How The Hunting Ground (documentary on campus sexual assault) Blurs the Truth

[Axulus]

Thought I would save Derec the trouble:

The documentary is shaping the public debate around campus rape. But a closer look at one of its central cases suggests the filmmakers put advocacy ahead of accuracy.

The recent documentary The Hunting Ground asserts that young women are in grave danger of sexual assault as soon as they arrive on college campuses. The film has been screened at the White House for staff and legislators. Senate Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand, who makes a cameo appearance in the film, cites it as confirmation of the need for the punitive campus sexual assault legislation she has introduced. Gillibrand’s colleague Barbara Boxer, after the film’s premiere said, “Believe me, there will be fallout.” The film has received nearly universal acclaim from critics—the Washington Post called it “lucid,” “infuriating,” and “galvanizing”—and, months after its initial release, its influence continues to grow, as schools across the country host screenings. “If you have a daughter going to any college in America, you need to see The Hunting Ground,” the MSNBC host Joe Scarborough told his viewers in May. This fall, it will get a further boost when CNN, a co-producer, plans to broadcast the film, broadening its audience. The Hunting Ground is helping define the problem of campus sexual assault for policymakers, college administrators, students, and their parents.'

The film has two major themes. One, stated by producer Amy Ziering during an appearance on The Daily Show, is that campus sexual assaults are not “just a date gone bad, or a bad hook-up, or, you know, miscommunication.” Instead, the filmmakers argue, campus rape is “a highly calculated, premeditated crime,” one typically committed by serial predators.

..

The second theme is that even when school administrators are informed of harm done to female students by these repeat offenders, schools typically do nothing in response.

...[several inaccuracies detailed out about Brandon Wilston case]...

Brandon Winston was hardly a perfect gentleman on the night of Jan. 15, 2011. But aside from Kamilah Willingham’s assertions in The Hunting Ground, there is no evidence to suggest he is dangerous or a predator. Nor do Willingham’s claims of institutional indifference hold up; Harvard twice delayed Winston’s education while its own and later Middlesex County’s adjudication processes unfolded. Neither found evidence to substantiate Willingham’s claims in The Hunting Ground, and Winston has since received the punishment the legal system deemed appropriate for his actions.

The filmmakers say they interviewed more than 70 women who have been sexually assaulted in order to find the most compelling and illustrative stories to tell in their film. They say that each of their major cases is backed up with “extensive fact-checking” and thousands of pages of documents. But if they fact-checked this case, that only makes their one-sided portrayal of the Willingham case that much more troubling.

The story Kamilah Willingham tells about Brandon Winston bookends The Hunting Ground. The filmmakers juxtapose her final, emotional appearance on screen with a speech by the president of Harvard University, Drew Gilpin Faust. “Universities must nurture the ability to interpret, to make critical judgments, to dare to ask the biggest questions: What is good? What is just?” Faust says, and it’s clear the filmmakers hear in her words a tragic irony, given their belief that Harvard has abdicated this duty. But it’s the filmmakers who should be asking themselves what is good and what is just. Sexual violence on campus is a serious issue, and it is imperative that we understand its dynamics, work to prevent it, punish wrongdoers, and aid victims. Blurring the truth, and failing to tell both sides of the story, is not the way to achieve these goals. In their effort to sound an alarm about what they believe to be rampant college rape, the makers of The Hunting Ground did an injustice to Brandon Winston—and ultimately to viewers who have come, and will continue to come, to this film hoping for an accurate assessment of what’s really happening on America’s campuses.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_...at_the_influential_documentary_reveals.3.html

 

[Loren Pechtel]

No surprise. They don't have enough real cases to support their position.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I ponder global warming denial. It was fucking cold in Ohio in February... therefore, there isn't a global warming trend.

A handful of women allegedly lied about a rape. Therefore, no rape issue on campuses. I can only assume that rape never happens on campus as Derec hasn't linked to a single case of actual rape.

 

[Axulus]

I ponder global warming denial. It was fucking cold in Ohio in February... therefore, there isn't a global warming trend.

