Sam Franks

Historical and Rhetorical Context

Advanced Composition

April 6, 2016

Historical Context

“And the Tampa Bay Buccaneers would like to proudly announce that the first overall draft pick for the 2015 NFL season will go to…Jameis Winston!” the announcer booms from ESPN’s live NFL draft coverage broadcast, Draftcast (ESPN). Winston, a former Florida State University starting football quarterback and winner of the 2013 Heisman Trophy, signed a four-year, $30.3 million dollar contract with the Buccaneers, despite the fact he had been involved in a serious rape allegation the year before at FSU (Cleary Center). The 2015 documentary, The Hunting Ground, which highlights the accusations against Winston, is described by Marissa Payne, a contributing writer for The Washington Post as “a chilling documentary that takes a close look at the rampant problem of sexual assaults on college campuses, and the institutions willingness to cover it up” (Payne, Pg.1). Recently in 2015 after the release of the film, hundreds of FSU students rallied together in the student section at a home football game and yelled “FSU protects rapists, protect students instead!” (The Center for Public Integrity)

In The Hunting Ground, University of California Berkley and University of North Carolina Chapel Hill students Sofia Karasek and Annie Clark were featured as their journey of filing a federal Title IX complaint was highlighted. Both Karasek and Clark are sexual assault survivors who were raped by student athletes as freshman on campus and felt that their learning institutions had failed to act in a proper manner. Annie Clark, after her initial rape, was even told by the dean of students at UC Berkley in 2012, “well you don’t want to press charges,who knows he could be going through a really tough time” (Nancy Grace). Kirby Dick’s documentary, along with the federal Title IX complaint by Karasek and Clark, sparked national attention from both college students and the White House, which led to the Obama Administration calling for a reform campaign and a nationwide Department of Justice investigation into the mishandling of sexual assault cases.

Karasek and Clark’s Title IX complaint, which was a protest revealing the problem of campus sexual assault, violence against women, and the cover ups that occur by administration at colleges and universities; sparked a nationwide-wave of recent demonstrations and rallies by students at hundreds of schools across America. “Dartmouth has a problem! Dartmouth has a problem!” Was yelled by hundreds of students at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire in 2013. At Harvard University in 2015, 80 undergrad students shouted outside Massachusetts Hall, “we all deserve to be safe-stop covering up athlete campus rape at Harvard!

While many of these protests are fairly recent, campus cover-ups concerning athletes are not a new problem. Dr. Scot B. Boeringer, who writes scholarly articles on campus rape, reported that there was a woman who in 1974 accused six Notre Dame football players of gang-raping her. She was hospitalized and spent a month in psychiatric care, no football players were ever punished (Boeringer, Pg. 3). Then there was the 17-year-old St. Mary’s student who in 1976 was raped by three men, two of whom had been alleged in the 1974 case, still no punishment was enacted even after the woman had reported her rape to the Dean of Students (Boeringer, Pg. 4). In 1991 5-foot-2-inch, 120-pound Jane Redmond, at the time only18, was enrolled at the University of Nebraska for just one week when she met the 6-foot-2-inch, 265-pound [Christian] Peter, a nose tackle on the football team. She says Peter, who could bench-press 450 pounds, lured her to his room and raped her. The next day, she says, Peter pushed his way past dorm security and into her room, where he raped her again, this time with two of his teammates keeping watch (Boeringer, Pg. 5). Redmond reported her rape to her advisor, and Peter’s only punishment was that he was benched for 20 minutes in his next game.

At Florida State in 1994, kicker Scott Bentley, who scored the winning goal during The Orange Bowl, admitted to raping a woman and received a “summer suspension” (Boeringer, Pg. 5). In early 1997 at Appalachian State University, a student said that six football players on campus raped her. More recently in 2005 six football players at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga had been charged with taking turns raping a drunken student after a party, a week later, the girl had reported her rapes to campus administration but no charges or consequences were ever brought upon the six players. 

