On Thursday, CNN will air a propaganda film masquerading as a documentary called "The Hunting Ground." The film purports to show that rape is rampant on college campuses, and relies on debunked statistics and faulty accusations to do so.

The president of Florida State University (my alma mater), John Thrasher, has issued a statement condemning the film and its false portrayal of the university. FSU is featured prominently in the film.

"Now, we have 'The Hunting Ground,' which contains major distortions and glaring omissions to support its simplistic narrative that colleges and universities are to blame for our national sexual assault crisis," Thrasher wrote. "FSU plays a prominent part in the film in a one-sided segment accusing Tallahassee police and the university of ignoring sexual assault allegations against former quarterback Jameis Winston to protect the athletic program."

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One of the distortions included in the film involves Erica Kinsman, who accused Winston of rape. The filmmakers allowed Kinsman to claim, unchecked, that she was drugged by Winston, even though two separate toxicology reports found no known date-rape drugs in her system. The suggestion that Winston somehow had access or concocted an undetectable drug unknown to law enforcement is ludicrous.

Kinsman was also allowed to claim that Winston's friend tried to stop the rape, when that friend testified the opposite — that he believed the sex was consensual and was trying to join.

For more information on how the filmmakers failed to vet Kinsman's story, read Stuart Taylor, who co-wrote the book on the Duke lacrosse rape hoax.

Thrasher notes how FSU has updated its policies toward sexual assault in recent years to keep up with "the new and evolving Title IX requirements imposed by the U.S. Department of Education." He notes that such policy changes are not included in "The Hunting Ground."

Thrasher brings up the Rolling Stone gang-rape hoax, which was debunked just months before "The Hunting Ground" was first released. Rolling Stone was criticized for its lack of journalistic integrity in trying to verify the claims made by its single source. Thrasher writes that he believes the same lack of integrity was employed by the makers of the film, and that he took those concerns to CNN's legal counsel.

"We also questioned whether the filmmakers ever intended to follow journalistic conventions of accuracy, fairness and objectivity by providing strong evidence that should have forced the network to revise, if not rethink, its airing of the film without making substantial editing changes," Thrasher wrote.

Thrasher said CNN responded to his concerns by inviting him and other university presidents maligned in the film to a panel discussion after the film. Thrasher says he and the other presidents declined, "seeing this gesture for the window dressing it was." He said they wanted "no part in making CNN look like it was being fair while allowing the network to kick the can of journalistic integrity down the road."

While I understand Thrasher's concerns, I think he and the other presidents should have stood up and disputed "The Hunting Ground's" accusations. For one thing, Thrasher would be able to call out how the film failed in even attempting to corroborate the stories it presented. For example, Thrasher said earlier this year that he didn't receive a request from the film for a response until long after the film was finished and submitted for Sundance consideration. Even then, the request was vague and didn't include any information about the Winston case.

FSU is the second university to publicly denounce "The Hunting Ground." Last week, nineteen law professors at Harvard wrote a letter about the negative and false portrayal of one of the school's students in the film.

Declaring the film a "documentary" is a farce. The filmmakers made no attempt to make an accurate film. In a leaked email to Kinsman's lawyer, a producer for the film seeks to get the accuser to tell her story for the filmmakers, telling the lawyer: "We do not operate the same way as journalists — this is a film project that is very much in the corner of advocacy for victims, so there would be no insensitive questions or the need to get the perpetrator's side."

In a follow-up email, the producer tells Kinsman's lawyer that they reached out to Winston, did not expect to hear back, but if they had, she wanted him "to have a gap of a couple of weeks to get complacent because then we will ambush him." She then asked if the lawyer was "OK with us sending him the official request this week."

Showing this film is no different than continuing to circulate copies of the Rolling Stone gang-rape hoax.