eastern. thanks for watching.

this research came out in the 1990s, and it has been updated. anecdotally, there have been three cases this year. james winson, just before he won the heisman trey, he had allegations of sexual assault. and no charges were filed. but this has been below the surface for just awhile, if the athletes get away with cripes because of their status or if their status makes them tarts for false accusations. raj is bringing in your feedback, and raj, when we talk about rape, especially related to athletes in this culture. >> yeah, hot topic, and a lot of feedback from the community. and it seems to be a societal problem.

on facebook, frank says: >> to help us in this conversation, katherine redmond brown joins us, the founder of the national coalition against violent threats. and brian yates, sports attorney who represents professional sports teams, some of whose fleets have been accused of rape

and scandals. you have a very personal experience. >> right, when i was in my first week in school as a freshman in college in nebraska, he was sexually assaulted twice in a weekend by a football player, the first time, and the second time with two of his friends standing guard. the guilty with that, it was very shocking and upsetting, and the first thing that i will say is that i tried to figure every way possible to blame myself. how did i let this get out of control, what message did i send? even though the people had broken into my room. but i tried to find a way in which i somehow lost control and relinquished it.

the things that are through your head are not things that people would typically think. and a lot of the questions that people on twitter might have, or the concept such that they have, trust me, a rape victim has already gone through that in her head. she was already gone through ways, the questions that will be asked, the names that she will be called and what her family will have to go through with collateral damage. and for me, i had to consider all of that. and my inclination was, i have to move past it. i can beat this, and it's not anything to be send about. i'm not going to leave school, i'll just deal with it. >> did you report it? >> not for 18 months. and it was something where i felt everything was more out of control.

i would be pulled from school. it was a football player at a football school, so what was going to happen to me? and it was something that i wasn't prepared, at newly turned 18 to deal with. >> so you reported it 1 months later to the police, and what was their reaction? >> they took the report but there wasn't an investigation, and i at the time did not expect one because of how long it took, but when the person had a track record or an arrest record that was substantial, then you would think circumstancely, obviously she's to be believed, but there wasn't really an investigation done. and the more that i found out about this individual, the more that i decided that something had to be done, because it wasn't just me. so that's where i filed a title nine lawsuit, and that's why i filed it. and at that time, i had started to develop the symptoms of being

raped that i never thought that i would. and i think that's something that viewers need to understand. you have an onset of symptoms that you can't control soon after that. whether it's eating disorders, nightmares, flashbacks, vigilance, cutting, self-mutilation. and all of those come into play. and i had rage that i couldn't figure out. >> we should mention that title 9 lawsuit, there's a provision that requires the university to make sure that you have a safe environment in the school. >> absolutely. and if they don't react, if they don't investigate, and they allow a person to stay there, that causes a safety risk to other students, then the school is at fault. >> laura, on facebook, robert says:

and we actually have a film, give a listen. >> the psychology of an athlete in regards to how an athlete interacts with others should be broken down and how the athlete is cultivated within the community. surrounded by coaches that put demands on the individual and how the individual is either praised or depressed with these conditions. this has an adverse effect on how the athlete will interact with males and females outside of that circle.

>> bob, i'm going to go with you, because you've been writing for sports in and out of your career. is there a culture with athletes where they feel entitled and behave in a certain way with impunity? >> i think it would be unfair to brand all athletes that way, but however, i will say that this starts long before college or pro. there's an environment where a talented athlete, particularly an athlete that's going to be in a money making sport like football or basketball, is identified very early as being very talented, is coddled very early, and has a lot of people surrounding him and telling him how great he is, and has adults who are making a living presently, or feels they will make one in the future, will view him as an investment. so for that reason, that person becomes an investment. and that's why, in the case, say in a college campus, there's a

lot of pressure not to make any trouble. because this athlete is not merely the star football player. this athlete is the person who is filling hotel rooms on weekends, who is filling the stands on saturdays. and the all sorts of contributions to the school. so there becomes an economic disincentive for schools and communities to do something about this. so an athlete doesn't arrive in college and is all of a sudden feels like that, oh, wow, i've made it, and now i have all of this privilege. if they feel that privilege, they have been getting it since they were in single-digit ages, and unless there's someone along the way to keep them grounded, you can see that. and on the high school level too, there are plenty of cases where

the coaches tend to let them go, because they have a winning football or basketball team and they don't want to upset it, and the team means a lot to the town. so it's something that -- i mean, it's no wonder that an athlete gets the idea that he is somehow privileged. >> bob, talking about these guys as investments, and the ones who are big names and likely to go pro, it's no surprise, some people who tweeted in tonight said look, they're easy targets. let's talk about that, but i also the your opinion on whether there's a culture among some of these very high level athletes where they're held to a different accountability. >> it cuts both ways. where on the one hand, athletes can receive preferential treatment depending on the town and the university. and the prosecutor, and this varies widely from one town to

