Those who know me understand that I am very passionate about campus rape and sexual assault. As college students, we have either personally experienced or know too many people who have experienced sexual assault on their campus. If any conversation is worth having, it is one about the implications of sexual assault, and ways in which we can work to prevent these crimes from occurring and seek justice for the victims when they do occur. Imagine my excitement, then, when I watched “The Hunting Ground,” a documentary about this exact thing. Finally, I thought, we could listen to real stories, see real victims, and start a dialogue. Wrong. The unfortunate reality is that “The Hunting Ground,” professing to have checked and double checked the stories that are presented, routinely misrepresents information, and shows an inherent bias in its reporting. If you are interesting in learning more about college sexual assault, “The Hunting Ground” is not where you should look.
What brought me to this conclusion was this excellent piece of investigative journalism on Slate by Emily Yoffe. In it, she describes the inconsistencies put forth in the documentary. If you are in the mood for some long but interesting reading, take a look.
The many issues with the documentary start with the title—really? The hunting ground? College campuses are a field in which women wander around, aimlessly, succulent prey for ravenous men, waiting to claim their trophy. The ridiculous title should clue you in to the clear agenda the documentary has. It is clear from the beginning that the directors wish to paint sexual assault on campus as an epidemic that is unfair to the victims and ignored by schools—evermore, this is not the case. “The Hunting Ground” falsely accuses even prominent schools such as Harvard of sitting idly by while victims cry for help, and, perhaps most egregiously, exploits the fact that the accused party is unlikely to ever want to want to be interviewed to unfairly manipulate stories and footage to suit its own ends. Let’s take a look at a few of the film’s most noticeable flaws:
The film asserts, with the testimony of “experts,” that the answer for victims is clear; don’t even bother with going to the disciplinary board, because there is little chance of winning. Those who understand the issues with college rape know of the fear of schools not to be labelled as “rape colleges,” and therefore would rather ignore rape cases than hear them. Reality, however, tells a different story. First, and most importantly, President Obama has made college sexual assault a signature issue of his, and has introduced certain guidelines for colleges to follow. Instead of these institutions ignoring sexual assault cases because they fear for their reputations, the opposite is true—schools are following the guidelines to a T, out of fear for their reputations. The national conversation has shifted in such a way that schools are looked down upon more harshly for not doing anything than for doing something. The statistics bear this out: in cases where a formal complaint is filed, the accused is found guilty of the crime 45% of the time. 80% of those found guilty are either suspended or expelled from their institution. In 25% of cases, the accused is found not responsible. Evidence of a cover up? Think again. Most of the time, the accused is found not guilty because the accuser either a.) asked the school not to investigate b.) became uncooperative, or c.) could not identify the accused. Now, there is something to be said about many victims being unwilling to file a complaint because of fear of the consequences of doing so, but anybody who thinks that schools are not doing what they can with the cases they do get is sorely mistaken.
Let’s look at the case of Lizzy Seeberg, a 19 year-old Notre Dame student who committed after she filed a report about a school football player forcibly kissing and touching her. The situation is horrible, and should never have happened. However, the film presents her suicide as isolated and caused entirely by the unwanted encounter. This is false, as Lizzy had a long struggle with depression and anxiety, and had even had suicidal thoughts before. Again, to be clear—this does not excuse the perpetrator or the crime, but the filmmakers have an obligation to include this information instead of brazenly insinuating that the assault was the sole reason for the suicide instead of the tipping point in a long and unfortunate struggle.
How about the case against FSU football all-star Jameis Winston? The accuser, Erica Kinsman, goes public for the first time in the film. She asserts that Winston put something in her drink and, drifting in and out of consciousness, awoke to find Winston and his roommates raping her. However, toxicology reports of the incident show that not only were there no drugs in Kinsman’s system, but there was very little alcohol as well. I want to emphasize here again, this does not excuse Winston or his roommates of wrong-doing, but that the filmmakers would allow Kinsman to make assertions that are provably false, all while not acknowledging Winston’s testimony, is irresponsible and serves to stifle the dialogue on rape, not encourage it.
Most damning, however, is the story of Kamilah Willingham. The story goes like this: Kamilah and her friend (I will use Emily Yoffe’s method and call her KF for “Kamilah’s Friend”), went out to a bar with Kamilah’s friend of 2 years, Brandon Winston. In her telling of the story, she asserts that Winston slipped something in her and KF’s drinks. They ended up back at her place, and she was awoken with a tongue in her mouth (Winston’s), and saw that KF’s shirt and bra were off, of which Winston admitted to doing. Over the next few days, Kamilah probed Winston to figure out if they had been raped—Winston denied any such thing happened. Things changed when Kamilah found a bloody condom on the side of her wastebasket, realizing that KF had been on her period during the night in question. In the film, we are made to believe that Harvard did nothing to assist Kamilah, and in the end swept the whole thing under the wrong. The issue is that this just plain wrong. Brandon Winston was dismissed from Harvard for 4 years, and the city’s criminal court actually pursued legal action against him. In both Harvard and in the criminal trial, Winston was found not guilty of all charges (especially the rape) except for one: misdemeanor unwanted nonsexual touching, for admitting to having rubbed KF’s breasts while KF was clearly unable to consent. DNA tests of the condom in question showed that it was not Brandon Winston’s, but was Kamilah’s from an earlier sexual encounter with a different person. Obviously, it was not okay for Winston to be doing anything sexual with either of these women when they were clearly impaired and in KF’s case, passed out. But yet again, the filmmakers do not make any mention of the alternative side of the story.
And therein lies the issue with “The Hunting Ground.” There are never any other sides apart from what is presented. Towards the end of the film, it is said that, “if you want to help, the best thing you can do is to believe the victim.” Given the history of sexual assault, wherein the victim is at best ignored and at worst blamed, and the perpetrator was dismissed as “just being a guy,” (I say this, of course, with full knowledge of sexual assault against men as well) it is admirable to want to give the victim more credibility. However, the film overcorrects this by treating the victim’s version of events as the only truthful or meaningful one. The reality of rape and sexual assault is that it is very rarely clear cut, especially when alcohol or drugs are involved. The solution is not to choose who we should believe, but to have a dialogue about the situations that these assaults are happening in, looking at the WHOLE story, and talking about ways in which we as a collective can see an end to these type of crimes. It also takes a recognition that sometimes the accuser is mistaken, like in the case of Kamilah, wherein a rape did not happen even though it seemed as though it had. By misrepresenting the story and instead twisting it to make it seem as though a rape actually did occur, the film ignores what we should really be talking about: the blurred lines that constitute the difference between assault and a misguided hook up, a rape and drunken experience. We must, as college students, have this discussion. But with its gross misrepresentation of reality, its biased reporting, and its clear agenda, one thing is for sure—“The Hunting Ground” is not the place to start.