What should I think walking away from this?
At first I was horrified at the way the universities seemed to react to these claims. Then because I was curious I tried to find more info on the stats and the cases and found issues with both. First the false accusation stat seems very fallible and second a couple of the women featured in the documentary seem to have been misrepresented and the outcome of the case and the details tell a different story.
But again I come back to the main thread of this movie, which is the universities reactions to these claims. Supposedly asking things like what were you wearing, or what would you have done differently, or making it difficult to get access to the accused because they are a star athlete. The only way these are not horrible is if you believe everyone in the documentary is lying, including all the parents and former staff and literally every fact presented is false, like the teachers who were dismissed the same year they received accolades or some of the sentencing examples. I don't.
So what do I take away? Some would tell me to ignore the false accusations or the naysayers and some would tell to ignore the documentary. I don't think either is appropriate. I believe there is an issue with the way rape accusations are handled by the universities. I think they should be reported to the police and they should be investigated. I also think the issue of false accusations should be more seriously and not just ignored or minimized. I think they are both issues to be taken seriously, but my personal opinion is that sexual assault goes unpunished more than false accusations. However I also think this documentary hurt its case by not being more objective, by including testimony from potentially false accusations and omitting facts of the case to support those accusers and by not reaching out the accused of those cases.
So what do you think? I'm interested in any links that provide information, statistics, or informed opinions on either side.