another, and these are high-profile athletes, and so any accusation against them immediately winds up on the news. and the police and prosecutor are under special pressure to pursue this case, regardless of the facts. and while that can make it difficult, at the same time, we have seen police and prosecutors who fall into a trap where they fall under so much pressure, it works for the athlete's detriment often. and that's kind of the danger of applying a label such as rape. there are 450,000 student athletes in the ncaa. and so once we apply a label like this to an entire group, the danger is that we're flipping the innocence on its head, and that's a very system. >> it's a delicate balance because we don't want to flip the presumption of innocence

it's head, but we want to also bring into the discussion, the women who report these incidences, because there's this gigantic power structure that they're dealing with. >> and i can agree with you on, and we're going to take a take a couple of opposite sides. at the same time, what we're finding out in a lot of these cases, specifically with winston, the victim, the reporting person was treated as the suspect. she had the search warrant. her cellphone was gone through. her computer was gone through. winston didn't have any of that happen to him. and so what happens is, the victim then has to

give so much information and so much evidence to prove beyond th beyond a reasonable doubt, where as soon as the athlete walks into the courtroom, the reasonable doubt is with the athlete. >> the big question is what's ahead for those trials? we have a former nfl player who is joining us to talk about what's really going on in the locker room after the break. hearing this i'm sure from patients. does big pharma impact the doctors in their decision to not offer alternatives to the pill here? >> i think that there is evidence that if you have interactions with pharmaceutical companies, it does impact -- and there's actually pretty good studies based -- that have

looked at physician prescribing patterns and interactions with big pharma. i think one of the luxuries i have is i'm in academic medicine, and we have a policy that we don't interact with pharmaceutical companies. so i hope that gives me a better perspective. and i think a lot of these doctors aren't having these conversations with their patients because i have countless patients who come to me and said they have never heard of iud's. so i think there is some impact of that. we know there's an impact of that. and it makes it challenging, you know, to -- to have a completely unbiased view even though we as doctors like to think we have an unbiased view, there has been evidence that shows that they do

impact us in some ways. so i think it's important for us to go out and educate our providers too. there is no one size fits all birth control, and there are a lot of options that work for women. >> we want to take a closer look, are there unique challenges facing women in minority communities when >> al jazeera america is the only news channel that brings you live news at the top of every hour. >> here are the headlines at this hour. >> only on al jazeera america.

>> welcome back, we're talking about athletes and rape culture, and we asked the community to weigh in on who is responsible for this problem. >> the opinions go across the board. donna on twitter:

>> sum it up, they say everyone. >> everyone has a responsibility. brian, what difference would it make if the ncaa did take a strong stance violence? >> the ncaa's focus is almost entirely on academics and amateurism. whether an athlete has the grades more than anything else. and they could step in and take more of a leadership role in this. right now, each university sets it's own standards here. some wait until an athlete is

formally charged with a crime for suspension, and others are more aggressive, so there's a little bit of a void there. in professionals, we have seen more. in 2007, allowing, and ben roethlisberger was suspended under that a few years. so in terms of who can step in and do something about allegations, or formal charges. >> hey, derek, there's a big difference in provisions and enforcement of those provisions. in your perspective, is enough being done in the professional leagues to put an end to rape? >> lisa, i'll say that enough is not being done. we're not doing enough at this point. and i think there's a lot more to be done, and at the same time, we need to continue to enforce these rules, and that they are followed. and we have to actually -- let's look at this. we were talking a little bit

earlier about some of the things that we're facing, and society is the biggest issue. we look at grand theft auto, the game, do you know how emotionally kids are getting into these games? when you look at that, and school shootings and things, it's all a negative influence, and when we look at just the -- what's not going on in high schools and colleges and moving onto the nfl. we're not doing enough to take care of the hounding situations, because we're more concerned about the reputation of the school or the college or the league itself more so than actually doing what is right. >> well, derek, aaron echoes that sentiment:

and katherine, how should the universities move forward? >> first of all, the universities need to take back their power from athletic deposits. deposits -- departments. the athletic departments wield the power. and the not. >> is that part of the problem here, that we're in fact, we're asking the university administrators to play a role that they're not qualified to play. a university president is not qualified to take the place of the police and prosecutors in investigating something as serious as an assault allegation. >> you're right. but under federal law, under title nine, schools must investigate, and so therefore, it has been put back into the academic side. you have the coaches, and let's take joe paterno.

>> we have 3 seconds left. the first thing that needs to happen, of course, the ncaa needs it get involved. and they're not going to get involved. they're concerned with making money. even at the expense of the athlete. i want each of them to know what is sexual assault, how they should handle it, how they should be in the locker room, and really, bring it to them as, if this was your sister, if this was your girlfriend, would you to rate it? and i know what the answer is. >> i want to thank all of our guests. until net, raj and i will see you online. fist is

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