VICTIM BLAMING

Based on UGA students’ reactions towards segregation, the rhetoric centered around that integration was imposed upon them from the federal government. They never wanted it. One of the students mentioned that the federal government should not exercise that much power to “force” integration. They also claimed that the integration order from the federal government was “un-American” and infringed upon their own rights, as well as, state rights. At that time, the right to attend the segregated school was their American heritage and God-given right. This “forced” rhetoric seemed to have created the victim-blaming narrative. Since the federal government arbitrarily compelled UGA to accept black students, white students at UGA have thought that they had the right to reject that decision and do anything (racist slurs or violence) to stop integration. In this process, even if Black students report and complain, the UGA community has blamed them for being here at the historically segregated school. White students have created the narrative that “You asked for this to happen by coming here” (Cohen, 617). 

This victim-blaming narrative has frequently been applied by the Equal Opportunity Office. When the office was tasked with addressing issues on “discrimination on the basis of race, sex (including sexual harassment and pregnancy), gender identity, sexual orientation, ethnicity or national origin, religion, age, genetic information, disability or veteran status”, they often decided that victim-blaming was a good tactic to silence the targeted student; they wanted to protect the reputation as a seven-time recipient of the Higher Education Excellence in Diversity Award. (Thomas). For instance, recently, a fraternity called Lambda Chi Alpha at the University of Georgia shared racist texts on their group chat. Screenshots of messages were leaked and shared by Ari Mbunwe who has been exposing people on campus who are contributing to the rise of COVID cases. These messages contained racial slurs (towards Ari) along with a reference to her genitalia. When Ari reported these messages to the Equal Opportunity Office, their response was referring back to her tweets exposing sorority and fraternity, and her tweets were just as bad as these texts. They implied that she asked for this to happen and should not have brought these issues up to the office even though her tweets had nothing to do with the current situation. They were victim-blaming Ari rather than trying to address the problem and resolve it (Dier). 

The University has been claiming that racism does not stand a place within the campus. However, whenever racist incidents occur, UGA delegates these to the Equal Opportunity Office and becomes silent about them. As we have witnessed, EOO is not the best place to seek changes for the BIPOC community. UGA should step up and create a plan for EOO so that EOO stops blaming victims and assesses incidents with better tactics.