Documentary Analysis: The Hunting Ground By Kirby Dick

The Hunting Ground Kirby Dick is the director of the documentary, The Hunting Ground which premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival. The documentary focuses on the epidemic of rape amongst college campuses, and why there has been no action taken to prevent or prosecute the perpetrators from committing these crimes. In fact, the Universities are shown going out of their way to protect the institution before the victims. Therefore, Dick’s uses the documentary to expose the abuse of gender inequality that is and has been taking place on our college campuses for over twenty-five years, in the form of sexual assault. Additionally, he shows the efforts of two University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill students, Annie Clark and Andrea Pino,

John Foubert a Professor at Oklahoma State University claims, “more than sixteen percent of college women are raped” (Dick, 2015). Sexual assault has become a form of rape culture on campuses. It is a sociological concept where the schools perverse approach to this heinous crime is to silence and shame the victim, while protecting the institution at all costs. Associate Professor, Carolina Heldman of Occidental University explains, “there’s a lot of victim blaming which has a silencing effect on survivors” (Dick, 2015). As a result, 88 percent of women sexually assaulted on campus do not report (Dick, 2015). Universities across the nation have a huge economical stake in their image. The President’s main job at a university is fundraising, and they receive billions of dollars from endowments, financial aid, and alumni donations. Most faculty won’t get involved out of fear of being terminated. Former Assistant Dean of Students at UNC, Melinda Manning says, “they make it difficult to report a rape, deterring students from reporting to the local police” (Dick, 2015), In turn they keep the numbers of victims artificially deflated. Then claim to take all allegations of campus rape very serious. Although, the facts and statistics show, rape is happening on campuses and little to nothing is being done for

Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 is a gender equality law, which guarantees all persons the right to an equal education. The law reads, “[n]o person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excludes from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subject to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance” (Dick, 2015). Their case was accepted and followed by a series of activism. Clark and Pino reached out to the press. The New York Times ran a story on their Title IV case, women from colleges all over the nation came forward. They heard individual stories of 700 victims. Activism began to form on campuses. Men started to lead in the efforts, which showed other men that rape was wrong and would no longer be tolerated or encouraged. Students began taking control and creating a revolution on campuses across the nation. Within a year of filing their Title IX case against UNC, the issue went to the top of the National Agenda. Before the case, the Department of Education did not release names of those under investigation, now they do! More that 100 universities went under investigation (Dick,