On November 19, Rolling Stone Magazine released an article about an alleged gang rape at UVA. A current student at the university came forward saying that she was raped by several men at a frat party her first year. Since then, President Sullivan, the fraternity involved, and various other parties have released statements. Anyone who is literate has shared it on Facebook and has had some sort of response to it. The article intended to start a dialogue about rape culture, and that is exactly what is has done. That being said, I’ve seen and heard some reactions to this article that are, quite frankly, pretty appalling. So I felt like addressing them.

Similar views have been expressed by a large number of alumni and students; they’ve all said the article was wrong to portray UVA in such a bad light. A great many then went on to express their sympathy for the victims and affirmed that this broken system needs to change. But the fact that they felt the need to defend the reputation of the school before standing up for the dignity and well-being of an actual human being is pretty telling. The question is: Does the social reputation of your school actually add any value to your education? Probably not. The school is a prestigious institution with a multi-billion dollar endowment. It will recover. If UVA’s social reputation is temporary collateral damage of a movement towards an ultimately positive cause, I think you can all weather the storm. In the end, your school does not define you. To belong to a collegiate community does not require you to subscribe to the beliefs or uphold the practices of the institution and the others within it. But be cognizant of the fact that if you want others to recognize this, you must demonstrate it.

Another response I saw from one of my Facebook “friends” was an accusation that the people who were sharing this article were just “jumping on the bandwagon” and attempting to correct a wrong from the outside, without really understanding how the inside works. Here’s the thing, rape culture is not a “bandwagon”. It’s something that is happening whether you’re aware of it or not, and ignorance just adds to the problem.  The only way to change the situation is to inform the public about it. With something like this, you need people to jump on the “bandwagon”. You need people to know, and to be infuriated at the situation. Without this article, few people would be talking about this, and nothing would ever change. Now, at least, we have the hope that the university will do something about this outrageous behavior. Suggesting that people are just jumping into a topic that you already knew about just makes me wonder:  Then why didn’t you do anything about it?

The final, and most recent,  response I heard was probably the worst one. I was talking to someone about the article when they said “I get why UVA covered it up. College is like a business. No one’s going to want to go there if they know girls are getting raped, so they should just keep it quiet.” This statement left me pretty dumbfounded. I’m not sure that this person actually read the article, but if they did, they totally missed the point. Yes, it makes sense that UVA would want to hide incidences of rape to maintain its image, but that certainly doesn’t make it ok. I think we’ve lost a sense of the worth of the individual. Everything is about the image of the institution, corporation, or school you belong to, and dissenters can shut up and deal with it.

Don’t distance yourself from the problem. Admit that it exists, and then actually work to change it. Sharing (and even writing) articles is great, but it doesn’t mean anything until you put it in action. Don’t just share the article to get likes, read it, stay informed, act, even if it means UVA won’t have the reputation you want it to have.