Nikki Glaser’s Comedy Central show Not Safe usually focuses on the sexual exploits people are shy to talk about openly, but on Tuesday, she dedicated a segment to the subject most universities don’t want to admit is event happening: campus rape.
With special guest Katie Nolan, Glaser focuses largely on rape perpetrated by sports stars after sharing some statistics on coercive sex generally. It is a comedy show, so attempts at levity are scattered throughout to varying degrees of success, like Shushie the rape-ignoring ostrich mascot. The tone is more serious when Glaser interviews a woman named Brenda Tracy, who was gang raped in 1998 at Oregon State University.
At the time, Tracy was told she had a bad case for prosecution by the DA, when in reality there were recorded confessions from her attackers. Discouragement from lawyers and the difficulties she faced from one-time friends and unsupportive family members led to her dropping the case against the college football players. They received a one-game suspension, and two of the four did 25 hours of community service.
On the Not Safe show website there is currently a list of the thousand schools that improbably listed zero rapes in 2014. They also link to the petition begun by Tracy’s son, Darius Tracy, to the National College Athletic Association demanding that they create a policy to ban violent athletes. The full interview with Brenda Tracy is below:
Screenshot via Comedy Central.
DISCUSSION
I checked that list of schools and had a momentary feeling of relief when I saw mine wasn’t on there. But then I realized that it meant that there WAS at least one reported rape at my alma mater in 2014. That’s horrifying. I guess this shows me how easy it is to suffer from the ‘this doesn’t happen in my backyard’ mindset.