Less than two weeks ago Senator Mark Warner was asked a question about how to address sexual violence against women on campus. He pointed to the Administrations as the place where a culture that enforces appropriate behavior begins. A WHSV report does not reflect well on JMU’s.
In the first of a three part series that began airing last night and continues tonight and tomorrow, a former JMU student tells her story of assault at the hands of three other JMU students while on Spring break in Florida. These were men that she considered her friends and whose video of the assault filtered through the internet before she was fully aware of what happened.
“I’m clearly like not really able to defend myself or fight them off,” said Butters, “We were in an enclosed bathroom. It was three of them surrounding me and none of them thought they were doing anything wrong.”
But the Administration was slow to act. The event occurred in March 2013 and was reported but the case did not seem to gain any attention until last fall. By the time the three members of the JMU Sigma Chi fraternity were admonished, they had earned their degrees and were allowed to graduate.
Their punishment: expelled upon graduation; not allowed to walk at graduation or allowed back on campus … but graduated nonetheless.
This ball is not in Senator Warner’s court now. This hot potato is Governor McAuliffe’s. It is time for him to expel some of the administrators at JMU.
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