.
This opinion is mirrored when Jackie went to the head of UVA’s sexual misconduct board and asked why she couldn’t find campus records for sexual assault. Dean Nicole Eramo simply answered, “because nobody wants to send their daughter to the rape school.”
Hiding rape statistics isn’t a little white lie.
By skewing and concealing these facts, the administration harmed both the students’ and the university’s reputation.
Jackie says she was sexually abused in 2012. Her story wasn’t released by UVA’s administration — it was told by a journalist at Rolling Stone.
Sure, all is fine and dandy when the real information is shoved in a closet or hidden behind a curtain. But one article like this can open the floodgates to countless sexual violence protesters, opinionated bloggers and political leaders.
In some ways, today’s media enables stories like this to be heard by many ears, therefore causing a school administration to submit a formal apology.
But an apology isn’t action — it’s just words.
The action the university took was the suspension of all campus fraternities until Jan. 9.
A childish time-out for all brotherhoods is too small of a penance for such a serious issue. Instead, the government should step in to call into question the ethics that are instilled on campuses such as UVA.
Although one — or seven — man’s ?actions can’t speak for an entire university, it can speak for an entire culture. This common culture that exists among many university campuses is accepting of rape, and it has got to stop.
First and foremost, the UVA administration should have the inherent moral commitment to protect its students, not misguide its future ones by putting on a façade of not being a “rape school.”
Though the media has gotten the ball rolling, it’s the government’s job to keep the same ball rolling by implementing policies regarding campus sexual ?misconduct.
It makes one wonder how many untold stories are out there and people who believe that telling their story “isn’t worth the hassle.”
Admitting you’ve been sexually assaulted shouldn’t be a burden, but the reality is some of today’s policies surrounding rape don’t exactly warmly welcome the victims.
Instead, the process and stigma associated with admitting you’ve been raped is almost sympathized to a point where onlookers perceive them as “wounded victims.”
The Rolling Stone article and its effects prove UVA’s administration isn’t equipped to properly handle instances like this one.
Universities should become more detached from the rape arbitration process, and the government needs to get involved.
