They say that journalism is the first rough draft of history. For me, understanding history guides us when making sense of the world and making decisions about how to interpret it.

But when we ignore history and the issues involved, we doom ourselves to repeat it.

In 1984 the University of Tennessee Press published a comprehensive history of the university, “To Foster Knowledge: A History of the University of Tennessee 1794-1970.” Overall, the authors do a tremendous job in speaking with decision makers from the time and gauging the mood of campus over the centuries. “To Foster Knowledge,” has guided me in much of my research for this column series. However, some aspects get more attention than others. While the volume is nearly 500 pages, roughly five of those pages are devoted to desegregation at UT and how the Civil Rights movement affected us. For one of the most important developments of our campus in the past century, the information about the struggle for racial equality is slim at best and at worst misleading.

After integration, all mention of racial issues on campus ends in the book. If taken the right way, one could infer that racism on campus ended after integration and all was well with the world.

“For the most part students and faculty worked to prevent any unpleasantness during integration,” according to the author, James Riley Montgomery.

The book also quotes Harry Blanton, the first African-American to earn a doctorate at UT saying that “There was no open hostility or resentment …” But did the authors talk to everyone?

Take the story of Jimmie Baxter, the first president for African-American Student Government Association. According to an interview of his in Special Collections, we know that despite Baxter’s prominent role on campus, racism was still very much alive on campus in the late 1960s. Baxter says he was elected not because of a groundswell of support for an integrated campus, but partly because he promised those on Fraternity Row he would not try to disband or limit their organizations.

Despite being a prominent member of campus life, Baxter encountered a significant amount of resistance from students based on the color of his skin.

In one case, Baxter says a white student near him during English class proudly proclaimed that his future wife would never work, because the student would then have to hire a (n-word) to raise his children and that he could never have a (n-word) raise his kids.

We seem to have a discrepancy between our official version of life at UT after desegregation, and events from a student that lived through the events themselves.

This is not a critique of “To Foster Knowledge” or an evisceration of the author. But it’s clear that the book lacked critical information about the Civil Rights Era to be comprehensive. Montgomery most likely never personally experienced racism and more importantly, didn’t talk to the people that did.

On Monday we all received yet another report of an alleged rape on campus. I’ve lost count of how many of these emails I’ve seen by now, but it’s too many.

For much of college I’ve seen my fellow students, mainly men, crack jokes and openly dismiss reports of rape and sexual assault. Not out of acceptance of the crime, but from a belief that the claim was either insignificant, that the accuser was a disgruntled ex-lover making false accusations as revenge, and that the real victim was the accused as he would have to deal with the life-changing process of going through a trial.

“Sexual assault is something we don’t like to imagine exists on our campus, but not acknowledging that it’s a problem we face means that we aren’t maximizing our efforts to stop it,” Colleen Ryan, junior in global studies and co-chair of Sexual Empowerment and Awareness at Tennessee, the sponsoring organization for Sex Week, said.

While part of Ryan’s and others mission is to destigmatize feelings of shame for sexuality, the organization also works to encourage students to take seriously ideas of consent and raising awareness of sexual assault and rape on campus.

Of course everyone is innocent until proven guilty and we don’t know the circumstances behind each accusation. But immediately defending the accused misses the point and suggests a lack of understanding.

One of the biggest hurdles in ending rape and sexual assault is that some people are unwilling to have the conversation in the first place, and immediately shift blame onto the accuser instead of analyzing the issue as a whole, Ryan said.

“Often the response in questioning the survivor’s account is not so much a response to the specifics of the case, but to a broader desire to deny that sexual assault is an issue we have here at home.”

Events like Sex Week and leading discussions on difficult and uncomfortable topics is the first step to ending the problems, she said.

“By creating spaces where students can explore topics in sex, sexuality, and gender, we are not only giving students the space to practice consent and communication, but also eliminating shame in having these conversations,” Ryan said. “Being able to talk about it is critical to ending sexual assault on campuses across the country.”

Just as we cannot pretend that racism ended with integration, we cannot pretend that problems of sexual assault can be solved by not talking about them. If the authors of “To Foster Knowledge” had had more conversations with men and women like Baxter, I doubt their version of history would have turned out so well. If we wish to truly end rape and sexual assault, we need to first listen to people like Ryan, those that acknowledge these problems and work to fix them.

Because by not listening to these voices and allowing them dialogue, we are denying that their very problem exists. And that doesn’t solve anything.

McCord Pagan is a fifth-year senior in journalism and electronic media. He can be reached at [email protected].