It Happened Here Film Critique
It Happened Here is a documentary that takes the viewer through the stories of a handful of women and their stories of being sexually assaulted on their college campuses. Five women tell their stories on how, when, and where their assaults happen and the results of their assault. The documentary states that 1 in 5 women on college campuses are sexually assaulted and that less than 20 percent of all assaults go unreported. The documentary submerges you into these women’s stories and the steps they took in regaining their lives after being sexually assaulted. They all discussed being afraid and feeling broken down, they were no longer themselves. Their attackers were still around them and their schools claimed they …show more content…
In the past college campuses often swept things under the rug and told victims that they should learn to forgive their attackers and move on. More often than not students were not given the accommodations that they asked for after being sexually assaulted on campus and this was a violation of their rights as students at that institution. Attackers were continuing their education without consequences because colleges were not doing anything to actively punish them and victims sat by unable to do anything about it. It Happened Here brings Title IX to life and shows women that they can speak out, and that there are options and actions can be taken against their attackers if you know where to look. In an article posted in the Columbia Journal of Gender and Law, Shannon Cleary discusses a young woman’s experience with Yale Law and how she used Title IX to make a claim because the university was not upholding her rights as a student. A young woman by the name of Kathryn Kelly claimed, “Yale’s response to her report of being sexually assaulted by a fellow student was inadequate” (Cleary, 2015). It is reported that Kelly repeatedly requested housing changes be made as her attacker lived in the same dorm but nothing was done about it until several weeks later. Kelly’s claim was able to
It Happened Here is a documentary that takes the viewer through the stories of a handful of women and their stories of being sexually assaulted on their college campuses. Five women tell their stories on how, when, and where their assaults happen and the results of their assault. The documentary states that 1 in 5 women on college campuses are sexually assaulted and that less than 20 percent of all assaults go unreported. The documentary submerges you into these women’s stories and the steps they took in regaining their lives after being sexually assaulted. They all discussed being afraid and feeling broken down, they were no longer themselves. Their attackers were still around them and their schools claimed they …show more content…
In the past college campuses often swept things under the rug and told victims that they should learn to forgive their attackers and move on. More often than not students were not given the accommodations that they asked for after being sexually assaulted on campus and this was a violation of their rights as students at that institution. Attackers were continuing their education without consequences because colleges were not doing anything to actively punish them and victims sat by unable to do anything about it. It Happened Here brings Title IX to life and shows women that they can speak out, and that there are options and actions can be taken against their attackers if you know where to look. In an article posted in the Columbia Journal of Gender and Law, Shannon Cleary discusses a young woman’s experience with Yale Law and how she used Title IX to make a claim because the university was not upholding her rights as a student. A young woman by the name of Kathryn Kelly claimed, “Yale’s response to her report of being sexually assaulted by a fellow student was inadequate” (Cleary, 2015). It is reported that Kelly repeatedly requested housing changes be made as her attacker lived in the same dorm but nothing was done about it until several weeks later. Kelly’s claim was able to