If you were brave enough to watch 2012 Oscar-nominated documentary THE INVISIBLE WAR, which threw a much-needed spotlight on sexual assault in the military, it may have been easier to bury deep in your head the disturbing facts brought to light in that haunting film if you don't actually know a woman in the military. The team that brought that film together—producer Amy Ziering and director Kirby Dick—have now expertly exposed the epidemic that is sexual assaults and the precision cover-ups that are happening at collect campuses across the nation in their latest work, THE HUNTING GROUND. And the odds seem better that you might know a young woman who went to college, so no more burying your head in the sand on this issue.
What is both surprising and pleasantly surprising about the approach THE HUNTING GROUND takes to its admittedly difficult subject is that it isn't afraid to name names. A fairly sizable number of colleges and universities are called out, not so much for being unsafe places for women to attend but for outright unacceptable policies regarding reporting and investigating of sex crimes, and punishing the offenders in a timely or suitable manner.
What becomes apparent almost immediately is that nearly every woman interviewed in the film has a unique story to tell until they get the part where they report the crime itself. They are repeatedly and consistently met with a wall of resistance from campus police and administrators, more concerned with the reputation of the school than the safety of its students. I understand schools not wanting to get the reputation of being "rape" schools, but it seems that having a reputation of being a school that takes these crimes seriously might be something that a school can brag about as well.
THE HUNTING GROUND makes a strong (if somewhat obvious) case for the role of campus fraternities and athletic departments doing a great deal of the covering up, and it specifically goes after Florida State University quarterback Jameis Winston, whose name will likely be heard early in the upcoming NFL draft. The lengths to which both FSU and local authorities went to bury his accuser (who details her story for the filmmakers) is ugly and corrupt by every definition of the words, and makes her a victim once again.
Unlike some docs that present a terrible reality simply to open your eyes to it with no real ideas on how the problem can be solved and bad situation be made better, THE HUNTING GROUND prominently features a handful of women who took their shared experience and turned it into a movement, attempting to humiliate institutions of higher learning into re-examining their policies and procedures on reporting and investigating rape allegations. They've have even found a way to have a long list of schools investigated for violations under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in all education programs or activities that receive federal financial assistance. In other words, if the schools don't make their campuses less hostile toward women, they risk losing federal funding. It's a fascinating and hopeful experiment that offers a glimmer of hope for justice.
Like THE INVISIBLE WAR, THE HUNTING GROUND is not an easy watch. But if you walk out of it not seeing the vastness of the problem or the fact that rape culture on college campuses is practically an accepted way of life in too many places, then congratulations: you're part of the problem. This is essential viewing, and it should be a wake-up call to anyone sending a daughter or son to college.
