The Other Side of the Coin: How Rape Victims Are Treated When a “Celebrity” is Involved~ Maddie Hinderstein
College athletes. Talented, worshiped, god-like. “Greatness is respected, rejoiced, revered,” (Rob Lowe, I Hate Christian Laettner Documentary).
When I watch Malachi Richardson score 23 points in a single half against a number 1 seed school and then see him come into my lecture hall two days later it makes your heart skip a beat a little. Being around someone with his talent is intimidating and therefore implies some form of respect.
They’re names are known nationally, their skills are envied by thousands, and yet they sometimes can seem like regular people, but we know that they’re anything but that.
After winning the Heisman Trophy in 2013, being the first overall pick in the 2015 NFL draft, and casually being accused of rape, it’s safe to say that if you don’t know who Jameis Winston is, it’s time to escape from the rock your living under.
A legend in the Florida State University football world and a rookie starting quarterback of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the young 22 year old has been under the microscope of the public eye since rape allegations were reported against him in late 2012 to the Tallahassee Police Department (TPD).
After going to the TPD the accuser, Erica Kinsman, was encouraged not to press chargers because the city is “a big football town” and she wouldn’t be treated well if she brought the allegations forward. This did indeed happen; many Seminoles fans stopped talking to her and thought that one of their rival teams had put her up to it (Murphy). Could you imagine someone telling you that your safety and your truth isn’t 1) important in general and 2) isn’t important enough to risk someone’s career.
In November of 2013, one year after the allegations were first reported, the State Attorney of the Second Judicial Circuit took over the investigation because it became public. On December 5, 2013, State Attorney Willie Meggs announced that the investigation was completed and nobody would be charged.
From spring 2014 to the end of 2015 more reports of police shortcomings were revealed. This time they weren’t morally wrong or hateful towards a specific person, they were just things that could and should have been done but weren’t. Tallahassee police officer Scott Angulo was assigned to the case right after the alleged assault. In December of 2015 the 199-page deposition was released to USA TODAY Sports and many of Angulo’s mistakes were revealed. He never spoke to the Florida State police officer that first responded to Erica, he never tried to get any sort of surveillance from Potbelly’s nor did he speak to any of its employees or eyewitnesses from the scene (Axon). He had physical descriptions of Winston, yet he never asked anyone if he was seen that night at Potbelly’s. It’s not like he’s Joe-Schmo, this is a 6’ 4’’, 231 lb. worshiped football player who 9 times out of 10 could have been pointed out in that bar.
The official FSU hearing was on December 21, 2014, and Winston was cleared of his allegation on sexual assault. Part of Florida Supreme Court Justice Major B. Harding’s decision is below.
I do not find the credibility of one story substantially stronger than that of the other. Both have their own strengths and weaknesses. I cannot find with any confidence that the events as set forth by you, (accuser), or a particular combination thereof is more probable than not as required to find you responsible for a violation of the Code. Therein lies the determinative factor of my decision (Wikipedia).
Following the hearing, Erica Kinsman filed a civil suit against Winston and he countersued her for tortious interference. Erica also sued Florida State University in a Title IX lawsuit, but in January of 2016 they reached of settlement of $950,000 to “…avoid millions of dollars in legal expenses,” according to university president James Thrasher (CNN).
Although she has left the university, she is happy to see that FSU is trying to fix the culture around rape and sexual assault on college campuses. Prevention tasks forces are being made, hiring interpersonal violence experts, and publishing victims’ rights handbook are some of the few things being done around the campus.
So you’re probably wondering why this matters. Maybe your school doesn’t have a large athletics program; maybe they aren’t D1 or D2. Maybe you go to a small art school where the words ‘sports’ or ‘athletics’ are even uttered. I promise you, this matters.
My summary of the Jameis Winston trial may just seem like a typical summary, but the most important points were probably overlooked by at least 60% of you readers.
