Rolling Stone: A Rape on Campus: A Brutal Assault and Struggle for Justice at UVA

[No Excuses]

http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/features/a-rape-on-campus-20141119?page=7

 

Jackie had taken three hours getting ready, straightening her long, dark, wavy hair. She'd congratulated herself on her choice of a tasteful red dress with a high neckline. Now, climbing the frat-house stairs with Drew, Jackie felt excited. Drew ushered Jackie into a bedroom, shutting the door behind them. The room was pitch-black inside. Jackie blindly turned toward Drew, uttering his name. At that same moment, she says, she detected movement in the room – and felt someone bump into her. Jackie began to scream.

"Shut up," she heard a man's voice say as a body barreled into her, tripping her backward and sending them both crashing through a low glass table. There was a heavy person on top of her, spreading open her thighs, and another person kneeling on her hair, hands pinning down her arms, sharp shards digging into her back, and excited male voices rising all around her. When yet another hand clamped over her mouth, Jackie bit it, and the hand became a fist that punched her in the face. The men surrounding her began to laugh. For a hopeful moment Jackie wondered if this wasn't some collegiate prank. Perhaps at any second someone would flick on the lights and they'd return to the party.

 

 

This will probably be one heck of a depressing read but its worth it. Campus sexual assaults are coming to light more and more but I'm posting this because I know we probably have several UVA grads or parents of UVA students on here.

 

I'm happier every day with my decision to never have children after I read this. Frats have a polarizing reputation but I never knew it was this bad:

 

Studies have shown that fraternity men are three times as likely to commit rape, and a spate of recent high-profile cases illustrates the dangers that can lurk at frat parties, like a University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee frat accused of using color-coded hand stamps as a signal to roofie their guests, and this fall's suspension of Brown University's chapter of Phi Kappa Psi – of all fraternities – after a partygoer tested positive for the date-rape drug GHB.

 

My undergrad school had a specific dorm thats notoriously known around the ENTIRE country for the stuff that goes on in there, including sexual assaults. I always wondered that if the students knew, if its well known on internet forums, then the school administration knows too. And they let it go because believe it or not, I think people enrolled at our school JUST to live in that dorm freshmen year.

[JamesMadisonSkins]

Yeah this sort of thing is troubling. I read this ... it was hard to read. 

 

I wasn't so much part of the frat crowd at JMU ... it's not nearly as big of a scene and it's a lot less snobbish and more open in its party culture ... and while I'm SURE this sort of thing happens everywhere, I never heard about any crazy gang-rape scenarios in frat basements as stated in this article. That's a cultural thing that the greek life obviously learned to cultivate and protect at UVA ... and that's sad. 

[No Excuses]

Yeah this sort of thing is troubling. I read this ... it was hard to read. 

 

I wasn't so much part of the frat crowd at JMU ... it's not nearly as big of a scene and it's a lot less snobbish and more open in its party culture ... and while I'm SURE this sort of thing happens everywhere, I never heard about any crazy gang-rape scenarios in frat basements as stated in this article. That's a cultural thing that the greek life obviously learned to cultivate and protect at UVA ... and that's sad. 

 

JMU was recently in the news where a drunk student was assaulted and filmed by three frat guys.

[Destino]

 

Disoriented, Jackie burst out a side door, realized she was lost, and dialed a friend, screaming, "Something bad happened. I need you to come and find me!" Minutes later, her three best friends on campus – two boys and a girl (whose names are changed) – arrived to find Jackie on a nearby street corner, shaking. "What did they do to you? What did they make you do?" Jackie recalls her friend Randall demanding. Jackie shook her head and began to cry. The group looked at one another in a panic. They all knew about Jackie's date; the Phi Kappa Psi house loomed behind them. "We have to get her to the hospital," Randall said.

