Senators Offer Bill to Curb Campus Sexual Assault

[alp227]

Source: NY Times

WASHINGTON — A bipartisan group of senators on Wednesday introduced legislation designed to curb the startling number of sexual assaults on college campuses. The measure would require schools to make public the result of anonymous surveys concerning assault on campuses, and impose significant financial burdens on universities that fail to comply with some of the law’s requirements.

The legislation comes as the White House is putting increased pressure on colleges and universities. The administration formed a task force in January to address the issue, and the group found that one in five female college students in the United States has been assaulted.

“Very rarely does a bill become a truly collaborative process, and this bill has been truly collaborative and bipartisan,” said Senator Claire McCaskill, Democrat of Missouri, who has spent the last several months studying the problem of sexual assault on campus.

Earlier this year, the Department of Education released the names of 55 colleges and universities that are under investigation for their handling of sexual assault complaints. It was the first time a comprehensive list of colleges under investigation for potential violations of federal antidiscrimination law under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 was made public, further pressuring Congress to act.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/31/us/college-sexual-assault-bill-in-senate.html

[TreasonousBastard]

1. Gillibrand has been on this for a while now...

a lot of us New Yorkers get regular emails from her like this:

Dear Friends,

Did you see George Will’s opinion piece in The Washington Post? It really shows how far we have to go in this debate, so I had to write.

His article on what he calls the “supposed campus epidemic of rape, a.k.a. ‘sexual assault’” belittles the experiences of survivors brave enough to come forward and asserts that there are somehow benefits to being labeled a “victim of assault” – I’m confident that no survivor of sexual assault would characterize their experience as beneficial in any way.

This article exemplifies the widespread problem we have to tackle: When people disparage survivors and downplay this nation-wide crisis, they turn back the clock on the progress we’ve made.

I was recently honored to meet two incredible young women who co-founded End Rape on Campus – a student-led organization that helps survivors of sexual assault hold universities accountable – who approached me and told me their stories. I hope you will visit their website to learn about what they’re working toward and how you can get involved.

Click here to visit the End Rape on Campus website http://endrapeoncampus.org/ and learn about this student-led movement to empower survivors of sexual assault and change campus culture.

We need to amplify the voices of the men and women who are making a difference, not those who demonstrate an utter lack of understanding about this scourge on our education system.

I know that together, we can make a difference.

Thank you for standing with me,

Kirsten

Lotta nice things about Gillibrand, but one good thing is that she stays out of the mud and is a tigress on issues you just can't argue against. As things (hopefully) calm down a bit in the coming years, she should be even more a beacon of sanity.

[pdefalla]

2. Administration Task Force

conducted a survey (mostly by phone) that was akin to a push poll. Questions asked questions like, "Have you ever had sex with someone who repeatedly urged you to have sex, or pressured you?" And, "Have you ever had sex because you felt guilty?" These questions are not word for word, but when you add them all up, there is almost no circumstance where one or more of the situations presented did not happen. And every "yes" answer was considered a sexual assault. I'm quite sure that there is too much sexual predation on campus, but I think that this survey is improperly structured and interpreted.

[alp227]

3. Really?

In my worldview, no consent = rape. End of story, no excuses, nothing. Period.

[petronius]

4. Good! Too many schools have been too recalcitrant about this, and some

serious federal pressure is the way to go. This part disturbed me, however:

Some colleges expressed concerns about the legislation.

“Colleges are simply unable to play judge, jury and executioner when they’re already having trouble playing educator,” Anne Neal, president of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, said in a written statement. “Resources are limited and colleges must put their focus on their primary objective: education.”

It seems that some of the most serious issues are when colleges actually do try to take on the role of law enforcement, through weak and bogus 'judicial' proceedings. I'd really like the federal rules to address that forcefully, requiring colleges to support (and never discourage) victims reporting to actual legal authorities...