Four weeks into UVA's 2012 school year, 18-year-old Jackie was crushing it at college. A chatty, straight-A achiever from a rural Virginia town, she'd initially been intimidated by UVA's aura of preppy success, where throngs of toned, tanned and overwhelmingly blond students fanned across a landscape of neoclassical brick buildings, hurrying to classes, clubs, sports, internships, part-time jobs, volunteer work and parties; Jackie's orientation leader had warned her that UVA students' schedules were so packed that "no one has time to date – people just hook up." But despite her reservations, Jackie had flung herself into campus life, attending events, joining clubs, making friends and, now, being asked on an actual date. She and Drew had met while working lifeguard shifts together at the university pool, and Jackie had been floored by Drew's invitation to dinner, followed by a "date function" at his fraternity, Phi Kappa Psi. The "upper tier" frat had a reputation of tremendous wealth, and its imposingly large house overlooked a vast manicured field, giving "Phi Psi" the undisputed best real estate along UVA's fraternity row known as Rugby Road.

Now, climbing the frat-house stairs with Drew, Jackie felt excited. Drew ushered Jackie into a bedroom, shutting the door behind them. The room was pitch-black inside. Jackie blindly turned toward Drew, uttering his name. At that same moment, she says, she detected movement in the room – and felt someone bump into her. Jackie began to scream.

"Shut up," she heard a man's voice say as a body barreled into her, tripping her backward and sending them both crashing through a low glass table. There was a heavy person on top of her, spreading open her thighs, and another person kneeling on her hair, hands pinning down her arms, sharp shards digging into her back, and excited male voices rising all around her. When yet another hand clamped over her mouth, Jackie bit it, and the hand became a fist that punched her in the face. The men surrounding her began to laugh. For a hopeful moment Jackie wondered if this wasn't some collegiate prank. Perhaps at any second someone would flick on the lights and they'd return to the party.

"Grab its motherfucking leg," she heard a voice say. And that's when Jackie knew she was going to be raped.

She remembers every moment of the next three hours of agony, during which, she says, seven men took turns raping her, while two more – her date, Drew, and another man – gave instruction and encouragement. She remembers how the spectators swigged beers, and how they called each other nicknames like Armpit and Blanket. She remembers the men's heft and their sour reek of alcohol mixed with the pungency of marijuana. Most of all, Jackie remembers the pain and the pounding that went on and on.

As the last man sank onto her, Jackie was startled to recognize him: He attended her tiny anthropology discussion group. He looked like he was going to cry or puke as he told the crowd he couldn't get it up. "Pussy!" the other men jeered. "What, she's not hot enough for you?" Then they egged him on: "Don't you want to be a brother?" "We all had to do it, so you do, too." Someone handed her classmate a beer bottle. Jackie stared at the young man, silently begging him not to go through with it. And as he shoved the bottle into her, Jackie fell into a stupor, mentally untethering from the brutal tableau, her mind leaving behind the bleeding body under assault on the floor.

Two years later, Jackie, now a third-year, is worried about what might happen to her once this article comes out. Greek life is huge at UVA, with nearly one-third of undergrads belonging to a fraternity or sorority, so Jackie fears the backlash could be big – a "shitshow" predicted by her now-former friend Randall, who, citing his loyalty to his own frat, declined to be interviewed. But her concerns go beyond taking on her alleged assailants and their fraternity. Lots of people have discouraged her from sharing her story, Jackie tells me with a pained look, including the trusted UVA dean to whom Jackie reported her gang-rape allegations more than a year ago. On this deeply loyal campus, even some of Jackie's closest friends see her going public as tantamount to betrayal.

The first weeks of freshman year are when students are most vulnerable to sexual assault

Studies have shown that fraternity men are three times as likely to commit rape, and a spate of recent high-profile cases illustrates the dangers that can lurk at frat parties, like a University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee frat accused of using color-coded hand stamps as a signal to roofie their guests, and this fall's suspension of Brown University's chapter of Phi Kappa Psi – of all fraternities – after a partygoer tested positive for the date-rape drug GHB.

Frats are often the sole option for an underage drinker looking to party, since bars are off-limits, sororities are dry and first-year students don't get many invites to apartment soirees. Instead, the kids crowd the walkways of the big, anonymous frat houses, vying for entry.

Most of that hooking up is consensual. But against that backdrop, as psychologist David Lisak discovered, lurk undetected predators. Lisak's 2002 groundbreaking study of more than 1,800 college men found that roughly nine out of 10 rapes are committed by serial offenders, who are responsible for an astonishing average of six rapes each. None of the offenders in Lisak's study had ever been reported. Lisak's findings upended general presumptions about campus sexual assault: It implied that most incidents are not bumbling, he-said-she-said miscommunications, but rather deliberate crimes by serial sex offenders.

UVA is one of only 12 schools under a sweeping investigation known as "compliance review": a proactive probe launched by the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights itself, triggered by concerns about deep-rooted issues. "They are targeted efforts to go after very serious concerns," says Office of Civil Rights assistant secretary Catherine Lhamon. "We don't open compliance reviews unless we have something that we think merits it."

I've been meaning to read this article, but I still haven't...

Quote from: IcyWind on November 20, 2014, 01:22:11 PM

So, let me ask: Aside from the federal investigation and severe penalties that are coming down, what more can be done to prevent this growing problem?

Freshman girls can learn how to drink in highschool so they don't go away to college and get fucked up/blackout during the first week and either die or get raped.

Far too common.

Well its true. The people who die from alcohol poisoning are generally the geeks from highschool who never drank before.

If I ever have a daughter, she WILL know how to drink before she leaves for college.

ok so whats your solution to getting raped at college?

Mine is educating my kids on drinking and learning how to drink responsibility. What could possibly be better than that?

I mean..."don't rape people" is a pretty good thing to teach teens, too...

For the same reason, we need to focus efforts on female students when it comes to managing oneself with alcohol.

Quote from: IcyWind on November 20, 2014, 02:53:27 PM

Quote from: Meta Cognition on November 20, 2014, 02:51:52 PM

For the same reason, we need to focus efforts on female students when it comes to managing oneself with alcohol.

The efforts need to not be solely on the education of female students, though. These fraternities that are known to be breeding grounds for sexual assault need to be dealt with as well.

Absolutely, and I completely agree. I just worry there's a tendency to see any attempts at modifying the behaviour of female students as trying to justify the actions of the rapists, which is utterly untrue. It's merely pragmatic.

Quote from: IcyWind on November 20, 2014, 02:58:42 PM

Fact of the matter is, as shitty as it is, drinking is part of college life in America, and no amount of saying "don't drink" is going to fix that.

I'm not saying "don't drink" so much as merely "be aware". Purely precautionary of course, no solution which involves female students having to be overtly cautious and mindful when they want to have a good time should be permanent.

Quote from: IcyWind on November 20, 2014, 02:47:38 PM

Quote from: Kinder on November 20, 2014, 02:47:14 PM

Quote from: IcyWind on November 20, 2014, 02:45:41 PM

Quote from: Kinder on November 20, 2014, 02:24:27 PM

Best form of rape prevention right here. I'd make sure if I ever have a daughter, she'd get one before going off to college

Great. And for the people who don't want to carry a gun everywhere?

That will get the point across (pun intended)

I'm not even going to bother trying to have a discussion with you on the subject...

Because my suggestions are "too violent"?