UNC Chapel Hill, Where Rape Could Be Like A Football Game

In 2007, alumna Annie Clark says she was given this analogy by a university administrator when she inquired about utilizing the school’s Honor Court to pursue charges against the man who raped her.  “If you look back on the game, and you’re the quarterback and you’re in charge, is there anything you would do differently?” I’m not a sports fan, but this is perhaps the most reprehensible and flawed comparison a person (let alone an administrator) could make to help a victim make sense of a life-altering sexual assault. It suggests, in essence, that she was an equally aware and equally equipped competitor for the conquest of her vagina. Had she made different calls, perhaps it would not have been compromised. Alas, he made the right calls, and won. The game is over and no one is at fault. Move on.  Current junior Landen Gambill was challenged by a fellow student serving on the Honor Court when she pressed charges against a boyfriend who had repeatedly sexually abused her. According to Gambill, the adjudicator asked during the trial, “Landen, as a woman, I know that if that had happened to me, I would’ve broken up with him the first time it happened. Will you explain to me why you didn’t?”Gambill’s credibility was also challenged because of suffering she endured due to her victimization; It was suggested she couldn't be believed because of clinical depression and a suicide attempt. Alas, neither those circumstances nor her hesitance to leave the boyfriend in a suitably prompt manner have any relevance to whether she was violated and the school’s honor code breached.  These examples of ignorance and coarseness, unfortunately part of the federal civil rights complaint against UNC, do not make the offenders bad people, or UNC a bad place. I earned a JD there, and while I despised the process of law school, I appreciated the experience of being at a truly great university, set in an idyllic but progressive college town.  The issue is the lack of knowledge student judicial officers and faculty advisors have with regard to the dynamics of sexual violence and how to fairly adjudicate sex cases. The typical circumstances surrounding college related sexual assault are particularly challenging. Most attacks involve alcohol consumption on the part of both parties. Almost all are perpetrated by offenders who know their victims and have identified them exactly because they’ll be vulnerable to myths and ignorance if they do report.  I’m not sure if it was this awareness that eventually led UNC to end the practice of adjudicating sexual assault cases through their Honor Court, but I’m glad they’ve done so. Professionals have a difficult enough time with these issues and more training is badly needed. It’s not realistic to expect student-based tribunals to handle them appropriately. There are student victims who would prefer to take their cases to the university’s disciplinary system for a number of reasons; it’s equally appalling when victims are questioned for not wanting to call “real police” after being assaulted, as if that choice is easy or holds any guarantee of a favorable outcome. Still, I think the negatives of asking students to adjudicate acts of violence against a school’s honor code outweigh the positives.  UNC’s reform of its Honor Court responsibilities is only one of the steps it apparently needs to take if the complaint is accurate, however. More disturbing are allegations that administrators pressured a dean of students to alter or falsify the number of on-campus sexual assaults for federally mandated reporting purposes. Colleges nationwide, fearful of their institutions being injured by unpleasant facts, are notorious for practices like that. UNC is shamed if it is doing so also. Further, administrators, faculty and campus leaders from the top down need to do better when responding to victimized students. A Start By Believing campaign would be a good first step as a replacement for asinine and hurtful football analogies.  No reforms will eliminate sexual violence at UNC or any other college. But real reduction is possible if the entire university community unites to create an environment where sexual violence is faced honestly and responded to compassionately. It shouldn't take a civil rights complaint to bring that about.