 

Their other two friends, however, weren't convinced. "Is that such a good idea?" she recalls Cindy asking. "Her reputation will be shot for the next four years." Andy seconded the opinion, adding that since he and Randall both planned to rush fraternities, they ought to think this through. The three friends launched into a heated discussion about the social price of reporting Jackie's rape, while Jackie stood beside them, mute in her bloody dress, wishing only to go back to her dorm room and fall into a deep, forgetful sleep. Detached, Jackie listened as Cindy prevailed over the group: "She's gonna be the girl who cried 'rape,' and we'll never be allowed into any frat party again."

 

The reaction of her friends make me want to punch them in the face repeatedly while screaming "what the **** is wrong you?!"  Is that weird?  

[JamesMadisonSkins]

JMU was recently in the news where a drunk student was assaulted and filmed by three frat guys.

 

I know ... like I said this sort of things happens everywhere. The incident you reference was on spring break in Florida and involved groping and some non-students. Not excusable, but it's MUCH different than gan-rape (or any rape) that is repeatedly reported and not dealt with at the administrative level at a campus and clearly permeates the greek culture (to the tune of a SONG like that?!)

 

This story just reminds me of a cultural and systematic "cult" atmosphere that existed at Penn State with the football program. I had good friends and family at UVA and loved visiting there, but it does have a "better than thou" attitude throughout the school and this article was not at all a surprise ... from the "UVA would rather cover the school's image than protect the victim" sort of mentality. 

[JamesMadisonSkins]

What got me about the article was just the life-after-assault incidents. The "date" that lured her into the rape and pretended nothing happened when they encountered after-the-fact. The academic club acquaintance that participated reluctantly in the rape ... like WTF. 

 

I just can't begin to picture myself in that scenario ... and if I was, how I could even live with myself afterwards.

 

I've been to a few of those greek parties in the dark basements on that strip at UVA ... it's very easy to see something like that happening. It was a little too surreal. 

[Mr. Sinister]

I worried about my sister when she went to FIU, but we have family in the area, and my cousin was there with her.

I'd definitely feel terrified about sending a daughter away to college with no one else in the area.

[Destino]

from the article:

 

When Jackie finished talking, Eramo comforted her, then calmly laid out her options. If Jackie wished, she could file a criminal complaint with police. Or, if Jackie preferred to keep the matter within the university, she had two choices. She could file a complaint with the school's Sexual Misconduct Board, to be decided in a "formal resolution" with a jury of students and faculty, and a dean as judge. Or Jackie could choose an "informal resolution," in which Jackie could simply face her attackers in Eramo's presence and tell them how she felt; Eramo could then issue a directive to the men, such as suggesting counseling. Eramo presented each option to Jackie neutrally, giving each equal weight. She assured Jackie there was no pressure – whatever happened next was entirely her choice.

 

Public universities offering an alternative justice system to crimes this serious shouldn't be legally allowed.  This is a false alternative that suckers victims into not reporting very serious crimes to authorities.

[TheGoodBits]

from the article:

Public universities offering an alternative justice system to crimes this serious shouldn't be legally allowed. This is a false alternative that suckers victims into not reporting very serious crimes to authorities.

100% agreed.

[mjah]

from the article:

 

Public universities offering an alternative justice system to crimes this serious shouldn't be legally allowed.  This is a false alternative that suckers victims into not reporting very serious crimes to authorities.

 

True.  Absolutely true.  It would take another entire thread to share my experiences with sham judicial proceedings and how preposterously inadequate they are at achieving their sole ostensible task.  They keep victims "within the orbit" and suppress reporting to actual police, hospital, and court systems, through which the victim otherwise would have a better chance of finding professional assistance and resolution.

 

When it comes to responding to actual crimes and the criminals who commit them, always assume that the university largely does not know what it is doing and is not your friend.

[Larry]

from the article:

 

Public universities offering an alternative justice system to crimes this serious shouldn't be legally allowed.  This is a false alternative that suckers victims into not reporting very serious crimes to authorities.

My first thought is to 100% agree. That the only possible reason for doing something like this, is so that the university can keep the rape from showing up in official crime statistics, to make it LOOK like the university is safer than it really is.

But then a second thought occurs to me.