A handful of women allegedly lied about a rape. Therefore, no rape issue on campuses. I can only assume that rape never happens on campus as Derec hasn't linked to a single case of actual rape.

It happens, but the media and the advocates seem to be drawn to the most egregious stories and are quick to blame and yet don't thoroughly vet such stories that such serious allegations require. This does substantial harm to rape victims when such stories and allegations end up being false or materially misstated and yet are peddled so fervently by the media and advocates. They seem to have little regard for the serious damage that such stories produce on those being accused and the false perceptions that are created about "college rape culture" when such false/misinformed stories are peddled.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I ponder global warming denial. It was fucking cold in Ohio in February... therefore, there isn't a global warming trend.

A handful of women allegedly lied about a rape. Therefore, no rape issue on campuses. I can only assume that rape never happens on campus as Derec hasn't linked to a single case of actual rape.

It happens, but the media and the advocates seem to be drawn to the most egregious stories and are quick to blame and yet don't thoroughly vet such stories that make such serious allegations. This does substantial harm to rape victims when such false stories and allegations are peddled so easily by the media and advocates.

Drawn to stories... but how many? A small handful of stories verses ten million students in campuses across the nation?

 

[Ford]

A handful of women allegedly lied about a rape. Therefore, no rape issue on campuses anywhere.

There. Fixed it for ya.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

I ponder global warming denial. It was fucking cold in Ohio in February... therefore, there isn't a global warming trend.

A handful of women allegedly lied about a rape. Therefore, no rape issue on campuses. I can only assume that rape never happens on campus as Derec hasn't linked to a single case of actual rape.

It happens, but the media and the advocates seem to be drawn to the most egregious stories and are quick to blame and yet don't thoroughly vet such stories that such serious allegations require. This does substantial harm to rape victims when such stories and allegations end up being false or materially misstated and yet are peddled so fervently by the media and advocates. They seem to have little regard for the serious damage that such stories produce on those being accused and the false perceptions that are created about "college rape culture" when such false/misinformed stories are peddled.

Reminds me of Stranger Danger with kids. Parents paranoid that a stranger in a black van will drive up to their kids and offer candy and cart them away and rape and kill them.

When in reality, kids are far more likely to be raped or abused by people they know and trust, and stranger attacks are rare even against adults.

Rape happens just as much, or more, off of campus than on campus. College is not some beacon of rape. It is dressed up that way in "documentaries" like this... but it really isn't.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

It happens, but the media and the advocates seem to be drawn to the most egregious stories and are quick to blame and yet don't thoroughly vet such stories that make such serious allegations. This does substantial harm to rape victims when such false stories and allegations are peddled so easily by the media and advocates.

Drawn to stories... but how many? A small handful of stories verses ten million students in campuses across the nation?

Why don't they try focusing on real cases? Can't they find them??

 

[Loren Pechtel]

It happens, but the media and the advocates seem to be drawn to the most egregious stories and are quick to blame and yet don't thoroughly vet such stories that such serious allegations require. This does substantial harm to rape victims when such stories and allegations end up being false or materially misstated and yet are peddled so fervently by the media and advocates. They seem to have little regard for the serious damage that such stories produce on those being accused and the false perceptions that are created about "college rape culture" when such false/misinformed stories are peddled.

Reminds me of Stranger Danger with kids. Parents paranoid that a stranger in a black van will drive up to their kids and offer candy and cart them away and rape and kill them.

When in reality, kids are far more likely to be raped or abused by people they know and trust, and stranger attacks are rare even against adults.

Rape happens just as much, or more, off of campus than on campus. College is not some beacon of rape. It is dressed up that way in "documentaries" like this... but it really isn't.

Yeah, so much "news" focuses on the low-probability threats--something that's actually harmful as it distracts from the real threats.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Drawn to stories... but how many? A small handful of stories verses ten million students in campuses across the nation?

Why don't they try focusing on real cases? Can't they find them??

So it isn't happening then.

 

[dismal]

Why don't they try focusing on real cases? Can't they find them??

So it isn't happening then.

Did someone say that Jimmy?

Or does the fact you keep repeating it mean you lack legitimate responses?