Junior Juliette Dallas-Feeney, a Hatchet columnist, discusses the dynamics of rape on college campuses and argues for GW’s SACC to increase its profile.

Last week, an 18-year-old Hofstra University student told police she had been gang-raped by five men in a residence hall bathroom. A few days later, she recanted her story and said the sex was consensual.

The story made national headlines, with some arguing over who was at fault for the debacle. Charges may be levied against the accuser, but the real question that should be asked is why would this woman make such an accusation and then retract it in the span of a few days? The possibilities are endless. Maybe she had consensual sex with the men, freaked out and cried rape, and then took it back. Maybe she just didn’t want to deal with the intense emotional stress and media frenzy that a rape trial so often involves, and thought that retracting her statement would avoid that.