Before we can look into how the recent campus protests have developed, the reasoning’s behind why colleges and universities seem go to such great lengths to protect athletes must first be understood. One of the reasons why college athletes may not be prosecuted is because they are perceived as a substantial way to increase a school’s total revenue. Douglas J. Chung, a writer for Forbes Magazine found that college athletics could be responsible for “around 53% of a college’s overall yearly revenue” (Chung, Pg. 2). This means that ticket sales, merchandise sales, media revenue, and athletic alumni donations comprise the majority of the money a college or university takes in each year (Chung, Pg. 2). ESPN in 2104 released a “College Athletics Revenues and Expenses” report that showed that in the year 2008 Alabama’s Crimson Tide had total sports revenue of over $123 Million dollars. The Missouri Tigers and The Kansas City Jayhawks also brought in large totals of over $92 Million dollars each, while The Arizona Wildcats rounded out the football season at $78 Million (College Revenues and…). A former college athlete, Don McPhearson, who was a college football hall of fame quarterback, believes that “when you have 18-22 year old kids who are celebrities it creates a toxic environment for a lot of bad behavior. When they walk across campus, it’s not like a normal student walking around campus; they have a multi-billion dollar industry wrapped around them. And if you don’t think they’re part of a culture of entitlement, just look at the fanfare around college football” (Dick). With male sports bringing in so much money to a school, and because athletes reflect so publicly on the reputation of a school, both coaches and school officials appear to be more protective of male athletes than of female students.

In 2013, when Karasek and Clark’s Title IX complaint reached the federal level and brought campus sexual assault to the public’s attention, student activists at college campuses and universities started to take a stand and protest the issue of sexual assault against female students and the misconduct of educational institutions in the way that they handle sexual assault cases concerning athletes. At Indiana University in October 2015, students marched around Kirkwood Avenue to protest sexual assault cover ups concerning athletes. Lauren Dobb, a sophomore at IU, says “Sexual assault is a huge problem on campuses, particularly IU because it’s a sports school, athletes are like Gods here” (Indiana Daily Student). Also in 2015 at Columbia was a rally attended by hundreds of students that protested how their university handles sexual assault. “How many more championship titles does Columbia need before we can support rape survivors?” and “Classism? It happens here! Support survivors! F athletes who rape!” were just a few of the signs carried by students as they arched around the student union (The Daily Beast). All of the recent protests are in an effort to support sexual assault victims and to call for institutions to start putting female students and their emotional and volatile experiences before athletes and the revenue they bring in.

Rhetorical Context

            In a 2015 CNN study of 15,000 college females from 27 colleges and universities, it was discovered that 20% of senior female students said that they experienced sexual assault by a member of a sporting team at some point in their four years in college (CNN). Of that 20% of females who were assaulted, 60% did not report because they did not think “anything would be done about it.” And of the other 40% who did report to administration, only 19% saw any consequences carried out by their schools on the athletes who had assaulted them. While this data is alarming, it is unfortunately a typical trend. The recent protest movement of sexual assault concerning athletes and campus cover-ups strives to create an emotional argument, and show just how ethically wrong it is to support revenue and athletics over the female survivors. One of the rhetorical goals of this movement is to show how athlete sexual assault and a school’s willingness to cover it up is an ethical issue that has no justification.