If the victim's ONLY options are:

1). Call the cops, and push the "start" button on a criminal justice system that doesn't HAVE a "stop" button.

2). Keep your mouth shut, and say nothing

Then does that cause a higher number of women to chose Option 2?

Does giving the victim the OPTION of other, less public, choices, DISCOURAGE reporting? Or ENCOURAGE it? (Even if it isn't the most visible kind of reporting.).

[ixcuincle]

A disgusting and appalling rape epidemic on campuses nationwide

Absolutely despicable

[Corcaigh]

It's such a crap shoot whether you trust law enforcement or the campus authorities. The campus authorities may have a vested interest in covering it up or making an example to address previous neglect.

In some jurisdictions the person making the rape accusation will be put through a terrible public humiliation by law enforcement, while in others the prosecutor will threaten the accused with 25 + years in prison unless they admit some lesser charge.

[PeterMP]

The reaction of her friends make me want to punch them in the face repeatedly while screaming "what the **** is wrong you?!"  Is that weird?  

 

I will point out that this girl really didn't have any friends.  She was thrown in with a bunch of strangers into a strange, new, stressful and exciting environment for 2 weeks or so.  In those two weeks, she had become more closely associated with some people than others, but realistically, she didn't have any friends.

 

Occasionally, I teach a freshman lab.  It isn't uncommon for people that sort of know each other to decide to become lab partners, but a month in have one of them come to you and ask if they can switch partners.

 

One message as a parent with 2 girls I'll send when my kids go to college (if they do) is that at least until Nov. you have no friends.  You have no support system.  Don't trust anybody.

 

And even old friends are issues.  I went to a small high school in a poor area.  I didn't know many people that went to college out of high school, but of the people that I did know, two were best friends through high school.  They went to college together and were roommates.  By half way through the first semester, they were no longer talking to each other, and the relationship never recovered at all through college.

 

They graduated from college not talking to each other.

 

People change once they get outside of the influence of their parents/childhood social system and some times that change is rapid and drastic.

 

If something like this happens to you at college or you encounter something like this at all where you need to call somebody, your first call has to be family or somebody resembling family and preferably older family.

 

Mom, dad, brother, sister, cousin, somebody like that.

 

Maybe if you are one of these people that has a mentor that you trust that person would be okay.  My wife had a teacher in high school that she saw as a mom figure and still does today (decades later).

 

But it can't be people that you meet 2 weeks ago or even your high school best friend.

 

When you get through to Nov., you've started to see enough of people in different environment and situations that you start to get an idea of who people are, but even then family is the best option in these cases.

[PeterMP]

I don't know how effective they are, but colleges certainly in general didn't start the systems they did to keep crime under reported and they aren't maintained for that reason.

 

That might be the end result, and they might even result in more crimes (i.e. crimes that would be properly reported don't get properly reported and the improper reporting of crimes allows criminal to escape the responsibility of their actions).

 

I don't know.

 

Realistically, they were mostly born out of issues related to liability and PR concerns, but I suspect that if somebody actually presented evidence that they were causing increased crimes of any type colleges would either eliminate them or seriously modify them if nothing else because of liability and PR concerns.

[JamesMadisonSkins]

Colleges, at least from my experience, have a judicial proceeding meant to deal with crimes on campus to protect the students in a new environment where they are growing, etc. Students who went to the hospital with alcohol poisoning or were arrested in public were dealt with both in the off-campus and on-campus judicial proceedings. But, for example, if you were caught drinking in a dorm, you went through the judicial proceedings. There was a 3-strike policy. After a 3rd strike you were suspended for a semester. If you violated the terms again, you were expelled (but there was leeway). This was put in place to deal with, I think, drugs/drinking on campus. It was NOT meant to deal with more serious allegations, but I think issues of rape/sexual assault on campus were sometimes lumped into the judicial proceedings. There, the recourse was nothing more than either a strike, a suspension, or an expulsion. And many times, those crimes were not processed as such. No investigators, no rape kits, just a "he said, she said" situation. It really does leave the school in a tough bind, and I think that's what has been coming out in the media with these reports. Schools are trying to handle scenarios without much investigative power OR authority to really issue any legitimate justice.

