Big School, Small Justice
Brock Turner, Jameis Winston, any of these names ring a bell? If they don’t, then it’s a good thing you came across this article. The first is a White man who attended Stanford University and was a swimmer while the second is a Black man who attended Florida State University and was a star football player. Two different men, two different sports, and two different schools; what could these two men possibly have in common? Rape. Turner was caught in the act and sentenced to 6 months of jail while Winston virtually got away with it — though in a sense, both of these men got away with their crimes. Through the glamorization of stories such as these due to heavy media coverage, one can’t help but wonder: where is the justice? With the assistance of daddy’s money or school administration, it is likely that sexual assaults will only continue while the punishments for big university perpetrators are nonexistent.
Though only two names have been mentioned, there are many similar stories that regularly occur on/ near college campuses. In fact, 1 in 5 women are sexually assaulted while in college according to a multitude of national school studies. To the naked eye, the problem appears to be the disturbing amount of men who sexually assault people while in college, the real problem is the mishandling of sexual assaults by school administration, blaming the victim, and perpetuating violence against women as a part of American life.
As portrayed in the film The Hunting Ground, rape culture resides in college campuses all over the country. An obvious recurring theme is the amount of administrative offices at these “big” universities that do little to nothing in assisting the victim or getting justice. What administration at these schools does is eerily similar to how police commonly responded to domestic violence in the 1980s in which there is victim blaming, identifying with the aggressor, and brute unresponsiveness on the part of campus police and administration. Not only is aggressive masculinity tolerated, it is encouraged not just on college campuses but in life. Boys at a young age are taught to be tough and assert their dominance over the lesser-willed, and it only gets worse as they grow and feel more privileged. In the case of Brock Turner, this is a man who had the law work in his favor because he was privileged and truly believes he didn’t do anything wrong. He didn’t go to jail for rape, he had his life altered for “20 minutes of action,” and refuses to recognize any wrongdoing. Jameis Winston had the law work for him because he was a talented football player who brought lots of revenue to his school, so if the school had to side with either Winston or the victim, who did you think they were going to choose?
The problem of rape culture on college campuses is blatant, it’s the solutions that need more recognition. There are the possibilities of campus police being of more assistance and university administration stepping up and actually doing their job, but those are things you and I have no control over. More realistic solutions involve having victims speak out just like many of the women and men in The Hunting Ground and like the Stanford rape victim. In addition, an environment needs to be created where sexual assault survivors are supported and where there is zero-tolerance for these crimes. It’s on us to put an end to sexual assaults and get big justice from these big schools.
