Over the Christmas break of my freshman year of college, my friends from home and I gathered in a living room to watching "The Hunting Ground." With greasy popcorn-coated fingers and stomachs full of fear, we hesitantly began watching the shocking documentary. For those of you who have never seen it, "The Hunting Ground"tells the stories of real college students and their experiences with sexual assault. Some of the tales made us cry while all left us speechless and scared. We had all just finished our first semester of college and felt invincible, but these portrayals made us realize how truly vulnerable we all actually were, and are.

I maybe didn't feel as surprised to hear these revelations as some of my friends did. I felt lucky because during orientation at Richmond, we were told that Richmond had one of the highest reporting rates of sexual assault but that it was a good thing. The high reporting rates indicated people felt comfortable and safe coming forward to tell their stories, unlike at some universities where only one or two incidents are reported every year. Some of the survivors who talked during "The Hunting Ground" indicated that this was the case at their schools because often times universities protected the accused, especially if the accused was an athlete.

"Thank goodness I don't go to a school like that," I thought to myself, "thank goodness I go to a school where victims are encouraged to come forwards and perpetrators are always fairly punished."

In light of recent events, I've come to the conclusion that I thought wrong.

As many of you, specifically those who attend or attended the University of Richmond have heard or read or even shared, earlier this week a student came forward and published her experience with sexual assault on the Huffington Post contributor platform. The next day, the University sent out a response to all of the students, staff and faculty addressing the story. At first, when I saw the university sent out a response I was thrilled to know administrators were acknowledging the article and hopefully doing something in response.

Again, I was wrong.

Not only was the original story filled with horrific accusations about how the administration handled the sexual assault case, the new email essentially called the author of the original article a liar and that she falsely depicted the events through stating that some facts were "inaccurate." The author then responded back in another Huffington Post article going more in depth with details and showing actual screenshots of correspondence with administrators.

So here is what I, an average female sophomore at Richmond, have gathered from the past few days. Like I said, it seems I was wrong about the school I love. Over the past year I have felt safe knowing that my school does not protect individuals who commit violent sexual assaults. I don't know if I still feel the same level of safety. I feel misled and especially as an orientation advisor, feel like I misled my orientees in telling them the reason there is high reporting is because our administration does such a good job in dealing with the cases that are reported.

There are many facts that I don't know about this specific case. What I do know is that the author of the Huffington Post article is incredibly brave and I commend her courage and thank her for sharing her story. I also know something needs to change. I don't want to continue to go to a school where a scenario can end up in a documentary like "The Hunting Ground" and where a person can admit to raping and still be at this school and where an administrator tells a student that another student's orgasm is more important than her human rights.

And one more thing, in all of this the university administrators have not released the name of the accused or verified or denied any details. They have just called the victim's story "inaccurate." If they revealed facts they would face consequences. I understand that not revealing these details is not allowed, but isn't having sex with someone who doesn't consent not allowed either?

Shouldn't someone who breaks the rule, I mean law, be punished? Just sayin'.