We know we have a sexual assault problem, now let’s move forward

President Sullivan’s e-mail outlining the results of UVA’s sexual assault investigation was at best confusing, and at worst deleted.

Scanning the email, the phrase “found our new policy to be exemplary” is the first to jump out, effectively overshadowing the heart of the announcement: “The University did not fully comply with Title IX requirements with respect to providing prompt and equitable responses to certain allegations of sexual assault”.

Not surprising, but still a blow  to our confidence as a school.

The University asserts it has already taken strides towards remedying these discrepancies, including increased resources for survivors and the creation of an office dedicated to the investigation of “racial, ethnic, sexual, and gender-based violence”. Details were vague, but this sounds like a step in the right direction.

These results come at a pivotal moment in our university’s history. Almost a year after the seismic Rolling Stone article, we still stand, exhausted: the scapegoat of a problem that is so much bigger than us as individuals.

When it was published, we had just mourned for Hannah Graham and stuck close to one another for support. We drove to pick up friends from the library late at night. We attended a vigil for the lost classmate and held the hands of crying strangers.

And then in the tumultuous waves of the Rolling Stone debacle we were taught to be distrustful of our classmates. Suddenly the young man who offered to walk you home from Trinity wasn’t a thoughtful student but a dangerous predator. We made national headlines and didn’t know who to blame.

So we looked to the administration. The university entered voluntarily into the Campus Climate Survey on Sexual Assault and Sexual Misconduct, which was in part a response to headlines like “University of North Carolina student: Administrator told me ‘rape is like football’” and “College student could be expelled for reporting her rape and creating an ‘intimidating environment’ for her alleged rapist”. We are not the only school with work to do.

And the debate is no longer internal to colleges. The Hunting Ground, a documentary written and directed by Kirby Dick, casts a harrowing light on some of our most prestigious universities and the sexual misconduct they alledgedly cover up. It has produced waves in the gender violence discussions.

And last week Lady Gaga released her new music video titled “Till it Happens to You”: a haunting narrative account of college sexual assault of multiple kinds, with heart-wrenching lines like “till your world burns and crashes”. In the end, the depicted survivors are given support and trust.

This is going to take more than administrative action. It’s going to take time, and it’s going to take understanding on the part of the student body that things are changing. In the future, we need to hold not only each other accountable, but the administration as well. The university’s new policy is promising, but – as we learned from Rolling Stone – detail is everything.

This isn’t something that can be solved overnight. Hopefully we can be part of the movement towards a better college environment by starting to change the culture on a person-to-person level. I’m not saying it’s all we can do. But it’s the least we can do.