Sociological Imagination Project
By: Talha Zubair
University of Virginia
The UVA is one of the wildest campus in America. They think that they are above laws and that no can touch them. As they say in their Rugby Road song, "The faculty's afraid of us, they know we're in the right". People, including administration of UVA, ignore everything bad that happens in UVA to protect the name of the university. They go so above and Beyond to protect the UVA's name that they ignore the crimes like rape and sexual assaults. The UVA is one of the 82 schools that are under federal investigation on these matters and only one of 12 school that are under "compliance review", which is deeper investigation of serious issues.
Jackie
Jackie, now in her third year at UVA, was a freshmen when she was asked by a famous fraternity guy name Drew to go to a party with him. Jackie was excited and took hours getting ready for the party. Little did she knew that would the worst night of her life. Drew spiked her drink and took her to the room upstairs where 7 of his friends were waiting. Those 7 men took turns raping her while Drew watched and gave instructions. Later that night she walked out of the party with her dress ripped and soaked in blood. She called her 3 best friend and two of them advise her to not to the hospital or police because that would ruined her reputation for next four year.
After the Rape
Two weeks after Jackie was raped, she ran into Drew at her life guard duty. Drew acted like nothing ever happened and told her that he had a great time last night. Jackie unable to speak or be around Drew, took of early and went to her room. Jackie did not go to her class rest of the week and quit her job at lifeguard. She failed three of her class that semester being depressed and helpless.
Coming out with her Story
Towards the end of her freshmen year, Jackie finally decided to held them accountable. She went to the Peabody Hall office of Dean Nicole Eramo, head of UVA's Sexual Misconduct Board hoping to get justice. Eramo laid out all the options for Jackie and told it was her decision what to do with the rape. Jackie was confused so she tried looking up Police crime reports of UVA. She couldn't find anything online and later learn that they took it off online because, " no one wants to send their daughters to a rape school".
Emily Renda
Emily Renda was also raped at UVA on October 7 2010. Emily sat down with Jackie to listen to her story and comfort her. Both became close friends as they shared each other stories. Jackie blames herself going to a party and being so naive and letting Drew flirt with her. Emily comfort her by telling that she is not responsible for that they will realize someday that what they was wrong and they will have to live that for rest on their life.
Empathy
In this article, most of the people that Jackie tried talking to lacked empathy. Some of Jackie's friends and roommates who told to not share her story or go to police had no idea what she was going through. UVA's administration was more concern about their campus's reputation than their students well being. If they had any idea what Jackie was going through, UVA would do anything to held those raspiest accountable. Only people who were empathetic towards Jackie were the women who had been in a similar situation before.