 

That ALL changes if the student either goes to a hospital for a test or goes to local police. From my understanding, victims are certainly encouraged to go to the authorities for the proper handling of the situation, but clearly this is a very intimidating process.

 

Now this is where campus culture comes in to play. At least with my experiences in college, the "greek life" existed but was far from a "OMG we can't ruin our reputation" aura that seems to exist at other schools where greek life IS a bigger deal and going against it can be social suicide. Of course, I am not a female, so I'm sure there is a fear of going public with a rape. I can't imagine the weight that that puts on a victim. It's terrible. But it sounds like at UVA (and honestly at many large schools where money and greek life rule), the system in place is more or less to cover up rather than deal swiftly with the perps. 

 

Hopefully this adds to the other instances to create even more pressure to refrom the way sexual assaults are reported on campuses, so that at least it becomes easier for the victim to report. The fact that these rapes are occurring in the first place is a bigger issue and one that likely won't go away no matter how hard you try. Bad people and sexual predators exist and have existed for the entirety of time. But hopefully the right processes emerge to at least prosecute these cases to the fullest extent.

 

And this group-think, gang-rape initiation crap that is happening at some of these chapters ... they MUST be shut down. That's deplorable. 

[RonArtest15]

I'm happier every day with my decision to never have children after I read this.

 

Wut? 

[CrypticVillain]

The reaction of her friends make me want to punch them in the face repeatedly while screaming "what the **** is wrong you?!"  Is that weird?  

I feel so sorry for her. I don't even want to read the story.

 

And her friends do make my blood boil. It's bad enough that it's already hard enough on the victim to come out about these situations. Yet you care more about getting into the frat house where your friend has just got viciously raped to go party again? Get the heck out of here with that bamma stuff for real. What the heck is wrong with our society?

[No Excuses]

I have a few things that really bother me about this story:

 

1. The complete lack of accountability from administration for sexual assaults. I cannot believe that 183 students have been expelled for cheating at UVA since 1998. Not a single one for sexual assaults. That is absolutely absurd. We have rapists graduating from a highly prestigious college, getting jobs and seemingly living a normal life in society. From the sounds of it, they aren't even put on sex offender lists. This is insane.

 

2. I think we really need to have a conversation on frat culture. The statistics back it up that frat members are committing rapes on campus at a much higher rate. Worse of all, they are serial offenders. In this UVA case, this by all means is the most "prestigious" frat at UVA. And they are running what seems like is a gang-rape initiation. There are multiple girls reporting this now.

 

The response to this from the UVA president was the most pathetic thing I've ever read. Your campus is under scrutiny for sheltering rapists for decades now and the best you can write is how many awesome initiatives you've taken lately.

 

Wut? 

 

There is absolutely no way I could ever have piece of mind if I knew my children were away at college where rapes are treated less severely than academic fraud. I'm way too paranoid of a person. Quite honestly, I don't know how parents do it. I sometimes think of my parents and how they dealt with me and I'm pretty sure they lost 10 years of life dealing with my behavior problems when I was younger.

[Corcaigh]

Well this article is shining the light on UVa.

 

It will be interesting to see what the newly announced police investigation is able to reveal.

 

Anecdotally, portions of UVa, especially some of the fraternities, have a very nasty culture (but that's quite a step from tolerating gang rape which the article alleges). My daughter excluded it from colleges she considered because of the culture there and its reputation.

 

I'm troubled by the article's sensationalism and as a consequence, whether some details are entirely accurate. Personally, I can't imagine if a female friend told me she was gang raped that I would let it stand. Or that the Dean she spoke to wouldn't pursue a story of gang rape even without the victim's full participation. This story is so far removed from a drunken "he said, she said" hookup that got out of hand. 

 

That said, UVa certainly has issues.

[Mursilis]

The reaction of her friends make me want to punch them in the face repeatedly while screaming "what the **** is wrong you?!"  Is that weird?  