The errors in this case stick out like a damn sore thumb. The fact that the Tallahassee Police Department, the Florida State University student body, the athletic department, and the university board were treating Erica poorly is unacceptable. I couldn’t imagine being told by a police officer, someone who is supposed to protect you and keep you safe, had the audacity to tell a young woman that her safety wasn’t important enough to ruin someone’s reputation.
More instances like that have happened at many other schools throughout the last 50 years. In 1976 at the University of Notre Dame a witness to an assault done by three football players was told to, “…shut up and mind their own business.” In 1994 at Virginia Tech Christy Brzonkala was raped by two football players. The chargers were dropped after one player threatened to sue the school for poor specific conduct on sexual assault. The other player was to be suspended for a year, but his suspension was lifted right before the next football season started. Brzonkala was publically scolded and shamed by a campus spokeswoman (Murphy). The University of Tulsa allegedly failed to protect a student from one of its men’s basketball players, “who had a history of sexual assault allegations,” (Fagan). And more recently, the University of Connecticut settled a $1.3 million federal lawsuit with five women who got indifferent responses from the school about their claims of sexual assault. Even though they settled, they didn’t admit to doing anything wrong. Most of the money went to a former women’s hockey player “who alleged that she had been kicked off the team after accusing a male hockey player of rape in August 2011,” (Fagan).
It’s really unfortunate that I could continue literally for pages upon pages of more of these stories.
So why pick on athletes? A lot of people like me can look back at high school and remember their quarterback as someone who ‘floats on air’ and can ‘do no wrong’. Everything just seems easier for them. If they aren’t naturally great students, teachers are okay with giving some them leniency because of their crazy schedules. They seemingly walk on a cloud that is just a little bit higher than everyone elses. Athletes, big or small school, know what it’s like to have people look up to them because they’re responsible for protecting a team and school’s reputation (PACT5). Sports bring an insanely large amount of money to schools, in-turn “coaches and school officials tend to be more protective of athletes than of other students,” (PACT5). We love these athletes and worship them so much because they do something that we can’t do and they do a damn good job at it.
But just because they’re great at what they do, doesn’t mean they shouldn’t have to pay for their wrongdoings. At the end of the day, they’re still students of the university, they’re still people in the area, and they’re still your fellow peers in the classroom. A victim shouldn’t feel uncomfortable when walking around campus. Your campus is your home and that is the last place that anyone should question their safety.
It’s important for entire student bodies to know that this is an issue concerning everyone. It’s a statistic that’s been said many times and people are “tired” of hearing it, but 1 in 5 women on a college campus are sexually assaulted. At Syracuse University that is 3,000 women. There are many schools in this country that don’t even have that many students total. Just because it’s not being reported in the media or it’s not what everyone on campus is talking about, doesn’t mean that it’s not a pressing issue.
Silence is wrong and it shouldn’t be encouraged. Shaming a victim for something that they didn’t do is wrong. Student protection on campuses isn’t equal and that’s not fair. Programs like Syracuse’s own advocacy center, R.A.P.E., shouldn’t be secretly shut down with no reasoning behind it and with no student input behind it (Tobin). The counseling center would simply brush up on their skills to handle the load they’d be getting from sexual assault cases. Campuses across the country deserve to have centers that a devoted specifically to sexual assault. It is obviously a bigger issue than people think and more attention needs to be given to it.
Personally, I think college campus sexual assault cases, whether they involve athletes or not, should be taken straight to the town’s or county’s police department. School police officers or security possibly have a bias towards the school and they know us and know our faces as happy students. When cases are handled by the universities themselves they worry about the university first and the victim second.
Nobody deserves to be shamed for speaking his or her truth. Victim treatment in sexual assault cases needs to change and everyone’s help is needed to make that change.
Sources:
http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/25/us/florida-state-fsu-settles-jameis-winston-rape-lawsuit/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jameis_Winston#Controversies
http://deadspin.com/tallahassee-police-finally-admit-problems-with-investig-1746446618
http://www.motherjones.com/media/2013/12/college-football-sexual-assualt-jameis-winston
http://pact5.org/resources/prevention-and-readiness/athletes-and-sexual-assault/