In the 2015 documentary It Happened Here, Vanderbilt athlete Sarah O’ Brien says: “my rape was terrible, yes. It was awful. But the way I was treated by administration after I reported was even worse” (Jackson). Carolyn Luby, a student at UConn claims that not receiving help and support was more traumatizing than her actual rape. “I felt unsafe no matter where I went. My assaulter was allowed back on campus, and could do whatever he wanted. Meanwhile I had to change the way I walked to class, I had to continue to live in the same hall I was raped in. I was punished for something that was never my fault” (Jackson). Luby claims that after she filed a Cleary Act Compliant against her school, university officials tried to blame her, claiming she was asking for it because she “was weaning a short skirt and had consumed alcohol at a fraternity party” (Jackson). Psychology Today cites that blaming the victim is a serious ethical issue that can have devastating consequences for the mental health and recovery of survivors (Muller, Pg.1). Psychologist Noam Shpancer mentions “assault survivors who receive support and help right away have an 80% chance of a full recovery. When people believe them and bring those responsible to justice, the chance of being a normal-functioning adult with an almost full recovery is astronomical” (Jackson). Unfortunately with a good number of sexual assault cases, athletes are believed over the victim, which in turn hinders the recovery of the victim. When victims experience a negative reaction coming forward, they are less likely to seek further assistance, heightening their distress (Muller, Pg.1). Victim blame also causes depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress among survivors. There is no justification for treating survivors this way and no student athlete is worth more than a woman’s safety, no matter how much revenue they bring in to a school. Every accredited college and university in the United States has included in their mission statement the promise “to protect all students from harm” (US Department of Justice). Schools today are ethically and morally in the wrong for not living up to the promise of looking out for attendees of their colleges and universities. This rhetorical goal is somewhat different then a social goal, because a social goal would look more into the amount of federal funding that is given to these institutions and the ethical issue behind handing out money to schools who lie and cover up their real statistical data about campus assault. For example, each year, the Federal Government of The United States spends a certain amount of money on institutions of higher education. In 2013, the federal government spent nearly $76 billion on higher education. The money is usually spent on research or grants, but, if the college or university looking to receive the funding has high case numbers of sexual assault, the funding could be dramatically decreased. It is because if this that many schools try to hid their assault data and dissuade victims from coming forward and reporting, so that they can “keep their numbers low” (Dick). Shockingly, in the year 2012, 45% of colleges and universities reported zero campus sexual assaults (CNN).

Survivors of female sexual assault, such as Karasek and Clark and the women previously talked about, all seek to have a widespread institutional reform so that there can be support for other survivors, and also so that there can be accountability for athletes who assault students. The copious number of demonstrations sweeping the nation like wildfire has attached itself to these women who identify with the athletic assault protests, and the campus and university protests also identify with these goals, and seek institutional change, safety for the individual woman, and accountability for athletes who are violent. 

According to official police records, in the 1974 Notre Dame case, the woman who was raped by six football players prepared a signed statement from two hospital administrators who cared for her bruised and battered body in the Emergency Room after her assault. This statement was brought to the university administration, but nothing was done to investigate her assault claim. A university administrator even called her “a queen of the slums with a mattress tied to her back” after she reported (Boeringer, Pg. 2). In The St. Mary’s rape case, two football players were caught in the act of sexually assaulting a woman by the resident assistant in the school’s dorm hall. The woman says her resident assistant brought her to a top St. Mary’s official, who informed her one of the men had raped another St. Mary’s student. After that, she says, “I was told to shut up and mind my own business;” both cases were later dismissed by the Universities (Boeringer, Pg.3). Jane Redmond went to the University of Nebraska police after the rapes occurred and says she received death threats and prank phone calls. “The university knew and they just didn’t care because they were playing good football,” says Redmond. The two football players who were keeping watch the second time she got raped even admitted to police that a sexual assault had occurred. Nothing was done with these statements and Peter was never charged with assaulting Redmond (Boeringer, Pg.3).  FSU kicker Scott Bentley, who confessed to the rape of a young woman in 1994, was able to return at the end of summer, after his “summer suspension” a week before training camp was to start so that he could play the 1995-96 season. He was later acquitted of all charges (Boeringer, Pg.5). At Appalachian State University in 1997, the woman who was raped brought her case to the dean of students where she was then threatened and told to “keep quiet. The football team is having a great season” All players were acquitted and later sued the woman for “slander”(Boeringer, Pg. 5).

College campus cover-ups by administration are not worth treating a victim horribly all in the name to save a school’s “reputation” or “promising athlete.” Protests by student activists who identify with the female victims attempts to show just that; no woman should feel as if they have no sense of safety or nowhere to turn if they have been violently assaulted on their own campus. Institutions and their administrations need to start putting the assault victims first, and put college athletics on the backburner. Resources such as clear ways to report assault and 24/7 accessible assault counselors also need to be available to the student body at all colleges and universities in America.

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