Two former Vanderbilt football players, Brandon Vandenburg, 21, and Cory Batey, 20, were found guiltyyesterday of raping a fellow student. The jury took just over three hours to reject the defense argument that binge-drinking and a campus culture of promiscuity, not the men themselves, were responsible for an assault that lasted 30 minutes and involved Batey penetrating the victim with his fingers and urinating on her while Vandenburg, who had been dating the woman, laughed. Both men also slapped her, and the men, allegedly along with two other friends, Brandon E. Banks and Jaborian "Tip" McKenzie, took videos and photos, and someone inserted a water bottle into her anus. Banks and McKenzie are awaiting trial.
The survivor of the attack cried as the verdict was read. Vandenburg's father had an outburst and left the courtroom.
The woman was unconscious when the assault happened and did not remember it. No one who witnessed the assault or who saw the players carrying the unconscious woman into a dorm room reported it to school authorities. It was only when campus authorities were later reviewing closed-circuit video trying to ascertain what had damaged a dormitory door that they saw the footage of the woman's limp body being carried into a room. The university reported it to the police.
The players have been expelled from Vanderbilt.
"I am also hopeful that the publicity this case has received will lead to a discussion of how we can end sexual violence on college campuses," the woman said in a statement. "Finally, I want to remind other victims of sexual violence: You are not alone. You are not to blame."
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Jill Filipovic is a contributing writer for cosmopolitan.com. She is the author of OK Boomer, Let's Talk: How My Generation Got Left Behind and The H-Spot: The Feminist Pursuit of Happiness. A weekly CNN columnist and a contributing writer for the New York Times, she is also a lawyer.
