5 Reasons We Can’t Wait To Read Jon Krakauer’s Missoula

The issue of sexual assault on college campuses is attracting a lot of attention these days. The federal government is investigating universities from Arizona to West Virginia to see if their policies comply with the rules set out by Title IX, including prohibitions against “discrimination on the basis of sex in all education programs or activities that receive federal financial assistance.” Even elite schools like Princeton and Amherst are under scrutiny.
Media attention has begun to change the way schools handle accusations of rape. As Time reports, up until now, the few victims who report their assaults—only an estimated 20%—make their reports to college administrators rather than to the police. But disciplinary procedures can be scattershot and unreliable, in part because colleges aren’t set up to be arbiters of criminal justice, meaning that, in the cloistered atmosphere of a campus, victims are often forced to continue encountering their attackers: seeing them at parties, in class, at the dining hall. Although going to the police can have mixed results, there are at least official procedures on the books—and now that the media is paying, and drawing, national attention to this issue, some universities are beginning to change their policies and/or suggest students press criminal charges.
Some schools don’t seem to have gotten the message yet. In 2014, an undergrad at Columbia became an international sensation by carrying her mattress around with her in protest after her accused assailant was declared “Not Guilty” in a campus hearing and allowed to remain at school. Other women who felt they had been treated unfairly by their institutions spoken out, too. New York magazine argues that “by owning those accusations, and pointing a finger not only at assailants but also the American university, the ivory tower of privilege, these survivors have built the most effective, organized anti-rape movement since the late ’70s.” Still, they need media support to effect real change.
Sometimes, in trying to bring attention to the issue, the media has only muddled matters further. When Rolling Stone published an unverified story in 2014 about a gang rape at the University of Virginia, it was criticized by numerous sources and later had to both walk back its conclusions and offer an apology. The victim’s reputation was tarnished, as was Rolling Stone‘s. It would be understandable, though unfortunate, if other media outlets, wary of making the same mistake, stopped trying to tell this kind of important story. Sexual assault on campus remains a very real problem.
Jon Krakauer is a well-established, careful, and trustworthy writer who has taken time to put together a comprehensive book-length narrative on an issue of great importance. If anyone can get the difficult but crucial national conversation we need to have back on track, he can.
Missoula hits shelves April 21, and is available for pre-order now.