 

It's not weird.  The reaction of the friends is almost laughable, in a sick and sad way.  The two males don't want the victim to report the rape because it might harm their chances of being part of the same frat culture which facilitated the rape!  "Please don't report your sexual assault!  It might ruin our chances of also taking part in a sexual assault!!" 

[SkinInsite]

No sanctioned Greek system at Georgetown, don't think I missed much.

 

oh on a personal note **** UVA, that's all.

[Destino]

It's not weird. The reaction of the friends is almost laughable, in a sick and sad way. The two males don't want the victim to report the rape because it might harm their chances of being part of the same frat culture which facilitated the rape! "Please don't report your sexual assault! It might ruin our chances of also taking part in a sexual assault!!"

It sounds like one male wanted her to go to the hospital right away. Her female friend and the other male were the ones that immediately worried about the impact on their social life. All three failed her.

If have just called 911.

What her "friends" did was install doubt and guilt. They shamed her and made her consider the consequences to others immediately after being gang raped.

Just imagine if you came home to find your house being robbed and you saw and recognized the thief as he runs off with your stuff. Your neighbor sees you in distress outside and the first thing your neighbor says is "if you report this the whole neighborhood is going to be devalued and people will hate you." I'm pretty sure most guys would have some choice words for an ***hole that said something like that to them.

Rape is a million times worse and yet people, and even cops themselves, do this routinely to rape victims.

[Corcaigh]

I'd have just dialed 911 

 

"I'd like to report that seven students have been killed at the frat house"

 

"When did this occur?"

 

"Sometime in the next 15 minutes".

[PF Chang]

It's not weird.  The reaction of the friends is almost laughable, in a sick and sad way.  The two males don't want the victim to report the rape because it might harm their chances of being part of the same frat culture which facilitated the rape!  "Please don't report your sexual assault!  It might ruin our chances of also taking part in a sexual assault!!" 

 

I've never liked the term "rape culture." Of course no man would like the implication that he's a fine-tuned raping machine that's only holding back through sheer force of will. But how can it be denied that in some form, rape culture is absolutely real and present in our society?

 

This article did a great job of highlighting the subtle ways it occurs:

 

1. Tribal nature. It sounds like only one of those dip**** bros who raped her at the frat house appeared to have some semblance of the idea that this was wrong. He still proceeded to stick a beer bottle in her. Why? To be included, to avoid ending up as the outcast. To anybody who isn't a horrible person, that will make you sick. But there is no limit on what impressionable followers will do when the entire fraternity rush system requires you to have a desperate need for acceptance. We may even figure out that the same culture that breeds this is the same culture that bred the nepotistic, greedy, abhorrent financial collapse. 

 

2. A scary thing about rape culture is that it's not just men. Mursilis pointed out, correctly, that the two males didn't want to report so as to not risk their potential social status (god, that is so pathetic). But the girl with them, "Cindy," agreed! "She's gonna be the girl who cried rape, and we'll never be allowed into any frat party again," said Cindy. How are you supposed to overcome it when even other girls try to tell you it's no big deal? That reporting a rape is "social suicide," and clearly that is the most important thing in the world?

 

3. The despicable truth that wealth can be converted to legal protection. Nobody needs a cited study to prove that rich assholes breed rich asshole kids. The parents are always pearl-clutching moralists until their kid is the one who did something ****ty, then they will stop at NOTHING to ensure their kid's "life is not ruined."  I would not care if every parent who did this went and played in traffic. 

 

4. Institutional reverence. I went to Penn State, and the comparison by JamesMadisonSkins is accurate. "Do you want to be responsible for something that's gonna paint UVA in a bad light?" A roommate asked Jackie that, with the clear implication that that's not something a real UVA student would do. We must protect the institution at all costs, because an attack on the institution is an attack on us personally. 

 

5. Anyone in power who doesn't want anything to do with the following: lawsuits, media attention, but mostly anything that would put their grasp on power in danger. The president of UVA.