Documentary filmmaker Kirby Dick could not have been more provocative nor insightful nor incisive in his documentary The Hunting Ground. I’ll just get to the point: The Hunting Ground explores the epidemic of on-campus rape, and colleges and universities should make this film a requirement for every student who enters their hallowed halls. What is heart-wrenching about The Hunting Ground is that Dick gives over his film to the young women who have experienced the trauma of rape, and the humiliation that attends the crime when administrators, students, and even the police dismiss the allegations and blame the victim. These young women are brave as the camera closes in on their every emotion.

Erica Kinsman, a Florida State student, for example, tells her story of rape by the college’s star quarterback Jameis Winston, who went on to become the youngest player to win the Heismann trophy in 2013. No charges were brought against him even though the DNA matched Kinsman’s rape kit. The net of protection around the athlete absolutely will floor you! Dick, however, cuts through that net, and each and every player responsible for this protective shield drops out framed by the copious footage of Winston on the field, post-game, and all of the celebrations around his victories on the field and his Heismann win.

The young women in this movie survived their trauma; however, Elizabeth “Lizzy” Seeberg, a St. Mary’s College Student, committed suicide after receiving a text “messing with Notre Dame football is a bad idea” when she reported her rape by an unnamed Notre Dame football player.

Students Advocate for a Rape Free Campus

What is incisive about The Hunting Ground is that indicts the college and university administrator who turns a blind eye; Dick’s exposes their almost “hands off” response to the young women who come to them, and the University President, especially is exposed as a pretender of concern. But Kirby goes for the jugular when in a denouncement of on-campus fraternities whose members are accused of being the predators of female flesh at frat parties. Specifically, he attacks with a vengeance, and I mean with a vengeance–the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity, better known as “Sexual Assault Expected.”— you know, that same fraternity who just has been expelled from the University of Oklahoma for its racist rant during an alcohol saturated party.

Go and see this documentary. It is necessary. You will feel so outraged that you will hard pressed not to draw up a placard and take to the streets the injustices that these young women have to endure once they drum up the courage to tell their stories.

The Hunting Ground Plays through April 16 at The Ross Media Arts Center in Lincoln.

Also The Hunt for General Tso opens today and plays through April 9^th at The Ross.